RUSH CONTINUES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26033, 22 December 1945, Page 6

RUSH CONTINUES

CHRISTMAS MAIL TRAFFIC POST OFFICE RETURNS The exceptionally heavy volume of traffic that has been experienced at the Chief Post Office showed no signs of the easing off that was expected to take place yesterday. The position will be further accentuated by the heavy mail which arrived from Overseas last night. On Thursday, the number of “inward ” parcel bags for Dunedin totalled 358 in addition to 227 loose parcels, the figures for the corresponding days in 1944 being 380 bags and 169 loose parcels. The “outward” figures were:—l94s, 544 bags and 260 loose parcels; 1944, 440 bags and 73 loose parcels. The returns for mails for Thursday were: Outward—l94s, 487 bags; 1944, 443 bags. Inward—l94s, 445 bags; 1944, 385 bags. A total of 81,400 letters passed through the post-marking machine on Thursday, no fewer than 50,000 of these being dealt with after 4 p.m. In 1944, the number was 65,700. For the first four days of this week, the number of letters dealt with by the post-marking machine showed an increase of 55,000 compared with the corresponding period of last year. In the postmen’s branch yesterday, the number of “ overflow ” bags sent out totalled 360, an ihcrease of 30 over the figure in 1944, while 530 registered letters were delivered by postmen compared with 500 in 1944. The figures in the telegraph branch were as follows, the returns for 1944 being given in parentheses: —Inward— December 18, 2163 (2228); December 19, 2435 (2407); December 20, 2966 (2495). Outward—December 18, 1295 (1310); December 19, 1480 (1323); December 20, 1605 (1539).