MAILS BY AIR.

Western Star, 3 December 1935, Page 4

MAILS BY AIR.

150 COUNTRIES LINKED. NEW ZEALAND’S TRAFFIC. Air mail services utilised by the New Zealand Post Office have developed sq extensively that the department has* issued an air mail schedule for th© use of its customers which requires 14 pages for a description of the general conditions of air carriage of postal matter and particulars of the routes covered. This publication, appropriately printed on sky-blue paper, discloses the surprising fact that 150 countries can be reached by air mail correspondence frorm New Zealand. The principal service is Australia-Singnpore-England, and correspondence by this route is forwarded to Australia by the regular steamers leaving New Zealand generally every Friday and connecting with the train which leaves Sydney on Tuesday night, arriving at Ccotaimmdra the following Wednesday morning. From this point the mails go by air, arriving at London oil a Monday 12 days later. In the reverse direction, mails are despatched from London every Sunday and arrive at Sydney on a Friday, 12 days later. When the steamer connections’ between New Zealand ami Australia are suitable, the transit time by air between New Zealand and Great Britain and vice versa is from 16 to 17 days. An examination of the F.-.t of arrival dates in England tlr.ong'ioo.t the voir shows the remarkable ic-.; rinritv with which the mails arrive at Croydon on Mondays

Air mail correspondence is also accepted in New Zealand to link up with the extensive services covering North, South, and Central America and the Vest Indies, this correspondence being forwarded either to San Francisco, Vancouver, or by the direct liners which make a connection with the air services in the Panama- Canal zone. Money orders can h u transmitted from New Zealand to Great Britain and Ireland by air, the Post Office) undertaking to forward the advice by the route on payment of a special fee of Is 6d in addition to the usual commission, while the sender, of course, would need to despatch the order by the same method. As for the extent of the air mail business of the Dominion at the beginning of this year, the average weekly despatch from New Zealand to England totalled 1,000 letters. lmt tho postings have been increased to all aver, age of 2,500 per week, though at this point the traffic seems to be stationary. Inward air traffic is of approximately the same dimensions, an average taken fo r the last few months showing weekly arrivals of approximately 2,500 letters from Britain, while 150 move come every week from intermediate countries served by the Imperial Airways routes in the East, and through the whole length of Africa to Capetown

IDENTIFIED. TJttle Jean gazed long and thoughtfully at the young man who was courting her sister, ‘May I climb on your knee, Mr Greene?’ she asked after a while. ‘Why. ves,’ he beamed at her ‘You want topull the big mail’s hair, 1 .suppose. ‘No, T want to see if I oan find that word,’ replied the child.

‘What word?’ the suitor asked, rather puzzled ‘I heard Alice say tin's morning that if a man ever had the word ‘idiot written all over his face, that ma n was vou. ’

FIRST CLASS. A stranger journeying to an out of tile way dale in Yorkshire proceeded at the railway station to engage a seat in) a horse vehicle plying to his destination. Asked if lie required a first, second or third-class ticket. hp took a first-class one. though mystified by the request.

However, after a five-mile run on the level, the driver nulled up at the font of a long, stoop hill ‘First-class passengers.’ ho directed, ‘sit still ; second-class, got out riml walk; tliird-clajs. get out and push,' An American paper says that a boy, swallowed thirty cents and coughed up , don,, --That’s a bp hotter than the Ammkiin banks did io 1322.