A DELINQUENT LETTER CARRIER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1193, 6 February 1864, Page 5

A DELINQUENT LETTER CARRIER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LYTTELTON TIMES. Sib,—Allow me to call your attention to a very serious post office grievance affecting the common interests of this community. A member of my family, expecting a letter of the utmost consequence by this month's English mail, called for it at the Lyttelton post offloe. The "letters were not sorted." He called the next

morning, an (J was told the letters were sent up to my house. As this tatter was not duly delivered, and lie felt sure if must have arrived, he was on his way to make further enquiries, wh<?n, meeting the post-boy, he was informed that " he believed there was such a letter, but he thought it had been sent on to Christchurch."

Another unsatisfactory visit to the Lyttelton office, and then, in much anxiety, the owner of the vagrant letter made his way over to Christchurch; but, alas! no letter was there. Full of disappointment, he was in the act of taking some refreshment on his return home, when, lo! A man who had come out in the same ship with ourselves made his appearance at our door with the anxiously looked for letter in his hand. He had picked it tip in the dirt of the gully adjoining our residence, and, recognising the name, hail kindly brought it to its destination.

' I refrain from comment on the disgraceful fact; hut I humbly opine that a province which boasts in its advance in civilization in a railroad might surely provide letter-bags for its port letter-carriers, and spare the anxious looks of her Majesty's lieges cast upon the trembling and tumbling heaps of letters and papers piled upon the coat sleeves of boys. May I trespass upon your valuable space for a few more words? Previous to leaving England in June last, I entered a bookseller's shop in London to continue my subscription to the ' Illustrated London News' and another periodical, and begged .that for the future they might be "forwarded to me to Canterbury, New Zealand." The proprietor arrested his pen, and, looking at me, said, " Madam, it is money thrown away. Jn all probability you will never see one paper we might send. I have a sister in Canterbury, and for five years we have been sending her papers, &c., very few of which she has ever received." I have been, Mr. Editor, five months in Ly ttelton, and by this mail I learn that during that period my friends have sent me every mail eight English papers. Of this number five in all only, have reached me! A letter also, of much consequence, posted for me in London, in September, is non est, as also are several letters addressed to a servant who accompanied us; however, after the expose of to-day we are justified in concluding that our last letters are most likely trodden under the hoofs of cattle in some adjacent gully. Surely if there be one department of the public service more than another, the good or bad management of which is calculated to affect not merely the prosperity, but the very vitality of a rising colony, that department is the post office, and I will add, severing as many of our emigrants do many of our dearest social ties, and sinking as most of us do our cherished social status, surely it is not too much to hope and expect from our adopted country that our social links with the mother country shall remain intact—that our beloved " letters from home," our chief comforts, under many, many, privations, may be looked for with trust and confidence ! I remain, Mr. Editor, Your most obedient servant, MATERFAMILIAS. Lyttelton, Feb. 4th, 1864. [We sympathise with ' Materfamilias' sufficiently to publish her letter which should, strictly speaking, have been addressed to the postmaster. At the same time we feel bound to say that our long experience is opposed to that of the writer. We do not remember a single instance of a missing foreign letter and very few of newspapers.—Ed. L. T.]