Passing Notes.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume II, Issue 134, 19 April 1900, Page 3

Passing Notes.

*Mr Lucy, in his letter to the Sydney morning Herald, says :—: — "Much, interest attaches to the financial Working of the newly established penny postage withBritish colonies, excepting Australasia. With so heavy a drop in the charge -it is taken -foi\granted

that, at least to begin with, -thef £ must be a considerable tall is. postal revenue. Mr Hanbury,, the financial secretary to the Treasury, who has charge of post office business in the House o£ Commons, tells me that when the Budget statement is made it will be shown that thib prognostication is happily falsified. The increase in correspondence consquent on the reduced rates is of itseli! almost sufficient to make up the reduction m charge. Bat beyond that, alLthe falling in of contracts with sortie of the great steamship companies made an opening for economies which the post office was quick to seize. Freight on letters to the colonies is .now charged b-y bulk, as -if it were ordiuary merchandise. 'This makes so marked a difl'eresnce in the cost that, taken in conjunction With increase of .correspondence, the new penny postage is expected, at the close of the financial yeai:, to show a slightly increased net revenue." — And yet we in Waimate continue to piy 2d to send a letter to Sludholme Junction, and there is no word of a reduction, in the rates.

The New Zealand Times says that the fumigation of mails which, arrive ia Wellington by vessels hailing from plague-infected portß is carried out in a room on Somes Island. In the case oi" mails from infected places, the 'bags are opened, and the letters, newspapers and other mail matter exposed to sulphur fumes. The letters are placed on shelves of wire netting, and the newspapers are spread about thu floor. They are all expospd for from thirty 4o forty minutes to-the fumes given off by sulphur burning in parfc In the caob of inuilo which come from clean countries, but which have 'been handled in bulk 'in transit through infected places, the outsides of the bags only are fumigated. The head keeper of the quarantine station superintends the fumigation operations. An officer of tiie Post and T-jle-tjrapli Department's circulatioix branch is in attendance, and two or three men are employed in moving the bags. As may be imagined, everybody engaged in the work undergoes a thorough fumigation on entering the room after each batch of mail -matter has been treated.

The following extract "from a private'letter received in Welling- ' ton from one of the workers in the famine-stricken districts of India is published "by 'the Post-: — "Famine -is very sore, and it will be worse. Many are dying o£ poison, from .the poisonous things they eat, there is no food or work in some parts, 'they pick from herbs and trees ; others are dropping on the wayside in a collapse. It would make your heart ache to see them. My hands are very full just at present. This week I have had the 1 joy of taking on 100 Workers at Nasarapur, au< ; I hope in a few days to take on 100 more. There are now 6<l<) workmen at work ; Nasarapnr is like an ant hill. It was a sight to behold when the people got to know that more workers were to be taken on. I could set hundi'eds to work but for want of funds."