QUAINT MAIL CUSTOMS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 804, 29 April 1910, Page 4

QUAINT MAIL CUSTOMS.

UN THE COUNTRY DISTRICTS. Reference was made recently to tho difficulty experienced in providing residential post office boxes in the city, and judging from reports which have come through from our travelling correspondent it would appear that these are valued much more highly in the. country than they are in the city. In various portions of the Wairarapa (writes our correspondent)) there may be seen along the high roods little square wooden receptacles on fences or on posts, in which are placed, daily, newspaper! and correspondence for those who" may be ■ residing far back from the road-line. Up in the Pahiatua district, a feature of the inland post is the number of private mail-bags used. Bach owner of a mailbog' pays S3, per annum, and for this amount all his correspondence is placed in a leather bag, and carried to and from his residence to the nearest post office. These bags siring on wooden arms on the roadside, and are picked up each morning hy the industrious mail contractor. On the Kimbolton-Apiti Road, several settlers have erected little "Noah Ark" post braes, neatly painted.'' A red Sag above them on-the outward journey is sufneinnt to' notify the mail-carrier , that' tho receptacle carries letters to be posted. All tho post-boxes on this route are not of this description, however,' and 1 , the , most noticeable of them all is the institution adjoining the Valley Road, between'Kimbolton and Apiti'. It is nothing more nor less than a disused colonial oven, strapped to a recumbent forest giant with layers of fencing wire. Rusty and weather-beaten, this old piece of iron has done duty as a post-box for the half-dozen settlers in the neighbourhood, with satisfaction'to, all concerned. . Perhaps in' the way of correspondene* the daily paper looms larger in the minds of the way-back settler than almost'anything else. There is a bnshmau on tha Alain Trunk line who walks three- mile* wery night from his whare to read his Dominioh, whilo in the winter time in Uawke's Bay bonfires are lighted,by 6bm«. shepherds and settlers in order .to medicate to the train agent the spot opp>. site where he is to/throw the paper. On! the mail coach routes, the driver/has a very mixed time of it, if he happens to. miss a subscriber's paper, which, in a way, is the only real form of communics-. tion which keeps the settler in touch with the outside world.