Original Correspondence.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 9, 30 May 1863, Page 5

Original Correspondence.

THE POSTAL SERVICE. To the Editor of the Lake Wakatip Mail. Sir, —In reference to your issue of the 23rd, respecting Captain o'Neil's report, I beg to inform you that it is unjust and false. H e arrived here certainly with his " usual punctuality," which includes any hour between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m. It was a quarter to one o'clock when he arrived, not about halfpart 11, as he falsely states; the mail leaves at 5 o'clock in the morning for Dunedin, so consequently our mails are made up over night not before 10. If we are to keep mail bags and post offices open for Captain O'Neil till those hours, as he seems to wish us, we should then have to sort those mails ready for the morning. But all this can be avoided if that pattern of punctuality will be so kind as to start a little earlier in the morning with the R.M.S.S. Expert, which he has the honor to command, instead of waiting for a few paltry bags of flour, &c. He then might be able to get down in time to have his mail received; but if he come at the hours stated, we have not only to sort those mails which are made up ready for the morning, but we must also alter our waybUL If he will deliver his mait at any reasonable hour, he will not be refused the admission he complains of. We would, to oblige the public, very willingly turn out and take the mails in, no matter how severe the weather —not being made of eithe# sugar or salt we are under no apprehension of melting. It is a rule with us not to break open the bags after they are once sealed ; 60 if we had t iken his mail in, and had such mail not been forwarded, the public would have blamed us instead of him. That is the reason he was refused admission at an unreasonable hour. If the Expert and her expert captain are as willing to oblige the public as we are, he can do so by starting at a stated time, and not be humbugging about as he does, complaining, after the mails are on board, that it blows too hard (of course remembering that there is no cargo or passengers); when on the morrow, with a full load of the same, he seems very anxious to start, although blowing still harder. If you w 1 ' 1 ! oblige me by inserting this in your columns it may perhaps give the pub-

lie some idea with what punctuality the Expert performs her contract of running the mails. I have the honor to be, Sir, Yours truly, The Kingston Postmaster.