The length of
railroad routes is 32,092 miles and the annual transportation 30,609,467
miles. The length of steamboat routes is 14,346 miles and the annual
transportation 3,411,962 miles. The mail service is rapidly increasing
throughout the whole country, and its steady extension in the Southern
States indicates their constantly improving condition. The growing
importance of the foreign service also merits attention. The post-office
department of Great Britain and our own have agreed upon a preliminary
basis for a new postal convention, which it is believed will prove
eminently beneficial to the commercial interests of the United States,
inasmuch as it contemplates a reduction of the international letter
postage to one-half the existing rates; a reduction of postage with
all other countries to and from which correspondence is transmitted
in the British mail, or in closed mails through the United Kingdom;
the establishment of uniform and reasonable charges for the sea
and territorial transit of correspondence in closed mails; and an
allowance to each post-office department of the right to use all mail
communications established under the authority of the other for the
dispatch of correspondence, either in open or closed mails, on the same
terms as those applicable to the inhabitants of the country providing
the means of transmission.
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