ATHENIC'S MAILS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 5, 1 October 1919, Page 8

ATHENIC'S MAILS

MUTILATED BY RATS'

A SERIOUS STATE OF THINGS

"I asked the chief officer of tho Athenic what was the cause of the trouble, and he said that as tli'cy had brought out no cargo the rats had tackled the mail."—Statement by a Postal officer yesterday.in answer to .the question as to why the Athenic's mail was so badly mutilated by rats.

It seems that out of over 400 bags of mails by tho Athenic (which left London on July 12) some 5G bags and contents . were very badly mutilated by rats.' Indeed, the Postal officers in Wellington state that it is the worst case of tho/kind that has ever come under their notice. It ns . not uncommon to find a rathole in a bag of mails now and again, but on this occasion tho rodents must have been starving, as they despoiled 5C bags, and chewed the contents of seme of them into fragments.- A bagful of residue was shown to a Dominion reporter yesterday. There were letters wholly chewed, and letters half-chewed. There were thousands of bits of cardboard, ■ as though boxes had been put through a fine sausage machine, and there were bits of ribbon and lace, a fancy table centre, lady's bag partly eaten), and a mass of paper scraps that could never be pieced together again. There must be quite a pumber of people awaiting letters or packages who will never receive them, Aloiv many were-de-stroyed no one can tell. There may be 50 letters.and 20 or duiblo that number. The fact remains ' tin t tho Athenic's rats made a feast nf her mails, and probably monl.os wii] tlapse beforo explanations carry the truth <.o eonders and those who slicn'd Vive leceived the destroyed, mail matter.

The G.P.O. officials are doing all in their power to . rectify. tho matter. Wherever an addteiss is clear the remnants, of the letter have:been forwarded on. When the address is missing, that of the writer is sometimes decipherable, and suoh are being forwarded to the G.P.O. in London with an explaiation of tho mishap. Inquiry was niade as to the conditions under which mails are dispatched. From this end niost of our jetter mails go by mdilboats which have dry, ■ v?rm;ii-proof rooms, as provided for in the Post and Telegraph Act,; 1908, for the carriage of mails;, otherwise letters are usually sent from this end accommodated either in si state room or the ship's strong room. The soldiers' mails (parcels and papers) Bent by. transport were-forwarded'in strong white pine boxes, and never came to grief. From the other (London) end, however, our Postal authorities have no control, and there is evidently licthing in the English Act providing for the same conditions as are cncoried at ii'is end. So as the mails were dispatched by mailboats across the Atlantic and Pacific there was no trouble, but the recent dispatch of big mails by cargo steamers via Panama made such conditions impossible, and the mails v.ere carried—as in the Athenic's ease—in tho hold. When formerly small letter mails did arrive by suclf steamers they were carried in an officer's room, but :n ti\oso cases 'the total weight would ot.lv be a few pounds; so that when they lad 400 Or 500- pounds weight of mails they had. to stow them "elsewhere than in the cabins.

Only a few days ago tho Ayrshire arrived with a big mail, and a special staff was detailed to .deal with it,- 'out to the surprise of everyone tho maibwa* found to have ,been buried under about 100 tons of cargo, onsuring considerable delay in delivery.