FAST TRAVEL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 13, 22 April 1871, Page 4

FAST TRAVEL.

(From the New York Commercial Advertiser.) The good old days of four months' voyages from China to New York are pleasant reminiscences nowI—nothing 1 —nothing more. In January, 1855, just sixteen years ago, this city was quite agog with excitement over a wonderful clipper ship passage from Shanghai—for the Panama had come in in eighty-five days and fourteen hours! The average time consumed in the China voyage was then about four months, and we were quite contented with that. But a few years passed away, and the Pacific Railway was opened. Then the goods of China and Japan came through to this port, and were sent hence to London, arriving there in much less time than the fast clipper Panama had occupied in her voyage from Shanghai. This was a new wonder. The East and West had shaken hands across the Gontinent. Now comes anew phase. A despatch from San Francisco is published to-day, which says: —"The railroad ferry steamer Thoroughfare, it is expected, will be able to commence her trips across theßay of San Francisco by the time the next steamer arrives from China. Cargo can then be reshipped at the rate of from 1000 to 1500 tons a dav, and the freight time from Japan to Chicago will be reduced to thirty-four or thirty-six days, to New York to thirty-seven or forty days, and to England to fifty days." There is no use in stopping to take breath, The world gets on very fast, and all we can do is to whirl around with it. When New -York shall have got so near to Japan as a run of one month and six days, there will be noth* ing for it but to gasp out, "What next?" This reminds us of t}ie quiet remark made by a fellow-voyager at sea—a a young Englishman in business at Shanghai—who was on his way home for brief visit: " I had a vacation," he said, " and thought I would take a run over to England; I was thirty days to San Francisco from Shanghai, six and a half from Cali forma to New York; had just time to catch this steamer, and if we make a fair run shall be at home in England on the forty-ninth day from the start; I shall stay a mouth or two, and then take a run back ?" He did it.