MAIL BOX COLLECTIONS

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23086, 31 July 1940, Page 14

MAIL BOX COLLECTIONS

TO THB EDITOB OF THE PBESS. Sir,—Our Post Office authorities find that through the exigencies of war it is essential to cut the number of suburban collections of mail matter; but are they not overdoing it? My local pillar-box makes it clear that any letter posted there, say, about H o’clock on a Friday afternoon, will not, at the earliest, be delivered till Monday morning, and after 9.30 on Saturday morning will not reach its destination till Monday afternoon. 1 - I noticed that one correspondent suggested that letters might be posted on the' trams, and a footnote to his letter quoted. the Chief Postmaster as saying it was “utterly impracticable. Well, we live and learn, but considering that as long as .60 years ago I saw this “utterly impracticable thing in full working operation in -the town of Huddersfield, Yorkshire,. Eng4 land, and that I have, as a boy, gone out to the nearest tram stop and put my letters in the box specially provided on the tram, which carried it to the central square, where the chief post officials cleared the box—considering this, the term “impracticable seems rather out of place. The tram system m that town was similar in many ways to Christchurch. It was city owned, and ran extensively through the suburbs by routes that were loops (a system that might well be copied here in Christchurch, with cars running in opposite directions thus using one set of cars to work two districts, Let me give a local example of what might be here) Let the Fendalton line loop up with the Riccarton route via Clyde road, and. run cars in opposite ways; put 1 a postal 1 box on each ; car, and as each ran .Into Cathedral ( square the box would be cleared by the postal officials.. It' is v not suggested that this plan i would deal with all the mail matter off the tram routes, s but -it would deal ,

people came to regard the tram stops as their posting places, and, surely, mails coming in steadily all day could be- dealt with more easily than if they arrived in large batches at long intervals. Again, there would be a great saving of petrol, which is so very essential. ... I do not wish to obtrude mere opinions, but this is quite a practical scheme, if it is desired.—Yours, etc., S.H.n. July 27, 1940. i [See article in to-day’s issue “Letter Boxes on Trams.”—Ed., “The Press.”]