348
other Foreign Post offices,"hilst by the first three
packets we had only the Chinese bags: to enclose and
therefore were able to despatch as som as our mails
were bagged.
The inward English and French mails' beep
the office very busy indeed. The town portion of the
correspondence can.... only be sent out 6 or 8 hours after
receipt. If the town portion were sorted and tied up
· properly in HongKong deyràadapdance. in the same mau-
ner as the longkong correspondence is sorted on the
way up from Singapore a great improvement will take pla-
ce in delivery at Shanghai.As matters stand, horever, the
correspondence is tied up alphabetically in more than
one bundle for each alphabet. On receipt many of these
bundles become loose through the handling of the bags
All this, together with the constant application for
individual letters, tend greatly to retard the sorting,
Only Mr.Solly and myself were available to sort and
read out to correspondence to the postmen.Mr.
Dalieto had to deal with the whole of the registered
mail Mr.Rose the unpaid money orders posteresante, at~
tend to enquiries &c. Mr Perpetuo the opening and clos-
ong of the daily local mails for the riverine ports.
There are two learners but they aremore in the way
then of actual assistance.
To take an example:- the last mail re-
ceived at Shanghai per "Coromandel" arrived at Shang-
hai Post office on a baskay Monday at 10.30 am
· A portion of the box holder's mails were not bagged but
tied up, and were roundho
Loose on turning out of the
¦ bags. These and the large sample packets had to be
*
sorted into the boxholder's boxes,which took about
en hour. From that time the town portion was taken in
hand and it was 6 p.m.before the whole had been writ-
ten up in Chinese for delivery. The unpaid was dealt ri
with