THE MAIL SERVICE

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 77, 29 July 1870, Page 3

THE MAIL SERVICE

(Z'oike Editor of the Mottnt Ida Chronicle J St. Bathans, July 25, 18/0. ■ ■■ Sib, —Last wefeliy as has been the case during every qne of the last ten weeks, the mail "St. Bathans did not c jme to hand. People got their letters this evening, but as the mail. ;yvhieh i should have borite their answers to those letters went off this morning, ' they must leave them unanswered for a full week unless, indeed, they adoj>t the usual mbde of sending their letters, by special messenger to Hill's Creek on. Friday "morhing next.' St, Bathans is isupposed >fcQ receive the, benefit ,o£-a ;

weekly mail (delivered each Saturday), but, as in the present instance, and the number of instances noted above, the delivery is seldom effected but on Monday evenings; Counting from the time the mail becomes due to the time : of its delivery, ," our "week count* eight or nine days;'l Wonder if it follows "that our years should'be long in the land?" glider existing circumstance*, the contractors are not'to blame for this really unsatisfactory state of the mail service up-country. The party who carries the mail to and from St. Bathans goes punctually every Saturday to meet ther coach at Hill's Creek, : and gets aspunctually disappointed.. He is not bound nor paid to wait on the coach for a whole night, and like a sensible man he does not dp so. The coach proprietor is not bound in any penalty to. be there at the given time, and like another sensible man,; he puts himself to no extra trouble or expense to be up to time. To make the same number of horses perform.-.-the same work now. in the same time which they' performed it on good roads Huring summer weather, would be. to kill them in one week, \tttili, I contend that ihepeoplft of the up-couutry towns should have their letters '.punctually delivered tothem ; that thu Government should insist : on every contractor keeping good time;, and that every instance of hi* foiling to. do.soshould be visited by a fine. Let the inteuding contractor know- that he mast bind himself in this way, and it will be his own fault if, in Ins. tender, he does not give himself sufficient "margin to put on the steam for ensuring good time, in spite of an exceptionally bad season and bad roads. The Government are, injustice, bound to lessen the risks of .delay to the mails, by erecting substantial 'bridges, and even providing boats where they might be required in rime o! floods. The detention of their letters for two or three days beyond time, and the loss of a mail, may become a most serious loss to many persons up-country, particularly wuere, at best, they get but one mail in the week. The people, then, who pay so handsomely towards swelling the Revenue of the country, have a right to insist on some such change in the mail service as .will secure to "them, a more regular delivery of their letters —I aiti, &c, i LaABC.