EARLY HISTORY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16829, 4 September 1922, Page 6

EARLY HISTORY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Mi' J. Spiller asks when the Christchuifli Post Office at the present site was erected. It was opened on July 14, 1879. The building was decided upon on a motion of Mr Andrew Duncan in the Provincial Council, in May, 1873. and carried by 22 to 12 votes of the members. The telegraph was removed into the building on July 28, 1879. Mr Spiller states the old Post Office w.as at one time an eating house. The fact is that in the early eighties it was granted by the City Council to the committee which started a soup kitchen to meet the distress from unemployment, and Mr Foster proved a capable manager. To the kitchen fund a gentleman, name unknown, but believed to have been a squatter who owned a sheep run. gave £SOO to the Jlelief Fund. He lived to find, years after, that although he had bad luck with some of his flocks and hard work to keep out of the bankruptcy court, be was enshrined by the Labour Party in its young and callow days as belonging to the class which was called “ The social pests.” Many efforts of the “ private and strictly confidential,” and other crafty means have tailed to locate his identity.—l am. etc.. J. L. \V.