70 Ihe American Mail Service. 



Mr. Pattkrson, in vacating the chair, which was taken by 

 Mr. John Greenhill, the President of the Chamber of Commerce, 

 explained that it had been originally intended that the lecture 

 should be delivered under the auspices of the Chamber, but that 

 it had been thought better those proceedings should take place 

 in connection with that vSociety. 



Mr. Greenhill said he felt it to be quite a privilege to preside 

 in that historic room, where so much valuable information had 

 been conveyed from time to time. He was indebted for that 

 honour to the courtesy of their President and Secretary, and also 

 to the kindness of the excellent Hon. Secretary of the Chamber of 

 Commerce, Mr. Patterson. In referring to the subject for that 

 evening's consideration, he thought he might say that an 

 expeditious and regular mail service was of very great advantage 

 to any community, and to a community of manufacturers and 

 men of commerce it was of very special significance indeed. 

 He had observed, and he was sure they had likewise observed, 

 that in contrasting the advantages of Southampton, and Queens- 

 town London had been very prominently considered as the 

 place to and from which the times of each route should be taken. 

 He did not wish to minimise in any way the claims of London 

 in making calculations with regard to the advantages of one 

 service or the other, but it did occur to him that perhaps there 

 were other districts of England that were to be considered as 

 well as London. He had been informed that a very much larger 

 number of letters passed between the United States and the 

 manufacturing districts of England than between the United 

 States and the city of London. He would therefore urge that 

 in considering the five millions of people in London, they should 

 likewise consider the five millions of manufacturing inhabitants 

 of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and in that connection he thought 

 it would be well if those who were interested in making com- 

 parisons with the object of showing which was the better route 

 — Queenstown or Southampton — would also make a comparison 

 to show which of those two routes would be more suitable for, 

 say, Manchester, as the centreof a very important manufacturing 



