IN THE SOUNDS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1804, 17 July 1913, Page 4

IN THE SOUNDS.

A FAKMEK'S WIFE'S LETTER. 1 rom the Marlborough Souuus conies tins letter from a farmer's wife:— "It would be a great boon to settlers in the bounds it" they could have an extension of the telephone. There should be a . t s l , c l )houo in « v «y isolated home. "The weekly mail service leaves much to bo desired. The steamer should call at more places. Some of the settlers aro far trom any post otlico or telephone, are even without tracks, but the steamer passes near. This year the mail day has bean changed from Thursday to Wednesday, so that settlers do not get the weekly paper or the mail from Wellington, thus missing the mail from Home, .which generally arrives in Picton on Wednesday.

"The majority of the settlers in one of the bays have been very hardly treated. The post office has been moved from a contral position (easy'of access to all) to a bay a mile further away, which is not very safe for navigation, on account of submerged rocks and very strong winds to which it is exposed. There aro a school and three families at 'the head of the bay, and tho men folk are away from homo at two of them, so they are left without a post office. One oi them said how much she missed going to tho mail. It was tho one thing I had to look forward to, to have a chat with one or another. and perhaps see someone on board whom I knew." She is alone'all day, as her children are at school, and her husband is away. It was hard lines, I think. "It vould-'be a help to settlers in the Sounds if there were a train on Saturdays leaving Picton about 10 a.m for Blenheim, and returning again about three. As it is, if anyone has business in Blenheim they have to stay all night in Picton, and even then the trains are very inconvenient for people who have a trip by water afterwards "I think that an increase in the tax on tho unimproved value of the land would be the greatest help to tho farming industry."