FACTS ABOUT THE POST OFFICE.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7963, 10 September 1891, Page 5

FACTS ABOUT THE POST OFFICE.

[By Telegraph.

(FXOH OUB SPECIAL CORRTSSPOXDBNT.) WELLINGTON, September 9. The postal and telegraph revenue increased 24 per cent, last year, and the expenditure decreased by 4i per cent. A surplus of .£72,732 in receipts over expenditure was shown by the Postal and Telegraph Department last year. During the paat year 21,501,937 letters were posted and 22,415,260 delivered. Correspondence of all classes, as well a3 telegrams, money orders and postal notes, contiibuted a large increase during the financial year as compared with the preceding year. At the beginning of the current year the aggregate deposits in the Postal Savinga Bank amounted to £2,441,875. The reduction in postage to and from England caused a very large falling off in the postal receipts during the last quarter of the year. Property tax to the amount of £202,051 was passed through the Post Office in the financial year. In the past year twenty new newspapers were registered, and three ceased to exist; thirty-five magazines and catalogues were registered. Parcels post returns contribute,, ma. increase of 15 pcr v . cent, for the past year. A gold watch, a iilVer watch, two eilver watch chains, three' gold rings, one silver ring, |jro. brooch|f, ; two of gold earrings, and one 4 silver* pencil vase were found in letters which came into the Dead Letter Office during the past year, also other property of the value of £5,623,198, consisting of Post Office orders, postal notee and drafts (£2992), cheques (£1470), dividend warrants, promissory notes, stamps, Bank notes, gold and silver and copper coins. The proportion of dead letters to the total correspondence ia smaller than in any other colony, and only in Great Britain is it smaller. Last year 1106 unclaimed registered letters came into the Dead Letter Office, 165 letters, 954 newspapers, and 350 books were posted without addresses, 19 letters with libellous addresses were intercepted, 218 were wrongly addressed, 4001 were refused by the addresses, and 16 were posted with previously used stamps. Savings Bank depositors received £92,319 in interest last year, as compared with £84,809 in the previous year. The average time of the San Francisco mails between London and New Zealand during the past year was thirty-five days each way, as against forty-one and forty-six days respectively by the direct service. It is pointed out that the San Francisco mail leaving • London one fortnight after the .direct mail has reached New Zealand the same day as the latter. A curious conundrum ie offered by the Poat-office report. The average homeward passage by direct steamer service is said to have been forty-one days and the shortest forty-five days. Evidently there is some mistake here.