302
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.

and any other notice affecting the public con-
venience, must be conspicuously exhibited at every
Post Office, and care must be taken that receiving
boxes and iron-pillar boxes have the hours of
collection correctly printed upon them.

27. Every Post Office must be kept open to
    the public on week days from Nine a.m. to Five
    p.m; and for the purpose of delivering European
    mails on Sundays and holidays for a period not
    exceeding two hours; such delivery not to be made
    during the ordinary hours of divine service.

28. The following are the holidays to be observed
    in the Post Office, viz.:-Christmas Day, New
    Year's Day, Good Friday, the Queen's Birth Day,
    and within each Province the anniversary of such
    Province.

29. Should it be necessary, a Postmaster may
    require the attendance at any time of any or of all
    the persons employed in his office, to sort, deliver,
    or despatch mails, or any other official duty.

III.-LETTERS.

30. The rate of postage on all letters is regulated
    by weight, the Colonial rate commencing at half an
    ounce, and increasing by the ounce after the first
    ounce. All postages and fees must be prepaid by
    postage stamps.

31. If a letter be posted wholly unpaid, or if
    the postage stamps affixed to it be less than a
    single rate of postage, the letter must be detained
    and dealt with according to rule 153. If a letter,
    liable to more than one rate of postage, and ad-
    dressed to any place within the Colony, or the
    United Kingdom, the Colonies of Victoria, South
    Australia, and Western Australia, be prepaid with
    one rate at least, the letter must be forwarded
    charged with the deficiency, and an amount equal
    to one rate as a fine; but a letter addressed to
    any other Colony or foreign country, if not fully
    prepaid, must be detained and dealt with accord-
    ing to rule 153.

32. The rates of postage payable on letters,
    newspapers, and book and pattern parcels posted
    in New Zealand are enumerated in the Postal
    Guide, and on separate sheets, copies of which
    are furnished to every Postmaster and Receiver.
    Alterations in the rates of postage made from time
    to time are notified by Circular, and are also pub-
    lished in the Government Gazette. Postmasters
    must be careful to have any such alterations
    immediately made in the proper places in their
    Postal Guides and Rates of Postage Sheets, and
    to notify them to the public by distinctly written
    notices conspicuously exhibited at their offices.

33. Should any letter be posted which there is
    good reason to believe contains anything likely to
    injure the contents of the mail, or the person
    of any officer of the Post Office, it must be de-
    tained; or, if such a letter should be posted and
    forwarded without its contents being deteected,
    and they should afterwards be discovered, the
    Postmaster discovering must detain it; in each
    case a report must be immediately made to the
    Secretary, stating the full address of the letter
    and its supposed contents. The following are
    examples of the articles referred to :-

Glass in any shape or form, razors, scissors, needles, knives,
forks, or any other sharp instrument; leeches, game,
fish, meat, fruit, or vegetables; bladders or other
vessels containing liquids; gunpowder, lucifer matches,
or anything which is of a combustible or explosive
nature.

34. Postmasters must reject any letter or book-
    packet which is more than two feet in length,
    or twelve inches in breadth or depth, or three
    pounds in weight.

IV.-BOOK POST.

35. The postage on book packets must be
    prepaid in postage stamps. Unpaid or insuf-
    ficiently paid book-packets must be treated in
    the manner described in Rule 31. The additional
    postage chargeable on a re-directed book-packet
    to any place within the Colony, whether paid at
    the time of re-direction or not, will be the same
    as if then posted for the first time.

36. Every book-packet must be sent either
    without a cover, or in a cover open at the ends
    or sides, so as to admit of the enclosures being
    readily examined; for the greater security of its
    contents the packet may be tied over the ends
    with string, in which case the string may be cut,
    the packet, when examined, being re-fastened as
    before.

37. A book-packet may contain any number of
    separate books or other publications, including
    printed or lithographed letters, photographs, when
    not on glass or in cases containing glass, prints
    or maps, and any quantity of paper, parchment,
    or vellum; and the books or other publications,
    prints, maps, &c., may be either printed, written,
    engraved, lithographed, or plain, or any mixture
    of these; but no printed matter or prints must
    be allowed, except such as are printed on paper,
    parchment, or vellum. Further, all legitimate
    binding, mounting, or covering of a book, &c., or
    of a portion thereof, must be allowed, whether
    such binding, &c., be loose or attached; as also
    rollers in the case of prints or maps, markers
    in the case of books, and, in short, whatever
    is necessary for the safe transmission of such
    articles, or usually appertains thereto; but no
    patterns or books of patterns, unless these con-
    sist merely of paper, must be allowed. Under
    the Book Post Regulations however, the binding,
    &c., cannot be sent as a separate packet.

38. No book-packet must contain anything
    which is sealed or otherwise closed against inspec-
    tion; nor must there be any letter, or any com-
    munication of the nature of a letter, whether
    separate or otherwise, unless the whole of such
    letter or communication be printed. Entries
    however, merely stating who sends the packet, or
    to whom it is given, are not to be regarded as a
    letter.

39. If a book packet, addressed to any place
    within the Colony, shall not be open at the ends
    or sides, it shall be treated as a letter, and in the
    manner described in Rule 31.

40. Any book-packet, addressed to a place
    within the Colony, found to contain a letter or
    letters not wholly printed, or any enclosure sealed
    or otherwise closed against inspection, or any
    other unauthorized enclosure, must be forwarded
    to destination charged with double letter postage.

41. It is the duty of every Postmaster, when-
    ever he has ground for suspecting an infringe-
    ment of any of the above rules, and occasionally
    even when there is no such ground, to open and
    examine the packets posted at his office or passing
    through it.

42. Book-packets must be stamped with the