COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS. CANADIAN AND AMERICAN TARIFFS. The report of JAMES W. TAYLOR, Esq., on the reciprocity treaty with Canada contains the following comparative duties : : Average ad valorem duties in force, 1857, about 21 per cent; in 1858, about 16 per cent. POSTAL DEPARTMENT. CUBAN INLAND MAILS. The mails are made up daily at Havana Post-office for the following places. Postage 6 cents single letter, prepaid :— These lines are served by railroads, steamboats, and by horses in a few of the principal turnpikes and high roads. To Isle of Pines, a steamer once a week. THE TELEGRAPH AND THE PRESS. An adjourned meeting of the American Telegraph Company was held at the Astor House, New York, on Friday, to take into consideration the difficulties existing between it and the newspaper press. After a discussion extending over five hours, it was unanimously resolved that after the report of the committee, appointed some time since to arrange the scale of tolls, shall have been made and approved of, the president shall appoint a committee of three stockholders to conclude, on the part of the company, a permanent contract with the Associated Press, on the basis of the company's scale of charges. The exhibit of expenses and receipts of the company was as follows:- Total receipts from November 1, 1859, to February 1, 1860...... Total... Net profits for first three months. Total profit for six months..... Same estimated for next six months Profits for year. Less interest on bond.. Present net profit...... PREPAYMENTS OF POSTAGE BY STAMPS. $251,636 26 233,758 79 The recent order of the Postmaster-General requiring the prepayment of postage to be made in all cases by United States postage stamps is said to have been misunderstood by some postmasters, as compelling the prepayment of postage upon all letters and other mail matter addressed to foreign countries. We are, therefore, requested to correct any misapprehension on this subject by stating that the purpose of the new regulation, as is therein clearly expressed, is simply to require prepayment by postage stamps instead of in money, in all cases where postage is prepaid in the United States, leaving it, as heretofore, entirely optional with the senders to pay the postage in advance or leave it unpaid, when mailing letters for Canada or other British North American provinces, Great Britain, Prussia, France, Belgium, and the German States by the Bremen and Hamburg mails, as our postal arrangements with each of those countries have adopted the principle of optional prepayment. The new regulation referred to is in the following words :- From and after the 1st of June, 1860, the postage upon all transient printed matter, foreign and domestic, and upon all letters, foreign and domestic, must be fully prepaid by United States postage stamps, except in cases where prepayment on letters, &c., to foreign countries is optional, and the senders do not wish to prepay. In order to facilitate the prepayment of postage on letters addressed to foreign countries, and to avoid the necessity of affixing thereto a large number of stamps, which would in some instances increase the weight so as to subject the letters to additional postage, the Department has ordered the issuing of new stamps of the denomination of 24, 30, and 90 cents respectively. The 24 cent stamps will be ready for distribution next week, the 30 cent stamps soon thereafter, and the 90 cent stamps as soon as they can be procured. JOURNAL OF MINING, MANUFACTURES, AND ART. 66 TIN OF COMMERCE. Four classes of tin find their way into our market. These are denominated "Banca," "Straits," English," and "Spanish." The first is the best, and is the principal sort which we employ. Our rocks yield an abundance of gold, but not a pound of American tin has ever been sold in our marts. Traces of this metal have been found at Lyme, New Hampshire, Gotham, Massachusetts, and in some parts of Virginia; but we have no tin mines. Banca tin is always sold for about two and three cents more per pound than any other, because it is a reliable article, and its quality can be taken upon trust. The honest Hollander deserves credit for this confidence in the tin with which he furnishes us. Its name is derived from the island of Banca, where it is obtained, and which is under the government of the Dutch East India Company. Great care is exercised in smelting the ore to obtain the metal pure and of a uniform quality, and the manner in which business is done in the selling of it is peculiar. The company makes public sales of this metal only once per annum, in the month of July, and accumulates the yearly products of their mines for this purpose. Rotterdam, in Holland, is the place of sale; and, about two or three months previous to this event. the company sends notices to all civilized countries of the amount to be sold, with the reliable guaranty that not another pound shall be furnished until July of the subsequent year. These annual sales were commenced about twenty years ago, and the promises of this Dutch company have always been sacredly kept, although, in many instances, great temptations have been presented by a high rise in the prices of the metal after the public sales. Those who purchase Banca tin at Rotterdam, do so with the perfect confidence that subsequently a flood of this metal cannot be poured into the market to lower their prices. The investment in it, therefore, is very safe, and the Rothschilds and other large bankers are frequent purchasers for the purpose of safely investing idle funds. In 1856, there were 167,000 pigs of Banca (70 lbs. each) sold at Rotterdam;' in 1857, 191,000; in 1858, 191.000; in 1859, 139,000 only. There was quite a falling off in the product last year, and, as a consequence, there has been a rise from two to three cents per pound in Banca since the news of the annual sales the last month arrived. Of the amount of this tin taken by the United States in four years, there were, in 1856, 32,316 pigs; in 1857 (year of the panic) 14,000; in 1858, 31,791; and this year, so far, 27,000 pigs. Our "white-ware" manufacturers do not find hard granules and other foreign substances in this tin as they do in other brands; hence its high character for the most important purposes. Straits tin derives its name from vessels which trade with ports in the Indian Archipelago, and pass through the Straits of Malacca. They collect this metal at Singapore, at Borneo, and other places; and. although some of the pigs are as good as those of Banca, on the whole it is not so reliable, but ranks next in value. English tin is obtained in Cornwall, where the most productive mines of this metal in the world are located. The best qualities of English tin, it is said, never reach our markets; the poorer qualities only are exported. The "refined English," which is esteemed as good as Banca, and sells for the same price in London, is all kept for British manufacturing purposes, the demand for it being greater than the supply." Our Spanish tin comes from Mexico and South America. Its quality is poor, owing to the slovenly method employed to smelt the ore. It could be refined to equal any other; but as it is, the pigs of it sold in our market are very impure. This metal (tin) deserves more attention from our metallurgists than it has received, as its market value is steadily on the increase, and the demand for it advancing rapidly, because of its more general application to various new purposes in the arts. Banca tin is double the price it was twenty years ago; the wholesale price at present is 33 cents per pound, and the prospect is that it will attain to a much higher figure. Dr. JACKSON, of Boston, who has discovered specimens of tin ore in New Hampshire, advises further prospecting for the metal, and we urge his suggestion upon metallurgists in every section of our country, as it costs us about $5,800,000 annually for it, the largest item being plates and sheets valued at $4,700,000, a sum which might be saved if we had tin mines of our own. PEGGING SHOES BY STEAM. The Haverhill Publisher gives the following account of a steam factory in that place for sewing the seams and pegging shoes :— In a small room, petitioned off for the purpose, is a neat and compact steamengine of five horse power, which carries all the machinery, even to the stitching machines. The remainder of the basement is occupied by machines for cutting, stripping, rolling, and shaping the soles. The stock is then passed to the store above, where the shoes are lasted, and the outer soles are tacked on by hand, by which process they are prepared for pegging. The pegging machines are simple in their construction and mode of operation, but perform the work with great dispatch and accuracy, driving the pegs at the rate of fourteen a second. One of the most curious operations of the machine is the manner in which it manufactures the peg for its own use. A strip of wood of the required width, and neatly laid in a coil one hundred feet in length, is put into the machine, and at every revolution it is moved forward, and a peg cut off and driven into the shoe. Two of these machines are in operation at this establishment, and the rapidity and unerring accuracy with which they perform the work is truly astonishing. After being pegged, the shoes are passed up to the third story, where the bottoms are smoothed, scoured, and brushed, and then sent into the front of the building, to be packed ready for sale and transportation. The fourth story of the rear building is occupied by the ladies who tend the stitching machines, which are also run by steam, thus saving them from what otherwise must prove a laborious and fatiguing operation. Some dozen hands are employed in the manufacture of these pegged shoes, completing about twenty cases per week, and the work being almost entirely accomplished by machinery, gives it a uniformity as to style, shape, and general appearance, which it is impossible to obtain by hand. A look through this "bee-hive" cannot fail to prove both instructive and entertaining. The pegging machine has been invented but a few years, and has been in operation at this establishment but a few weeks. The work, even now, is said to be fully equal to that performed by hand, and must, therefore, we think, certainly supersede it when the machinery is brought to a higher state of perfection, which in the nature of things (it being impossible to stay the progress of inventive Yankee genius) must be continually taking place. |