The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1852-02-20

THE NEW MAIL ARRANGEMENT.
We publish to-day schedule of the expe-
di,ed mail service, from the Washington pa
pers. Ii is to go into operation on the first day
of March next. The new arrangement, in &C.
cordance with the spirit Of this age, is un
doubtedly the bes, for the country that has yet
been made. 1t gives us the great mail from the
North, and the South, twice day each. For
the present, this will answer all the purposes
of commerce, especially when taken in con-
nexion with the telegraph. In few years,
doubtless, it will be regarded as behind the
times, and will be substituted by some other ar.
arrangement which will give us the mail even
oftener than we get it now.
The times have undergone, in our day, no
change more remarkable in any respect, than
an that OF carrying the mail. We very well
recoiiect when single stage started from here
IN the evening, stopped at Hanover Court
House Tor the Oaks, we forget which.D at
night, went on next day to Fredericksburg,
and II ii managed to work through the road
about Dumfries and Chopowomsic, landed its
cargo of men. letters, &C., at Washington. IN
the evening OF the third day. The stage was
generally Toll when IT went North, and people
used to wonder, even then, where so many mas.
sengers came from, or why they were all ira
Yelling North. If our forefa,hers could have
dreamed OF the thousands that pass every year
through this city in the cars, they would not
nave dared 10 tell their dream, for fear of being
set down as half crazy Missionaries. When it
was first determined, about the year 1880, to
have daily mail from Washington here, one
OF the city papers opposed it on the ground of
'he additional expense, rendered still more
onerous, by the sacrifice which it foresaw
would be made of horses in pulling through
the heavy road. The whole arrangement was
regarded by the enemies THE then administra.
t'on as a part OF system of clap-trap, and the
paper above alluded to, said that when the
roads became bad in winter, and the horses
began TO be knocked up, the Postmaster Gene
raj would soon find that he had Sacrificed
UTILITY to fiash." In this way did men of high
intelligence talk, not more than twenty wears
ago.
The growth of ideas is proyerbially slow in
virginia. When that portion Of the great
route between Boston and New Orleans which
lies in Virginia. was first proposed to be
changed into railroad, men of sense opposed
1t most bitterly. They gave thousand inge-
Nous reasons for their opposition, the most re
markable of which, to the best of our recol-
lection, was that it would never pay. A rail-
road between two great commercial points.
such as London and Liverpool, it was argued.
would always pay, of course, and for obvious
reasons. But as for this railroad, il was said
to go nowhere, and stop before it got there
Inc press, IN those days, was as torpid as the
mails. 1t found it almost impossible to over
come the ois inertiG. At period few years
anterior, the Richmond Wing was adjudged to
have manifested quite an uncommon spirit of
enterprise, when it occasionally sent bow on
horseback with bundle of papers, to overtake
the Charlottesville semi-weekIy mail. The
other papers, we believe, did not manifest even
so much spirit as this, but if they missed
mail, let their subscribers wait until the next
time, without troubling themselves further
about them.
Those good old days would have suited the
views OF those who insist upon putting Mon
day mornings paper to press Saturday night
most admirably. They could have quietly put
their sheet TO roost before sunset, on the last
day OF the week, and it would have walked up.
alter Sundays snooze of twenty -four hours,
as fresh as ever on Monday morning. Nobody
would have known the difference, for the whole
world han
wrinkles OF the press are now. Wine and
friends are all the better for being old, and
why should not news be? Four great mails
viii arrive, after the Grstof March, every Sun
day. The long, measured stroke of the print.
ing press, striking off the Saturdays edition ON
Sunday for Monday morning, will be drowned
by the roar of the cars bringing in fresh mail.
Two hours after, another will come, and in the
evening again, two others. But the Sunday
arrivals will not be opened. They will be too
new to treat the public to. They must be
Kept until Tuesday morning, and then the pub
DC can have them, with the cobwebs Of anti
quity hanging about them. The paper Of Mon
gay, VIII have also the advantage of contain
ing no fresh, upstart intelligence to shock the
venerable news, whose age recommends il to
reverence. Richmond will stand as she has
done more than once before, solitary and alone.
She will have chosen the very time, when OF
all others, since the foundation OF the world,
news is transmitted with the greatest celebrity,
to say that there shall be no news under twen-
ty-four hours old.
THE WEEKLY DISPATCH