of the Navy has no steamer for some
immediately necessary or indispensable service. But if he had, and if
two dozen steamers were lying all the time idle in our navy yards,
they would probably not be installed six months in the postal service
until they would be positively demanded in some way in that of the
nation, and this diversion would at once frustrate all of the postal
and commercial plans of the country.

But the difficulties in the way of this service are so numerous as to
be readily palpable to all who examine it. No vessel that is well
fitted for naval service is well adapted to that of the post. The post
requires great speed, and hence, full-powered vessels. The navy does
not require so great speed, and hence, the steamers are seldom more
than auxiliaries. They are built heavier and fuller, and are not so
adapted to speed. Filling them with the power necessary to drive them
with sufficient rapidity for mail packets would unfit them for the
efficient service of war. Naval vessels are, moreover, filled and
weighted down with guns, stores, men, and a thousand things which
would be in the way if they were employed for the mails. They have no
state-rooms, cabins, saloons, etc.; and if they had them so as to
accommodate passengers, they would be unfit for the war service.
Unless so fitted they could not accommodate passengers, as they will
not lash themselves up in hammocks under the deck, as thick as grass,
as man-of-war's men will. If they are to be strictly naval vessels
while running, they will be filled with their own men, and could not
take passengers even if they had state-room accommodations for them.
They would thus be deprived entirely of this source of income. Again,
they could take no freight; and if a passenger mail steamer has to
depend upon both freight and passengers for an income to meet the
large expenses, which are generally three, five, and often even ten
times the sum of subsidy received from the Government, then the naval
vessel running in the postal service will be deprived of both these
sources of income, and must fall back on the department for all of its
expenses, which would be three, five, and even ten times as much as
the sum paid private companies for carrying the mail.

The average round trips of the Pacific mail steamers from Panama to
San Francisco and Olympia, and back, are, beyond doubt, enormously
expensive; while they receive from the Government only $14,500. This
is, conseq