_Panama route to Australia._ Another controversy relative to the Australian service was as follows:-- About the year 1857 a demand arose in this country for sending the Australian mails by way of Panama, a line of steamers across the Pacific having been projected. The projectors hoped to divert a portion of the mail service to that route, which of course it became their interest to extol above all others. Their recommendation was based on two alleged advantages; first, that the new route was the shortest, and second, that its adoption in addition to the existing communication would turn the monthly mail into a bi-monthly one. The comparative shortness of the route seemed to be received by the public as a fact too obvious to admit of question; and as it was in connection with this route that the suggestion of an intermediate mail was originally made, the two projects became so associated in the popular mind, that the adoption of the one seemed essential to the establishment of the other. Besides the new company, there were other parties interested in the plan, viz., the colonies of New Zealand and New South Wales, which, lying eastward of the other Australian settlements, would, by the proposed arrangement, receive their mails earlier than their neighbours; thus obtaining whatever advantage attaches to priority of information. Whether these colonies urged upon their friends in England agitation in favour of the new route, I cannot say. At all events, the demand was strongly backed at home, some of the newspapers becoming quite clamorous for the change, the Government being strongly pressed for immediate action, and all hesitation denounced as imbecility or red-tapism. It really seemed as if globes, maps, and gazetteers were unknown or inaccessible, and common sense fast asleep. The outcry increasing in volume and intensity, Government at length expressed its intention to call for tenders. How wide-spread was the delusion was curiously exemplified by the following incident. Happening to meet at the Athenæum a friend, who had long held an important office in the far East, almost on the shores of the Pacific, a man of great acquirements and extended information, I was at once challenged with the inquiry of the day, "Why do you not establish an Australian mail by the Panama route?" and upon putting the counter-question, "Why should we?" was promptly answered, "Because it is the shortest." I proposed that we should forthwith submit this allegation to the test of measurement, and, obtaining a piece of string, we repaired to the large globe in the drawing-room, where a few moments settled the question. So far as I was able to analyze the popular error, it consisted mainly in practical ignorance of the enormous breadth of the Pacific Ocean.