The postal service with Ireland being considered deficient, so much so, that frequent mention was made of the subject in the House of Commons, a new and special service was brought into operation on the 1st of October, 1860. Night and day mail-trains have, on and from that date, been run specially from Euston Square Station to Holyhead, and special mail-steamers employed, at enormous expense, to cross the Channel. Letter-sorting is carried on not only in the trains, but on board the packets; nearly all the Post-Office work, including the preparation of the letters for immediate delivery at London and Dublin respectively, being accomplished on the journey between London and Dublin, and _vice versâ_--a journey which is now accomplished in about twelve hours. By means of this new service, a great saving of time is also effected on the arrival and departure of most of the American and Canadian mails. It cannot but be interesting to the reader who may have followed us as we have endeavoured to trace the progress of post communication in this country, to know how much is really possible under the improved facilities of our own day. A better instance could not be afforded than that occurring at the beginning of the year 1862, when the important news on which depended peace or war was hourly expected from the United States. Before the packet was due, the Inspector-General of Mails took steps to expedite the new Irish mail service, to the greatest possible extent, in its passage from Queenstown to London, and the result is so clearly and accurately given in the _Times_ of the 8th of January, 1862, that we cannot do better than quote the account entire:--
"The arrangements for expressing the American mails throughout from Queenstown to London, which we described as being so successfully executed with the mails brought by the _Africa_ last week, have been repeated with still more satisfactory results in the case of the mails brought by the _Europa_. These results are so exceptional that we record them in detail. The _Europa_ arrived off Queenstown, about five miles from the pier, at 9 P.M. on Monday night. Her mails and the despatches from Lord Lyons were placed on board the small tender in waiting, and arrived at the Queenstown Pier at 10.5 P.M., at which point they were transferred to an express steamboat for conveyance by river to Cork. Leaving Queenstown Pier at 10.10 P.M., they arrived alongside the quay at Cork at 11.15 P.M. and thirteen minutes afterwards the special train left the Cork station for Dublin, accomplishing the journey to Dublin (166 miles) in four hours and three minutes, _i. e._ at a speed of about 41 miles an hour, including stoppage. The transmission through the streets between the railway termini in Dublin and by special train to Kingstown occupied only thirty-six minutes, and in four minutes more the special mail-boat _Ulster_ was on her way to Holyhead. The distance across the Irish Channel, about sixty-six statute miles, was performed by the _Ulster_, against a contrary tide and heavy sea, in three hours and forty-seven minutes, giving a speed of about seventeen and a half miles an hour. The special train, which had been in waiting for about forty-eight hours, left the Holyhead Station at 8.13 A.M., and it was from this point that the most remarkable part of this rapid express commenced. The run from Holyhead to Stafford, 130½ miles, occupied only 145 minutes, being at the rate of no less than fifty-four miles an hour; and although so high a speed was judiciously not attempted over the more crowded portion of the line from Stafford to London, the whole distance from Holyhead to Euston, 264 miles, was performed by the London and North-Western Company in exactly five hours, or at a speed of about 52-2/3 miles an hour, a speed unparalleled over so long a line, crowded with ordinary traffic. The entire distance from Queenstown Pier to Euston Square, about 515 miles, was thus traversed in fifteen hours and three minutes, or at an average speed of about thirty-four and a quarter miles an hour, including all delays necessary for the several transfers of the mails from boat to railway, or _vice versâ_.... By means of the invention for supplying the tender with water from a trough _in transitu_, the engine was enabled to run its first stage of 130½ miles, from Holyhead to Stafford, without stopping."