1164
THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.
[No. 29

order office the amount collected should be remitted to the Chief Postmaster by registered letter. When fees for private bags made up at a sub-office are paid at a chief office or another sub-office, the Chief Postmaster or Postmaster should at once advise the Sub-Postmaster by sending to him a duplicate of the butt of the receipt for retention and record. Chief Postmasters will keep a record of all private bags, and are held responsible for preparing and rendering vouchers in favour of mail-contractors for half the fees for private bags carried by them.

661. Private-bag holders have no privilege in the matter of payment for the transmission of their correspondence with the Post Office. Where it is found that a private-bag holder is despatching communications which in ordinary course should have postage affixed, his attention should be drawn to the matter by the Postmaster at the office from which the bag circulates.

662. Special private bags for the New Zealand Express Company’s correspondence are used on mail-trains. The private bags are used only for letters posted on mail-trains in special covers, which are of a striking pattern and easily identified. Any letters in the special covers for offices en route of any travelling post-office or for places beyond the terminal point are despatched in mails in the usual way, the only letters enclosed in the private bags being those addressed to the terminal office on the section. Correspondence for the company, enclosed in the special covers and posted on express trains to which mail-vans are not attached or in guard’s-van letter-boxes, are to be picked out at the terminal station by the post-office messenger clearing the box. The messenger is to cancel the stamps on such letters by writing his initials thereon with an indelible-ink pencil, and is to hand the letters to the New Zealand Express Company’s representative at the railway-station. Messengers clearing posting-boxes at stations en route, when going through the correspondence, will place together any of the Express Company’s letters in the special covers, so that they may be quickly available on the arrival of the train at the terminal station.

POSTING-BOXES; RECEIVING-BOXES.

663. Pillar, wall, and lamp-post letter-boxes are erected for the convenience of persons living at a distance from a post-office; and when a Postmaster is of opinion that it is necessary to establish new or to remove existing boxes to more convenient localities, he should report to the Inspector of Post-offices through the Chief Postmaster. Each Chief Postmaster must keep in his office a list revised to date of receiving-boxes in his district. The index-marks must be carefully attended to. The hours of collection must be correctly stated on the boxes. On no account are boxes to be cleared before the appointed time. The hours of collection should be regulated by the town clock, if there be one. One of the two keys which are supplied for each box must be kept by the Postmaster, while the other should not be left in the hands of the collecting officer longer than is absolutely necessary, but should, where practicable, be hung up in the office in a place appointed for the purpose convenient for the supervision of the Postmaster or of the officer in charge of the mail-room.

664. Chief Postmasters should periodically draw the attention of Sub-Postmasters to the necessity of inspecting all receiving-boxes and seeing that they are in good repair and well taken care of. Letter-carriers and other officers clearing receiving-boxes must notice the state of the boxes when making the clearance, and report to the Postmaster any matter that requires attention; such as defects in the lettering, wrong times of clearance, damage to