Carry the Post Office to the consular buildings.
5
business u~
As might naturally be expected, with Officers altogether inexperienced in Post Office business and acting under brief written instructions, we found that the duties were performed, in some cases, with considerable laxity. Moreover, the consular buildings in some places are situated inconveniently for Post Office purposes; for instance, at Ningpo, the Consulate is at least a mile and a half from the business quarter, and at Swatow it is divided from the Foreign Settlement by at least half a mile of sea. At these places it is hardly to be expected that merchants will send their letters to the Post Office when the Steamer Agency, where facilities are always given for the deposit of letters, is close at hand. And hence arises, no doubt, usually, the practice of sending letters otherwise than through the regular channel of the Post Office.
The same circumstances probably induce the merchants at those ports to make arrangements with their correspondents at Hongkong and elsewhere to forward their letters through the Steamer Agent, instead