days--but what a price to pay for it! A
quarter of a million on one side the Atlantic, and half a million on
the other: as though there were not enterprise enough in either land
to undertake the work--and do it well too--without a subsidy. One
result may be safely predicated--that the winner will be the first to
give in; and the timid may comfort themselves with the assurance, that
neither national prosperity nor 'decadence' depends on the issue. A
line to run from Liverpool to Portland, in the state of Maine, is in
contemplation; and the Cunard Company are building four
screw-steamers--the _Andes_, _Alps_, _Jura_, and _Etna_--which are to
carry the mails to Chagres, as well as New York.

The first steam-collier has come into the Thames, having run the
distance from Newcastle in forty-eight hours. Forty hours, we are
told, will surface in future, when the stiffness of the new machinery
shall have worked off. She consumed eight tons of coal on the voyage,
and brought 600 tons as cargo, the whole of which was discharged in
the day, and the vessel went back for a further supply. Apart from the
facilities for loading and unloading, the certainty with which these
steamers will make the passage, will benefit the citizens of London,
by saving them from the rise in price which inevitably follows the
fall of the thermometer in December.

But with all this, our already crowded river is becoming overcrowded,
to remedy which a promising project is afoot for a new dock at
Plaistow Marshes, a few miles below London Bridge, where a fleet or
two of the ever-multiplying ships may find accommodation. The extent
is to be ninety acres, with a mile of wharfage, and nearly 200,000
feet of fireproof warehouse-room. How far this will meet the want, may
be inferred from the fact, that the tonnage of the port of London has
increased from 990,110 tons in 1828, to 2,170,322 tons in 1852. And if
an experience of three years may be relied on, the increase is to be
progressive; for of new British-built ships in 1849, the amount was
121,266 tons; in 1850, 137,530 tons; in 1851, 152,563 tons. Such an
augmentation shews, that we have nothing to fear from repeal of the
Navigation Laws; and the fruits of unrestriction are shewn in the
increased size of ships, in their improved external form, and interior
accommodation. It may be mentioned here, that the Lords of the
Admiralty have ordered that all ships' log-books sent to their
department shall be true