UNION STEAM COMPANY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume I, Issue 68, 22 April 1879, Page 3

UNION STEAM COMPANY.

The time-table issued by the manager of the Union Steamship Company ior^pril, by furnishing as it does a taflr showing the distances in nauti^ cal miles between the various ports of call of the company's steamers, affords the following information as to the services performed by twolve vessels belonging to the " red funnel" at present employed in the coastal and intercolonial trade :-— From the lt,t to the 30th of April no less a distance thau 21,472 miles is tra» versed on the coast of New Zealand by ihe company's boats, and 17,724 miles between Australia and New Zealand. Or together, the distance to be travelled duiiug the month of April i 3 39,196 nautical miles. In a direct course this would be equal to rather more than once and a half times round the globe. In accomplishing this distance, the steamers will visit in the aggregate the varions ports of call 185 times. When it is considered, therefore, that in a single month these vessels go 185 times into the different ports (every one of which may be said to possess its Scylla and Charybdis), and after loading and discharging come out the same number of times, the wonder is not how is it that occasionally one is wrecked, but that wrecks are not more frequent. Nor is the punctuality with which they call and leave the different ports less a matter ofsuprise when tLe magnitude oi" the -work they perform is taken into account. The company has doubtless most remuneiative business, but the provision it has made, both in respect to the management and the class of its vessels, is deserving of success. In the figures given above the services performed by the smaller steamers— Beautifnl Star, Maori, and 'Waitaki— are not included. -- Exchange.