of the officer appointed to remain near the target.
Markers will receive pay at the rate of 5s. per diem,
if demanded.
17. A return of the names of all competitors, with
the number of points and hits scored by each duly
signed, as laid down in section 14, is to be forwarded
by the Officer Commanding the district, or by the
Adjutant, to the Under Secretary, Defence Depart-
ment, Wellington, according to the accompanying
form, as soon as possible after the firing has been
concluded.
18. The attention of the Commanding Officers and
Adjutants is particularly called to the following
rules to prevent accidents:----
No competitor is to cap or cock his rifle before
coming to the spot from which he is to fire.
No competitor is to let the cock of his rifle down
when an unexploded cap is on the nipple, but
to keep it at half-cock.
Competitors before firing are to take a few paces
in front of all lookers on, and to see that no
objects are in the line of fire.

DIAGRAM of TARGET for Colonial and District Prizes.
1865-6.
6 Ft.
Outer.
4 Ft.
Centre.
2 Ft.
Centre.
Outer.
4 Ft.
6 Ft.

T. M. HAULTAIN.

Colonial Defence Office,
Wellington 23rd November, 1865.

[From the New Zealand Gazette, No. 19, April 17th
1861, folio 97.]

MILITIA NOTICE.

Colonial Secretary's Office,
Auckland, 17th April, 1861.

THE Government having been informed that rifles
issued to Militiamen and Volunteers have been
tampered with and altered, by filing the tumblers, to
try to make them what is termed "hair triggers,"
and that the sights have been also filed, thereby
destroying their efficiency; all Militiamen and Volun-
teers are warned that by so doing, they render
themselves liable to the penalty for wilfully damaging
arms entrusted to their care, which will be enforced;
and also, if on the examination of arms after the
competition for Government Prizes, it is found that
the rifle used by any winner of a Prize has been in
any way tampered with or altered, the Prize to
which he would otherwise have been entitled will be
withheld.

E. W. STAFFORD.

POSTAL.

Increase of Postage from Sixpence to One Shilling on
Letters conveyed between certain of the Colonies
and other places abroad.

General Post Office,
Wellington, 17th November, 1865.

THE following Despatch and Enclosures from Her
Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the
Colonies, relative to the increase of postage from

Sixpence to One Shilling on Letters conveyed
between certain of the Colonies and other places
abroad, are published for general information.

E. W. STAFFORD.

Downing Street, 13th July, 1865.

SIR,-I have the honor to transmit to you, for
your information and guidance, the enclosed copy of
a letter from the General Post Office, accompanied
by a Treasury Warrant increasing from fourpence to
tenpence the single rate of packet postage on letters
conveyed between certain of the Colonies and other
places abroad, and thus making the total postage one
shilling the half ounce, instead of sixpence as at
present. You will find the reasons for this change
stated in the letter from the General Post Office.

I have, &c.,
EDWARD CARDWELL.

His Excellency Sir George Grey, K.C.B.

(Enclosures.)

Mr. HILL to Sir F. ROGERS.

General Post Office, 7th July, 1865.

SIR,-In September, 1855, a Treasury Warrant
was issued, reducing from one shilling to fourpence
the sea rate of postage on a letter not exceeding half
an ounce in weight, carried by packet between any
two British Colonies or between any British Colony
and any Foreign Port at which a British Packet
might touch, such letters, of course, in no case
passing through the United Kingdom; and this
rate is still considered sufficient for the sea postage
upon letters carried from port to port in the West
Indies, or from port to port in the East Indies,
&c.; but the Postmaster-General is of opinion that
it is quite insufficient for letters carried over long
distances by sea, such, for instance, as letters
between the Cape of Good Hope, and India, China,
or Australia, forwarded via Mauritius, or between
India and Australia forwarded via Point de Galle.
In both these instances the letters are carried by
more than one line of packets, and the low rate of
fourpence is insufficient to cover the cost of their
transport.

Independently of the long distance over which
these letters are carried, as above stated, there are
two other circumstances which in the opinion of the
Postmaster-General make it necessary to increase
the sea postage.

1stly. This office has engaged to pay the Union
Steam Ship Company half the sea postage on letters
carried by their packets from the Cape to Mauritius,
and consequently, if the rate be left at fourpence,
twopence only will remain for the expense of con-
veying a letter by packet from Mauritius to Aden,
and thence to Sydney, a distance of nearly 10,000
miles, or to Hong Kong, a distance of more that
7,000 miles.

2ndly. Since the establishment of the French
packets of the Indo-China and Mauritius Lines,
occasions frequently happen in which a mail from
one Colony for another Colony is carried by a British
packet as far as Aden, Point de Galle, or Mauritius,
the three points of junction, and arriving there
intermediately between the departure of two British
packets, but just in time for a French packet (whose
periods of sailing are fitted to these intermediate
times), is sent on by such French packet. In these
cases payment for the sea conveyance at the rate of
about one shilling an ounce, has to be be made to
France, absorbing, at the present rate of charge, the
whole of the sea postage, although a portion, and
often the larger portion, of the sea conveyance has
been performed by British packet.

Under these circumstances Lord Stanley of Alder-