2054

THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE.

[No. 60

308. All seaborne mails must be made up in canvas bags. On no account may paper wrappers be used.

309. (a.) New Zealand bags must, consistently with keeping in hand a sufficient supply for immediate requirements, be returned to the despatching office or to the chief office of the district to which they belong.

(b.) Bags branded “Post and Telegraph Stores,” or “P.T.S.,” must be immediately returned to the Stores Manager, and are not to be used for mail purposes.

310. Mail-bags that may be used for the collection of waste paper and office sweepings are to be carefully examined before being used for the purpose, in order to ensure that no mail-matter is secreted therein, and are to be turned inside out when the paper and sweepings are disposed of.

311. Canvas labels for inland use on mail-bags and parcel receptacles are printed with the names of the forwarding and receiving offices on the back and front. Requisitions for the labels are to be made annually.

312. Linen, leather, or canvas labels should be returned to the office of despatch, so long as they remain fit for further use. The original address on a label is not to be altered.

313. (a.) The Stores Manager will supply, on requisition, perforated bags for the carriage of live bees by post. These bags are to be used only for enclosing boxes containing live bees, and they will be marked accordingly. No large stock of these bags is to be kept at any office, and none at any office not usually sending live bees through the post. At offices which are likely to require them—namely, at places where apiaries are situated—several bags may be kept in hand. The bags should be labelled and forwarded direct to the office of destination in order to avoid unnecessary opening and relabelling at the central distributing office. The empty bags are to be returned promptly to the office of despatch.

(b.) Bee-bags are as far as possible to be kept separate from other mail-bags. They should be given in charge of the purser in the case of steamers, and of the guard in the case of trains. When the bags are sent by steamer they must also be separately entered on the waybill, and a footnote added showing the number of bee bags placed in the purser’s cabin.

DATE-STAMPING.

314. Postmasters must take precautions for the safe custody of the official date-stamps and sealers, and must prevent these being handed to members of the public on any pretext whatever, or being kept in such a position that the public can obtain and use them. It is forbidden to give impressions to the public. Care should also be taken that any stranger representing himself to be an officer of the Post and Telegraph Department produces satisfactory evidence of that fact before he is allowed to have access to or to use the date-stamps, &c.

315. (a.) A date-stamp is to be supplied to every office. Application for the date-stamp is to be made by the officer responsible for the opening of the office, and the requisition is to show clearly whether the stamp is intended for a post-office, a telephone-office, or a combined office.

(b.) Applications for date-stamps, date-stamp type, and mail-sealers are to be sent separately from applications for other articles, on form Stores 101, to the Stores Manager. Old material of the same kind is to be returned to the Stores Manager. An application for a date-stamp and one for a sealer for the same