The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-26 00:00:00

r N, LON DON,

TILE MAIL PACKET SERVICE
BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

(From the Annotateur of Boulogne.)
We have already made a general expose of the
steps that it would be requisite to take were a serious
wish entertained to make the transport of dispatches
through Boulogne as regular as the service will allow.
We are about, on the present occasion, to compare the
service of this port with that carried on by Calais,
and to show how much more favoured the latter is
than ourselves, by reason of the facilities which it
exclusively possesses.
If reference he made to the postal convention of the
23d of December last, published in the Moniteur of
the 27th, the following notice will appear :—" The
departure from London:. will take place at eight
o'clock, P.m.; the dispatches will be returned to the
Post of at Boulogne at half-past two o'clock A.M."
And further on :—,' The departure from London will
take place at eleven A.M. ; the dispatches will be re-
turned to the post• office at Calais the same day at six
o'clock p.m."

What strikes us at the first sight is the fact that
seven hours are allotted for the conveyance of letters
from London to Calais, whilst only six hours and a half
are granted for the passage from London to Boulogne ;
this is half an hour to our disadvantage, and yet the re-
verse ought to be the case, for every one is aware
that the passage from Dover to Calais is somewhat
shorter than that from Dover to Boulogne.
The departure for Boulogne takes placeat night
throughout the year; whereas, at Calais, it takes
place during the day for three-fourths of the year—
ant.ther disadvantage.
The harbour service at Calais is performed by boats
expressly constructed for the purpose, and manned by
hands long accustomed to the operation. Our seamen
have no experience of this kind of service, and their
boats are wholly unfit for it—third disadvantage
We are assured that Mr. Hamilton, the English Vice-
Consul, has been ordered to England by the Admi-
ralty, with authority to choose and bring hither a
perfect boat. This is something, and we ought to
show ourselves grateful for the condescension of the
English Admiralty; for everybody knows that the
service often necessitates the employment of two
boats at once, and even a third in reserve, in case of
damage, Ike.
At Calais the mails are commanded by officers of
the locality itself, whom an experience of twenty
years has rendered perfectly acquainted with the
soundings and currents, &c., and who certainly will
do all in their power to insure the success of the ser-
vice as far as in them lies. At Boulogne the officers
are English, whose capabilities are undoubted, whose
good will itself inspires us with every confidence, but
who, perfectly an fait of the peculiarities of the port
of Calais, are in no wise acquainted with ours; they
have here their apprenticeship to serve, and the con-
sequence is that a long time must still elapse before
they can lose, in thick foggy weather, that indecision
and that nervous anxiety inseparable from the position
in which they have been placed—a fourth disadvan-
tage.
Whosoever will weigh all those unfavourable cir-
cumstances, and will, above all, reflect that as the
trains leave at a fixed hour, a delay of two minutes
is fatal, will be in nowise surprised if the mail service
has failed six times at Boulogne against four at
Calais. It is a certain fact that if our packet-boats
had been able to dispose of the surplus half hour
which those of Calais possess for their passage, and if
their captains had been as much at home at our port
as they are in that of Calais, the five days just alluded
to would have been reduced to two (on the 9th and
18th January) ; and we ought to show what were the
causes of those delays, and to demonstrate that the
port of Boulogne had nothing to do with the matter.
On the 9th the packet was compelled to re-enter
the port in consequence of damages sustained by the
engines, so that another vessel had to get its steam
up and to take the mail. On the 18th there was such
a tempest from the S.S.W. at Dover that no packet
could leave.

The Calais and Belgian mails were sent from
Ramsgate. We cannot repeat too often that the
harbour service, whatever our neighbours may say,
is as feasible at Boulogne as at Calais, provided it be
carried on with vessels expressly constructed for
the purpose, and manned by picked hands, paid
in proportion to the miserable hardships which they
will be called upon to undergo in bad weather.
It is also proper to notice another circumstance.
The letters from England via Calais reach Paris at
five A.m., and are included in the first deliveiy, when
they are behind hand they leave by the four o'clock
train, and are distributed at noon; their delay is not
productive of any inconvenience. Those of Bou-
logne, on the contrary, ordinarily delivered at noon,
are sent off, if behindhand, by the half-past eleven
o'clock train, do not reach the capital till night, and
are not delivered till the next day—a delay which is
far more inconvenient, and gives rise to loud com-
plaints.
We must also say, that in the recriminations pub-
lished in the newspapers the port of Boulogne is often
!darned for delays of which it is entirely innocent.
Thus, the .A'ational announced some time ago the
delay of two letters dispatched from London on the
6;11 of January. The first, posted in the morning,
was not delivered in Paris until Saturday towards
noon. The second, dropped into the box on Thurs-
day evening, only reached its destination on Sunday
morning, 48 (read 60) hours after its deposit in the
letter-box.

Now, the first of the these letters passed through
Calais, the second through Boulogne, and although
the Calais mail of Thursday, the 6th of January,
in the evening, and that of Boulogne of Friday, the
7th of January, in the morning, were both behind-
hand, and missed their respective trains, they left by
the following trains, and were delivered in Paris on
Friday at noon and the same day in the evening. If,
therefore, the letters in question had not been delayed
by some negligence, either in the Post•office of
London or Paris, they must evidently have been de-
livered 24 hours sooner than they were.
We shall conclude by correcting an assertion in the
Industriel de Calais totally destitute of truth. That
print has not blushed to inform its readers that the
port of Boulogne,. having a rocky bottom, cannot be
deepened so as to permit the entrance.of the packets at
all times of the tide.

The Industriel Calaisien knows perfectly well that
there is no rock whatever, but only sand, in that part
of the port which would be excavated for the purpose
of rendering it " rnediterranean."