RAILWAYS AND POST OFFICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 305, 26 December 1930, Page 3

RAILWAYS AND POST OFFICE.

SIXTY THOUSAND TELEGRAMS

MANY EXTRA EXPRESSES,

Traffic during the Christmas season lias been very heavy, trains, trams, ferry and excursion' steamers and service cars being all full. To-day's beautiful • weather was responsible for tens oi thousands of Aucklanders being on the move. From early morning all services to and from the city were taxed to their utmost, and extra trains and trams had to be put on to cope with the rush. Post and telegraph business has been very heavy, and an augmented staff was employed in handling it. On Christmas Eve over 60,000 telegrams, the majority being Christmas greetings, were handled at the Chief Post Office. The operating staff, which was augmented to a strength of 170, worked from 14 to 15 hours, till 4 a.m. on Christmas Day.

Postal matter, too, came forward in large "quantities, and the work of the letter-sorting staff was further increased by the arrival of 500 bags of mail by the liner Eangitiki from Home. It was with great difficulty that mails were dispatched by the express trains f6r South. Only a very small amount did not connect on Christmas Eve, and it was dispatched yesterday. *

Station Fully Taxed. There were very busy, scenes at Auckland's new railway station during Christmas Eve, yesterday and to-day. The facilities at the station Avere fully taxed, but everything worked without a hitch, and trains were dispatched to time. Close on 4000 people travelled by trains leaving the station on Christmas EVe. Inwards traffic was just as heavy, all the, express trains from Wellington coming in without a vacant seat. Bookings for the next few days are heavy, and arrangements have been made to put on several extra trains. In the opinion of railway officials, this year's holiday traffic is well up to previous records, and it is anticipated that last year's figures will be eclipsed.

The human skin is thicker on the hinder surface of the body than in front, and on the outer than on the inner sides of the limbs. It is unusually thick over the flexures of the joints. It is particularly delicate in the eyelids. In regions which are most subject to external pressure, as the soles of the feet, it is firmly united by very dense laminae to the subcutaneous fascia; and the intervals between are provided with pellets of fat, forming a cushion, as an additional means of protection to the delicate organs it encloses and covers.