The Star. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1887. POSTAL CURIOSITIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6069, 27 October 1887, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1887. POSTAL CURIOSITIES.

One of the specially interesting Keporte which every year jb "presented to both Houses of Parliament by cotnmaud.of hi 3 Excellency," i B that of the Post Office and Telegraphic Department. Year by year this great Department has grown with rapid strides. Tear by year its figures become greater, and its collated facts assume mor* interest and more importance. During the financial year dealt with in the report now before us, the amount of money received had increased by more than nine thousand pounds, the year's income being no less than .£306,460, shillings and pence being omitted. Despite many neceesarily large items of expenditure— the ealaries of all the people engaged in the service; the conveyance of mails in steamships, in railway trains, and in specially chartered vehicles ; cable subsidies ; the maintenance and repairs incidental to more than eleven thousand miles of wire, and the commissions on money orders credited to Foreign offices— despite all this, the year's operations show a profit of Jei4,,167. In these days of the preaching of drastic retrenchment, of talk of conveniences to bo done without, it is curiouß to note how, in connection with the Postal and Telegraphic Department, the demand for additional convenience shows itself. In the course of the one year under review there was a net increase of forty-six in the number of offices open, their total being thereby raised to 1089. Therewith two dozen or so of new mail services were established, and a thousand extra miles of wire went up. Eeally,-when one endeavours to grasp the multitudinous details of the work, the unceasing watchfulness required, the scientific skill that has to be brought to bear, and the innumerable grades into which the involved duties naturally divide themselves, the "official" requirements seem by no means large. The eleven thousand miles of wire, for .instance, the electric batteries, the host of delicately constructed and peculiarly sensitive instruments, are kept in perfect order by a • very small staff j and the " return of officers " generally seems to err rather on the side of moderation than of excess. What a correspondence-loving people we are. In one year we have dropped through the narrow apertures of Post-office boxes, over 18,000,000 letters/ more than 741,000 postcards,l,7l9,7lßbooks and parcels, aridnearly 7,000,000 newspapers. If there have been dire mishaps within the chief postoffices—of clerks smothered beneath accumulated tona of paper and ink, the dark secrets have been well kept. Won, we have entered upon an era of parcels by post, and the work and the returns will go up with another big bound. With regard to telegrams, the total number transmitted was 1,836,266. The Service has its mortuary, if not for the bodies of smothered clerkE. There ara " dead " letters to be dealt with. There is a sort of jiosi mortem process, by which the cause of this poßtai deatu is determined. Lettera with illegible addresses, or with insufficient ones, or. with Bono at all. Letters which carry . a : libel on their very faces. .Letters which are refused, and which constitute so many Rejected Addresses. Letters which are insufficiently stamped. Letters which have something wrong in their internal economy. Some years ago, when the number of unclaimed letters was being referred to, we ventured upen the reasonable assumption that, as the "floating" population of the Colony became less, as the people settled down in permanent homes, the unclaimed letters would become beautifully less. So far, however, their number has grown, prefct<y much in proportion with the general business of the Department, from 55,000 in 1875 to 103,000 in 18S6. The general public has in its composition a large admixture of carelessness ; and as a result of this unfortunate characteristic, the Post-office officials, after adopting every plan for the identification either of the writer or the person addressed, had to destroy 6600 letters. The c&relesß ones were careless not merely in regard to their written communications, but with respect to property also. The total value of items found by the dead letter officials, and, in nioßfe cases, returned to the senders, was upwards of .£3264. But there Beems besides money orders, cheques, bank notes, and so forth, to have been a most curious collection of miscellaneous items. There were found in lettera, rings, nuggeta, brooches, ear-rings, lockets, chains, gold and silver watches, a war medal, and a shark's tooth. Were these things all prosaic matters of fact— mere business transactions, or did some large proportion belong to the region of romance P And in how many cases did the persons interested lay the blame not to their own erase carelessness, but to the "shameful negligence," or possibly tho dishonesty, of the officials ?