THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2150, 15 January 1881, Page 3

THE SAN FRANCISCO MAIL.

[By Tblbgbaph.] WELLINGTON, January 14.

As much surprise and some uneasiness was caused by the apparent lateness of the San Francisco boat, I may explain that the steamer was only really due yesterday, instead of being then three or four days late as supposed. The mail contractors are not bound to deliver the mail at Auckland on a certain date, but in twenty-three dove from its being handed over to them at San Francisco. Under last year's timetable the regular day of departure from that port was Monday, but the contractors had arranged for an acceleration of the conveyance of the mails from England, and although not bound to do so, generally managed to get away two days earlier. This arrangement comes into force as a permanent modification of the time-table, this being the first of the new year, and every fourth Saturday will henceforward be the regular date of departure from San Francisco for Auckland, the latter port being reached in twenty-three days afterwards. But this new time-table had not come into force when the mail steamer now due left San Francisco last month. Had she started on Saturday, the 18tb, she would have left two days in advance of the time-table then in operation. As she left, as stated, a day late, her departure was not on Sunday, 19th December, but on Tuesday, 21st December, and, in point of fact, this was expressly stated in the official notification of her departure, although generally overlooked. The contract time of twenty-three days from her departure on the 21st December would make her not due at Auckland until the 13th January (yesterday). The Southern mails have bean transhipped to the Rotomahana, which sailed this afternoon via the East Coast, and will reach Wellington on Monday morning, and Christchurch and Dunedin on Tuesday. The City of Now York had an unprecedentedly stormy passage. The rudder transom was completely carried away by the heavy sea, which also washed two seamen overboard. A third sailor also nearly lost his life, being jammed between tbe deck and an iron bar, under which he wos carried by the sea. A boat and tbe davits along the hurricane deck were washed away, which gives an idea of the weight of the sea. Tbe New Zealand mail is excessively heavy, filling 355 bags.