Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-03-18
ST. LOUIS.
A New Departure In the River Mall Ser
Viee-A Contract that Will Wipe
Up All the Little Fishes
The Negro Hegira to
Kansas-SnOw-
storm.

ST. LOUIS, March III. 3. Price, the
extensive mail contractor of the west, and
vice president of thu Texas land and immi-
grafton company, who has just closed the
contract with the government for the fast
mail service on the Mississippi river between
St. Louis and New Orleans, arrived here last
night, and furnishes some information re-
garding the service to be performed. His
contract is for q tri-weekly service at the
start, and daily service at some subsequent
time. Seven steamers are TO be built and
placed In the line In one hundred and forty
days from the signing Of the contract, which
will be by September next. These vessels
are to be built partly on the Ohio river and
partly by the Quintard irCn-works of New
York. They will be one hundred and fifty
feet long and twenty feet beam; light draft
and fast, and have commndious mail-rooms,
furnished with every safeguard against ire.
They will also be provided with elegant pas
senger accommodations, and will carry no
heavy freight nor any explosive material.
The officers and employees will wear the
uniform of the nlted States mail service.
Meals will be furnished on the boats on the
European plan, much as a Pullman hotei-car
is managed. The passenger rates VIII be
low, as 1t is expected the money received for
the mail service will be sufficient TO enable
the line to run proftably without excessive
charges for other business. The distance
about one thousand two hundred and eighty
miles, and the number Of Postothces on the
route ia between two and three hundred.
Inc number Is constantly changing, however,
as many of the landings have but few lnhab-
Itants and these are continually moving from
one point to another. AS to the amount he
is to receive under his contract Mr.. Price
does not care about giving full information.
He says that for the daily service he expects
to get four hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
and for the IA weekly service, which will be
first in operation, he gets enough to make it
look like paying CONTRACT. The occasion
for such mail service, he says, IL due TO the
fact that the mails between here and the
lower river are carried under several con-
tracts To Memphis is one contract, from
Memphis to Gceenville another, from Green
vile to Vicksburg another, and from
Vicksbure 70 New Orleans another
Then there ale others that lap
over these, as from here TO Grand Tower, etc.
The railroads only touch the river beicv
Cairo ct Columbus, Memphis, Vlcksburg and
New Orleans, ard the necessity for Constant
and effective river El4d line Is therefore self
evident. Mr.. Price claims tbGt the existing
facilities are not what they should Le IsoE
the fact that the regular line steamers depend
on freight for their profits and cannot afford
always 10 make stops at lG2 numerous small
landings. As for his own responsibility IN
the matter, he says that he and his associates
will be able TO carry out their part of the
contract without any trouble. BE looks to
an investment of some two hundred thousand
dollars capital As for the profits to be ex-
pected he says he is at present operating
about twenty thousand miles of United States
mail-routs iR the States and Territories, and