THE SEPTEMBER MAIL.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2397, 22 November 1880, Page 2

THE SEPTEMBER MAIL.

The following telegram explains itself :—The “New York Tribune” of October 13 gives, editorially, an interesting story of a fast mail from Australia to England. “On Wednesday,” it says, “ Postmaster James (of Now York city) learned that the Pacilic mail steamer City of Sydney, which left Sydney on September!), had reached San Francisco on October it, two days ahead of time. She was just two hours too late to catch the mail train of that day, and a delay of 21 hours was unavoidable. The schedule time from San Francisco was two hours too late to catch the first departing British steamer. Mr James went to the Union Pacific office in this city, and represented the facts to Sydney Dillion, and asked if a special could not be put on to catch the regular mail train of the day before. S.H.H. Clarke, general manager of the Union Pacilic at Omaha, and A. N. Towne, general superintendent of the Central Pacific at San Francisco. were present. ‘ Where is the train with the mail at this timc! J ’ Dillon asked of Towne—‘ On the Humboldt Division somewhere,’ was the reply. ‘Cana special (rain catch the other train;- 1 ’ he asked. Clarke replied in the aflirmative, but added —‘We shall have to run the special a thousand miles, and it will cost a thousand dollars.’ ‘ Don’t care what it costs, replied Dillon. ‘Do it.’ The telegraph was put into requisition, and it was done. The regular mail train was overtaken at Omaha. The Australian mail car was attached, last night at 9 IS it was landed in the city, and to-day it goes by the Arizona to England. If the vessel makes schedule time, the trip from Sydney will have been made in the shortest time on record —about 10 days.” The Arizona was expected to reach England in 7 days, but did not arrive at Queenstown till the evening of Oct. 21. The mail was delivered in London 12 days from Sydney. A correspondent wrote to the “ Tribune ” inquiring who paid the thousand dollars, and Postmaster James replied that it was the Union and Central Pacific Railroad Companies, that he was proud of his country and the enterprise of its railroad men, and that such a thing was not possible in any other country in the world.