The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-20 00:00:00

THE BRINDISI ROUTE.

There is at present some contention respecting the
relative merits of the mail routes by Brindisi and by
Marseilles. There is no doubt that the former has
the advantage of rapidity, an advantage
which in . these days ranks very high
in the public estimation. Letters from the
East by Brindisi are delivered in London
before the letters received by the Marseilles mail.
Sometimes the time thus gained by the Brindisi
route has been as much as thirty or forty hours.
Indeed, the first May mail which arrived in London
via Marseilles was anticipated by the Brindisi
route by no less than forty-nine hours. The Brin-
disi mail arrived in London on Friday, April 29, at
5.43 p.m., while the Marseilles mail did not reach
London until Sunday, May 1, at 6.45 p.m. Under
these circumstances it is thought unreasonable that
the Post-office authorities should not alter the
arrangement and make Brindisi the principal
route and Marseilles the supplementary one;
but the Post-office argues that the people
can send their letters by Brindisi now if they
choose. Some of the Oriental banks, it is said,
make occasional profits by receiving their remit-
tances through Brindisi a day or two earlier than
the public receive their drafts on the banks. Some
accounts have described the population of the
Adriatic coast as dirty and half savage peasants,
the air along the coast from Venice to Reggio as
miasmatic, and the whole Brindisi route unfavour-
able. On the other hand, it is urged that the
country near Brindisi is a garden of olives and
almond trees and vines, and that the whole line of
country is rapidly improving. The Mont Cenis
tunnel, when completed, is expected to shorten the
Brindisi route by some eight or ten hours, in which
case letters will reach London before the Alexandria
steamer reaches Marseilles. Petitions are being
presented to the Governments of Germany, Holland,
and Denmark, for the adoption of this route for
Asiatic correspondence, and it is said that an influ-
ential city member intends to support the same plan
in the English Parliament.

TRADES UNIONISM AND TUE TAILORS.

No amount of experience or of argument, it would
seem, will suffice to convince English working men
that the liberty they claim for themselves they
are bound to allow to others. Trades
unionism is still extant among us, and it is just
now flourishing in full vigour at Cork. Two
journeyman tailors have been charged at Marlborough"
street with annoying and assaulting a workwoman
named Maria Davis. Mr. Keane, a master tailor,
of Cork, said that a strike began among his
workpeople, in that town, a month ago, and had not
yet ceased. It was for an increase of wages,
and also on account of the employment of
machinery, which the men would not work with.
Mr. Sims, of Vine-street, London, worked for Mr.
Keane and the other master tailors of Cork, and the
assault complained of was committed in London on
a woman employed at his shop. The system employed
was that called " picketing," relays of men watching
the workpeople go in and out and telling them they
were on strike work. The people employed, having
the fear of violence before their eyes, often took
their work back and told Mr. Sims. It was urged,
on behalf of the prisoners that they had not been
guilty of violence or intimidation, but bud
merely told the workpeople that there was a strike at
Cork. However, the magistrate was not convinced
that the proceedings had been quite so innocent, and
though he admitted the evidence was slight, be
thought it advisable to remand the prisoners on bail.
It gives an idea of the energy and organisation of
these unions that men should be sent over from
Dublin to London to carry out one particular design.