THE KING'S MAILS. AUCKLAND TO INVERCARGILL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 13, 16 January 1909, Page 9

THE KING'S MAILS. AUCKLAND TO INVERCARGILL.

MAKING UP THE MAILS. We carry the -wealth of the world, I trow, Ani the power and fame of men — The angry -word and the lover's vow All held in the turn of a pen. x (Special to The Post.) (By Will Lawson.j At an outlying Auckland suburb, in the cairn of a summer's evening, a Man is writing a letter to his Girl in Dunedin. He is a busy man : working hard to make a home to bring the Girl to. Therefore during tho week he has only time to scrawl hasty notes to her. But on Sunday he " spreads himself," and writes her a long letter. We all know what goes into such a letter ; it is the stuff that makes tho world go round, and the wonder always is that cold white paper and black ink can carry and deliver sucL living words. They do, however, and i when the letter is sealed up it has the same sphinx-like lack of expression that all letters have except a bill or a summons. It is about eleven o'clock when the Man lights his pipe and pats on his hat and strolls along to post his letter. The pillar-box stands near a street lamp, and on a, white dial is the statement that it is cleared at midnight. Into its dark interior the letter goes, and as the Man turns to retrace his steps he has a feeling that something is missing. TThe letter seemed like something belonging to the Girl, and while ho had it in his hand he feit content. Now he burns for her reply. Alas, he must wait, and while he waits men will work night and day to carry his note to her and to bring her answer back. The first move in this direction is made some time after he has left the pillarbox. Hoof-beats sound on the still air. Louder and louder they sound, and E recently a horseman comes into view, is horse loping along at the stiff-legged gait that is sometimes called a " sandcanter" — the pace of a horse cantering in heavy sand. This is the mail-man who does the night round of the outlying letter-boxes, and his horso has developed a clockwork action which carries his rider on his rounds with clockwork regularity. Dismounting, the man opens tho door of tho letter-box, and takes out the letters. There are only about a dozen, and the one to the Girl comes out on top. There is a grin on' the mail-man's face as his eye lights on the address in the process of transferring them to his saddlebag, and he addresses a remark to his horse : " Every Sunday night for two ysarS. As regular as you, old horse." Thsn ho mounts, and away they go down the street, round the corner, and along tho tar-stretching white road, still at tho pace that never varies, while the writers of the missives they carry are slumbering well and soundly. In the grey of th« summer dawn vhe clockwork of the good horse gives out suddenly, in the zenith of one of his hops, nnd he comes to a stand outside the Central Post Office. The rider swings down, and unbuckling the saddlebags carries them into the mail-room. Then he takes himself and his horse off to breakfast and bed There are only a few sorters in the room, and these arc engaged in making up the mails to go by the early trains out of tho city. The letter fo the Girl has been -thrown with others on tho sorting table, but* it will not leave till tho evening train f«r Wellington, and during the wait and on its journey it will have plenty of company, for the Sydney steamer pringmg Brindisi and Australian mails is just coming up the harbour. ,Soon the mail carts bearing these mails rumble into the cart entrance, and the bags and baskets are dragged into the sorting room. Those for tho southern centres are left unopened, to be transferred later on to tho southbound mail train. The Auckland portion is seized apon and sorted into postal and carriers' districts. Meanwhile the Man's letter has, along with hundreds of other letters, been fireci' through a machine which cancels the stamp which he stuck on so gently and firmly. To have seen it ' hustled through would have hurt the Man's pride in his letter, and to see it rubbing shoulders with all sorts and conditions ot letters, as it will do during its journoy, .voulo make him sad. But it comes out of the machine with the hall mark of the G.P.O. upon it, the stars and bars "which give a posted letter that air of importance which a mere handdelivered note can never assume. The machine which does the cancelling of the stfirr.ps so expeditiously is the invention of a New Zealander, Mr. Donald Robertson, the present Secretary of the Post Office, who spent years in bringing it to the degree of simplicity and speed which it now possesses. The letters are dealt with in bundles set on edge and held by an operator against a corner made by two flat pieces of steel set on their edges. The hand of the opeif.tor pressrs them, and right in the corner there is an opening just large enough for the passage of a good-sized letter. A check lever causes thin letters to pass through one at a time, and im mediately the letter goes into the opening, it is seized between two upright rollers which are revolving at a high speed. One of these is encased in rubber and the other has a self-inking steel stamp on its circumference which obliterates the stamps. An electric motor drives the machine, and the letters go through it at a speed which the eye cannot follow. After this rapid process, the Man's 'letter is pitched into a, bag v.ith others for the south, and towards the evening the bag is tied up and sealed with the King's Seal and tossed into the mail waggons, which are already piled up with the Wellington and Christchurch portion of the English and Australian mails. Most of the English letters for Dunedin come via Melbourne and Invercargill, though a few letters and packages come via Auckland. The horses attached to the carts are started and away rolls the mail on the first portion of the journey South. At the station the mail tram for Wellington is in readiness. Two mail vans, one for the letters and one for newspapers and book packets, are coupled immediately behind the handsome express engine. Here and there run porters and passengers in the last precious moments during which the mails are being transferred to tho vans. Presently the work is finished, everyone and everything bound foi.- the South are on the Lrain. Whistles blow, the engine pulls the train easily away from the station, curving out into the darkness beyond the station lights. A.most before it had started, the men in the mail vans began the task, which will take them all the night, of sorting their portion of the South mails. Early in the morning other men will relieve them, each gang sorting the mails for imrr.ediate delivery at the various points along the line, and picking up mora bags at each stopping place. They art but units in the working of the great machine that is the New Zealand Postal Department. A Temuka fruiterer, whilst unpacking some bananas in her shop, was re-i cently confronted with a centipede four inches in length. The unwelcome visitor i was caDtured. and is now or exhibition.