TRI-WEEKLY MAIL SERVICE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 155, 23 February 1872, Page 5

TRI-WEEKLY MAIL SERVICE.

The . prospect of obtaiuing . a triweekly mail, so far at least as Cobb's line- of coaches is concerned, is virtually at an end —Mr. Chaplin having had the modesty toaskthe small sum of £4OO per annum for the service, a sum beyond all measure out of sense or reason. We are not sorry that the negociations have fallen through, as there has been, from the time the third coach started, an amount of hesitation and uncertainty which destroyed what little advantage the people here might otherwise have reaped. Not only that ; the stages were badly selected so far as public convenience is concerned, though perhaps they might suit the convenience of Mr. Chaplin. Fancy for a moment a passenger leaving by the Ounedin seven o'clock morning coach, arriving at Palmerston say at twelve or one o'clock being compelled to remain there until eight o'clock the following morning— in other words detained, and unnecessarily detained, for fully twenty hours. Imagine, again, a passenger from this place arriving at Palmerston at six p.m. being compelled to remain there until the following midday. Yet thus it is, and it is for this utterly unsatisfactory and useless service that a subsidy ot £4OO a-year is demanded by Mr. Chaplin. Another tender, at an amount something like half the above sum has been made by Mr. Daniels—the service to be via Macraes and Hyde, arriving in N-aseby on Thursday evening, and in Duneuin on Saturday about noon, thus rendering possible the reply to letters by Monday's instead of Friday's mail (as at. present) in itself a very considerable advantage, and no

small convenience t > the public. By this arrangement, if effect be given to it, Macraes and Hyde will Lave the advantage of two mails per week, instead of one as heretofore. In addition, also, to this we hear that Mr W. J. Millar of this town is prepared for a moderate subsidy t > carry on the mail to Blackstone Hill and St Bathans immediately upon its arrival here, so that Blackstone Hill and St Bathans as well as Hyde and Macraes stand well to be in the receipt of a bi-weekly in lieu of a weekly mail as at present. There is no doubt that the people of the places to which we have referred would ijladly welcome the benefits which would be conferred upon them by the acceptance of Mr. Daniels' tender. They must, however, bear in mind the fact that Cobb and Co. have been for years favorably known to the Government as mail contractors, and that some effort on their part will be necessary to force the Government to action.

The demand is a fair and legitimate one, and the time is admirably suited for its bein* pressed upon the attention of the Chief Postmaster. For our own part we cannot help feeling that it* petitions were at once set on foot by the people of Hyde, Macraes, and St. Bathans, the acceptance of Mr. Daniels' tender, and the establishment of a biweekly instead of a weekly mail to these places would soon become an established fact.