The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-17 00:00:00

of the French is connected with matters of grave import
in his own country. This may have had some slight
effect upon prices, but the real cause of the fall appears
to have arisen from the sale of large parcels of stock on
private account, and the supply has thus been increased
to an amount greater than the jobbers desire ; hence
there are no purchasers except at lower prices. The
Government broker paid 100* for the savings-bank in-
vestment, and the quotations gradually gave way.
So great would be the advantages of shortening the
transit from Cairo to Suez, and thus facilitating our
overland communication with India, that every project
to that end brought forward with any degree of plausi-
bility may be noticed with advantage. The present
transit occupies about 24 hours—the whole distance of
84 miles is an open desert, and every article of food, in-
cluding water, has to be brought from Cairo. Of the
whole journey to India this passage across the desert is
considered the worst part, aild were it only for the com-
fort of the numerous British subjects who are forced to
perform the journey, any attempt at improvement would
be unworthy attention. But the advantage of shorten-
ing the transit does not stop with travellers to India, but
concerns the whole mercantile community, as many op-
portunities of answering letters have been lost precisely
on account of the time occupied in the journey from
Suez. The mail from India, via Marseilles, arrived last
year on eight occasions too late to admit of the letters
being answered, and this loss of time, the advocates of a,
railway contend, might have been avoided had this mode
of conveyance been adopted.
The chief notion of a railway was entertained by the
Pacha of Egypt as far back as 1834, and the late Gallo-
way Bey was instructed to make the necessary surveys.
Since then the project has been in abeyance ; but Mr. J.
A. Galloway, brother of the Bey, and resident in Alex-
andria, has recently published a pamphlet in which he sets
forth the advantages of the railway, and ascribes the
obstacles thrown in the way of its completion to foreign
intrigue. Some of this pamphlet is taken up with the
examination of two rival schemes for effecting the
passage by canal communication. One of these places is
a ship canal from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and
the other (the Boulac Canal) one from the Nile to Suez.
Both of them are considered by Mr. Galloway as under-
takings too gigantic for the present state of Egypt ; and
he comes to the result that the railroad alone will be
practicable, and that the British Goverment should at
once urge its completion, taking advantage of the known
predilection of Mehemet Ali for the scheme, and the fact
that he is already at an advanced age. It is suggested
that the most effectual mode of carrying the point would
be to make the acceleration of the mails and passengers
a condition for increased remuneration in the Post-office
convention.

This rpcommendation of the railway scheme is from
source confessedly partial; bat, nevertheless, the subject
is so important that it is to be hoped that it will b.
weighed on its own merits, and that the influence of

foreign Powers may not, as has been hinted, prevent it
from receiving due consideration.