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25 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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No. 22.
GOVERNMENT NOTIFICATION.
His Excellency SIE RICHARD GRAVES MACDOSNELL directs the publication of the subjoined Annual Report of the Hongkong General Post Office, for the Year 1868.
By Command,
Colonial Secretary's Office, Hongkong, 4th March, 1869.
Na. 10.
J. GARDINER AUSTIN, Colonial Secretary.
GENERAL POST OFFICE, HONGKOXO,
15th February, 1889.
Six, I have the honor to present to His Excellency Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell the ninth annual Report on the Post Office, being that for the year 1868.
2. The additional accommodation which has been afforded to the Public, and the alterations and improvements which have been effected, may be summarized as follows, viz:
3. The establishment of sorting Offices on board the mail packets, so that the Hongkong mails are sorted on board during the roses between Singapore and Hongkong, and between Hongkong and Shanghae; this measure has had the effect, not only of placing the correspondence in the hands of the persons to whom it is addressed in Hongkong almost instantly after landing; but it also affords the opportunity of accelerating the transmission of letters to places with which Hongkong has intimate relations, when steamers are leaving for such places shortly after the arrival of the mails from home.
The establishment of the Money Order system between Hoogkong, Shanghae and Yokohama and the United Kingdom, and of a local Money Onler system between Hongkong and Shanghae and Yokohama.
5. The extension of the Book and Pattern Post between Hongkong and Shanghae and any other Port in China and Japan at which a British Packet calls.
6. The extension of the system of registration to letters, and other descriptions of correspondence, addressed to or sent from any of the Ports in China and Japan at which Post Ofice Agencies are maintained, so that at the desire of the sender, any letters may be registered in the United Kingdom addressed to Shanghae, Canton, Swatow, Amoy, Foochow or Ningpo in Clins, and to Nagasaki or Yokohama in Japan, and in like manner, letters addressed to the Cuited Kingdow may be registered at the places nained.
7. The alteration in the hour for dispatching the homeward mail packets from Hongkong from 7 A.M. to 9 A.M.
8. The arrangements which have been made for the transmission of closed mails for the United Kingdom by the United States mail Packets via San Francisco,
9. The arrangements which were referred to in the 9th paragraph of the last annual report, under which the mails from the United Kingdom conveyed by French Packets to Shanghae and Yokohama, are now to be delivered to the Public from he British Post Offices at those places, which will have the effect of placing the English correspondence in the hands of the ersons to whom it is adtressed much earlier than hitherta.
10. In the month of April arrangements were made in London, under which Nagasaki was omitted from the Japan mail ervice; that place being ont of the direct course between Shanghae and Yokolama, and, although the additional distance is nconsiderable, (about 20 miles,) the course of navigation in going from Nagasaki to Yokohama and vice versa practically ansed a detention of nearly two days each way, as compared with the direct vorage, which was considered highly injurious to Je postal and mercantile interests of China and Japan, which centre almost exclusively at Yokohama; the mails for Nagasaki now seat from Shanghae by the frequent opportunities offering of forwarding them by Private Steamers and sailing vessels, that by withdrawing the Packet service, the small mercantile community of that place is dependent, as formerly, on chance pportunities for the conveyance of their mails.
11. The transfer of the postal Agencies at the Ports in China and Japan to the exclusive controul of this Government was erfected on the 1st March last, the Colony receiving £1,270 per annum from the Imperial Office towards their maintenance.
12. Commencing with the Mails dispatched from London on the 2228th August, and those dispatched from Hongkong on e 20th October, the Mail Contract Packets resumed the practice of calling at Penang, thereby necessitating their despatch eward from Hongkong one day earlier, and their arrival (outward) here, one day later than the times set down in the new ontract made with the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company,
1. In the early part of the year the Government of Mauritius having terminated their Contract with the Union Steam-ship ompany for the conveyance of Mails, vace a month, between Ceylon and Mauritius, and between Mauritius and Natal; the respondence for Mauritius is now forwarded to Aden to be sent to its destination by the French Packets leaving there once a path; the communication with Natal and the Cape of Good Hope being thus cut off, correspondence for those Colonies is now pt in the Mails for London,
14. During the year there has been one instance only of the British Contract Packets having started unpunctually, and is was occasioned by the wreck of the Benares with the Northern Mails on Steep Island, Fisherman's Group, which caused a ention of the homeward Mails from Hongkong of 20 hours.
15. Arrangements similar to those agreed upon between this Government and the United States of America on the 10th gust 1867, have been made in London for the exchange of Mails via Hongkong and San Francisco, between the United tes on the one side, and the Straits Settlements and the British East Indies on the other, by means, conjointly, of the itish and United States Packets; Mails for the United States reaching this Office either from India or the Straits, are there- sent by the Pacifio Packets to their destination, and, Mails reaching here in the opposite direction, are duly transmitted to Straits and India by means of the British Contract Packets, Arrangements have also been made by which Mails for North of China arriving at Yokoluma by United States Packets are carried thence to Shanghae by British Packet, and, on other hand, for the Yokoliams Mails arriving at Hongkong by British Packet to be carrial thence by United States cket, when time would thereby be saved; the resalt has been that, in some instances, the Mails from fame have been ivered at Yokohama 2 days before the English Mail Steamer arrived there is Shangbae.
16. The privilege which was hitherto confined to the letters of Officers of the Nary, of sending and receiving their letters British Packet to and from the United Kingdom for sixpence per half ounce, has been extended to Officers in the Army Pioned here and in the other Colonies,
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