The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1890. Travelling Post Office

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 28, 21 August 1890, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1890. Travelling Post Office

Shobtly after the recent smash up ' ou the Manawatu Railway Company's line and the narrow escape of the post < office official when the mail van was telescoped, a member of our staff made a couple of trips over the line and gathered a little knowledge of the } hardships of the life of a mail agent j on the line between New Plymouth ( and Wellington. VVheu the line was 1 opened about three years ago some old and useless passenger carriages \ were transmogrified into mail vans, i with the promise that better ones 1 would be prepared for the purpose — "in the sweet bye and bye." t'f course such promise has not been kept. The unlucky postal officials leave the Wellingtou station at 6.50 a.m., and return at 9.50 p.m., and are , on duty and travelling the whole of that time, Owing to the shortness of the vans, and much careless shunting, the poor fellows while at work sorting the mails, are often thrown off their feet and severely hurt, while the jolt ing and swaying about when the train is going full speed, makes some of them as sick as if they were at sea in a dingy. There has been made a new mail van, which went its first trip last Saturday, that is far more conif jrtable, but before any more similar ones are available a set of four will have to be built for the NapierWoodvillo line. This seems unfair, because on the principle of " First come, first served," the WellingtonNew Plymouth line should have the preference. It certainly does appear brutal that human beings — eveu it' they do have the misfortune to belong to the Civil Service of the colony — should be made to travel and do hard and responsible work in carriages which are unfit to be converted into cattle trucks.