The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1859-12-09
California Overland Mail.

In recent conversation with a gentle
man who has been employed for many years
as Agent of the Post Office Department in
California, and who enjoys its confidence
for the valuable services he has rendered,
we learned particulars of the California
Overland Line, which it is desirable the
public should fully understand 81
There has been prejudice against the
line, arising from the belief that the route
is insecure. This belief has very little, if
any, foundation. There is, it is almost Ger
tain, no other route that can be named as at
all practicable, which is SO free from danger.
AS some testimony in its favor, on this be-
half, it should be recollected that the mails
have not been detained or retarded from
the assault of Indians or any apprehension
of such assaults, not trip has been lost from
the beginning; nor one made out of con-
tract time beyond few hours, and this only
in very few instances. Ordinarily, il has
been within days of its contract time, and
not unfrequently four and even five. The
Company employs the most vigilant and
capable overseers and agents. In case dam
ger should threaten-to guard against all
possible, though not probable contingencies
all the stations are being placed in a stu
alton to defy any assault from hostile 1ndi-
ans. The chief trouble, and the only one
apprehended hitherto, has been the stealing
propensities OF the savages. But the COM
pany is constantly enlarging and strength
eng its Enclosures at the several stations,
for the greater security of its stock. The
agent referred to, who has lately made the
trip overland, was greatly pleased with all
the arrangements, and the facilities for the
conveyance of the mails and passengers.
The distance is complained of as long
The route certainly is circuitous. 1t can
and will be shortened considerably. But,
probably, on no other rOute-perhapS the
Albuquerque alone excepted-could better
time be made. Indeed, there is a doubt
whether, shortened rs it may, it is not the
very best route that presents all things con-
sidered.
The letters sent from California this way
have been constantly increasing. The peo-
pie of California have great confidence in it.
A good deal of the opposition to it, which
existed there at one time, has been quite
silenced, and much of it converted into a
decided preference for it. The letters sent
to California have been increasing, though
not in quite the ratio of the increase of those
coming thence. But if one considers the
regularity with which these mails have de-
parted and arrived, carrying everything
commmitted to them through, with greatly
fewer mishaps than befall the mails between
the Atlantic and Mississippi, the wonder
will be that the outgoing mail in this quar-
ter, large as it is, is not much larger For
the whole Mississippi valley, and all west of
the mountains, the overland conveys quicker
than the ocean mails, starting the same day
And, rs these last are only semi-monthly,
the whole country has really, for the most
part of the time, no letter-carrying facili-
ties save such as the overland offers.-St
Louis ReDubhcan.