§ MR. VINCENT SCULLYsaid, he rose to ask the hon. Secretary of the Treasury the cause of the great delay and irregularity in the delivery of each of the three mails which should have left Dub in for London at 1 o'clock P.M. and 7 o'clock P.M. on Saturday, the 29th of July, and at 1 o'clock P.M. on Sunday, the 30th of July, as well as of similar delays which had occurred during the present Session; and whether it was the practice not to despatch letters and papers from Dublin to London on the Saturday, but to hold them over until the following Sunday?
§ MR. J. WILSONsaid, there were two mails daily from Dublin to London—on leaving Dublin at midday, the letters of which were delivered here early the following morning; and another which left in the evening, arriving in London and being delivered in the course of the next afternoon. The transmission of mails from Dublin on Saturdays would be of no public advantage, inasmuch as there was no Sunday delivery in London. The practice, therefore, was, to have no departure of mails from Dublin on Saturday, but the letters of that day left at one o'clock on Sunday by the day mail. On Sunday last the day mail, leaving Dublin at one o'clock, did not, in consequence of the unfavourable weather, arrive at Holyhead until after the departure of the train by which it should have been forwarded, so that the letters were detained until the second mail of Sunday night, and were delivered yesterday afternoon. The same occurrence had taken place only twice previously in the course of this year—the one occasioned by a similar cause, the badness of the weather, and the other in consequence of a break-down upon the Chester and Holyhead Railway.