Some of the parties believe that a government contract nationalizes the route, and gives it an importance superior to mere individual enterprise, and that the imperative necessity of “_making time_” insures more despatch. Others of the parties believe that a line of fast steamers from New Orleans to Vera Cruz, for the increasing southern and western travel from the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, (composing the source of nearly seven-tenths of the whole resident population of California out of the city of San Francisco,) and another fast line of steamers from New York to Vera Cruz in six or seven days, by steamers built expressly for mail and passenger service, (and not naval service,) of about one thousand tons, in connexion with similar steamers from Acapulco to San Francisco in six days, would form a line that would take precedence of all others for celerity and certainty. Experience has exploded the idea that the mail and naval service can be performed by the same steamers, and an examination of the steamers now in the employ of the United States and mail-service department verifies the position that steamers suitable for a marine battery are too slow for “mail-service,” and that the light and fast steamer which can be propelled three hundred and fifty miles in twenty-four hours is not suitable for a battery corresponding with her tonnage or power adequate to such speed. They believe that such a line, by this overland route, in sixteen, or eighteen, or twenty days, with an independent mail, would seriously diminish the postage receipts of the government, if not virtually supersede them, and render the present mail contracts a sinecure in the hands of the parties holding them. If offices should be opened in proper places for the receipt of mail-matter by advertisements, and the company should enclose that mail-matter in government-stamped envelopes, and guaranty the delivery of the mail by this route in six, eight, or ten days earlier than by the present government route, it is evident that the great bulk of the mail-matter would go by the quickest route, even at double, triple, or perhaps quadruple the present charge for postage. Such an independent mail (_clearly within the law_) would, it is confidently believed, measurably supersede the government mail, and reduce the postage to a pittance. Moreover, such an independent line, not being trammeled by government time, might connect with it English, West India, Australian, and Asiatic mails, all of which are specifically allowed by the several Mexican grants held by this company; and it is believed that the time is not far distant when an English express independent mail in forty-seven days, with Australia, will be in operation. It is also thought by some, that this company should be entirely disembarrassed in order to give an exclusive right to certain foreign interests.