MISSING MAIL BAGS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16569, 5 June 1914, Page 7

MISSING MAIL BAGS.

VALUABLE CONTENTS. LAX SYSTEM ON TRAINS. [From Our Correspondent.] PALMERSTON NORTH, June 4. „ . The police have failed so far to trace iwo mail bags which disappeared from the down mixed passenger and goods train which left Wanganui just before • 5 p.ra. on Saturday and nrrived at Palmerston at ten min* utes to nine. Tho through train stops at all the small stations. One hag was missed between Wanganui and Turakina and the other between Halcombe and Palmerston. Thero seems little doubt that tho former was put on the train but w'hether the Halcombe bag was actually given to tho guard or disappeared before that seems to be a matter of doubt. Both bags seem to have had more than usually valuable contents. Claims totalling £45 have been put in for tho Wanganui hag and the value of the Halcombe bag contents was £153. If its disappearance were due to theft, which Beams to be the case, the thief must have been conversant with tho system of disposing of tho mail bags from Halcombe. Only lately tho postal business was removed from the Halcombe Station to the new post office in the township. The disappearance discloses a lamentable laxity in the system of carrying mails on these slow trains. As many as two dozen mail bags would be hanging up in the guard’s van when tho train reached Halcombe. The guard has to check the delivery of each from the various station officials hut he may leavo this until after checking the passengers’ tickets. In this particular instance the guard had no assistant. He would go to the, front'of the train when it left Halcombe and then return through the carriages checking tickets. He would bo away at least ten minutes, and all this time mail hags would be hanging up unprotected, and anyone could walk in from the rear carriage and hide one or drop it off to a confederate along the line and easily get back to his carriago unobserved. The guard has a locker in the van, but it is too small to stow mail bags in. This is the case in all trains. If a guard has valuables aboard sometimes he will get a newspaper boy to remain in the van until he finishes with tho passengers. The guard in this case is u careful and most trustworthy man, an old resident af this district. As a result of the affair railway employees at this centre are vehement in their demands that sonrn better system should bo adopted to afford security from such occurrences. Almost equal laxity exists in the system of seuding money each month for the payment of salaries of railway employees at the #mall stations.