POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS AT WYNDHAM.

Mataura Ensign, Volume VI, Issue 284, 24 August 1883, Page 2

POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS AT WYNDHAM.

Theke must be some peculiarity in the atmosphere which prevades the offices set apart for the accommodation of those who are appointed to carry on the public affairs of the country. We ourselves are acpuainted with numbers of gentlemen who, in private life, are really estimable, and who, when free from the trammels of their offices, are as considerate of the wants and feelings of others as gfentlemen should be. But set those gentlemen upon their official stools for the purpose of performing those duties for which a grateful country feeds them, clothes them and provides them in pocket money, and they at once are affected by the malarious influence of the " department," and become unimpressionable blocks, which have eyes yet see not, etc., etc. A case in point is that of the postal regulations at Wyndham. Notwithstanding the existence of the railway the inhabitants of Wyndham and surrounding districts are very little better off in the matter of postal convenience than they were in the good old days. Mails for Invercargill and southern offices close at 10 a.m, and 5 p.m., and for northern offices at 5 p.m. Only two mails a day are received — one from Invercargill by the train, which leaves there "at 7.5 a. no. and one from North which comes per southern express. That the mail is cleared at all at ten o'clock in the morning is really an obligement. As it is, letters for south, say for Invercargill, which happen to be in the box before that hour are carried first to Edomlale J^ coach, then to Gore or Cliln lon and then .'bi^JfJ^iJu^jrcaygill*-- Tt is ivvivetfeVie • t'nat people in Wyndham cannot in these days of railways get a reply from. Invercargill, Gore or any other place even on the main liuc of railway, the same day. The fact is the present is a relic of older days and those who have the power have not the inclination to see that we are much advanced now, and have outgrown the happy-go-lucky adolescense which made tolerable the existing system. There is no substantial reason why Wyndham should not have the privileges o f towns of less dimensions which lie exactly on the main line and have their three mails a day ; corresponding to the number of trains each way daily. There are already 'buses running in connection with every train between Edendale and Wyndham^and, moreover, the railway has long been practi-. cally open, so that there is no just reason ! why Wyndham should be treated in the same way as some su«sh place .as Gummie's Bush, for iustance. There is no fault to find with tno local officer, who doos his duty in an unobtrusive way, and no doubt does his best to atone for, by extra assiduity, faults qf- the S3 r stem for which h.e is not responsible, but 'there is a groat lack of observation in the heads of departments who are supinely blind to the interests they are employed to. repre, sent.