Directory_and_Chronicle_1903 — Page 417

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HONGKONG POSTAL GUIDE

In districts Nos. 11 (Albany and Peak Road) and 12 (Ship Street to Causeway Bay Road) at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., and in district No. 14 (Peak) at noon and 4 p.m., the postmen leaving the Office for the two last named districts at 11.30 a.m. and 3.30 p.m.

On Sundays and Holidays deliveries will be made in all districts at 9 a.m. only. Contract mails are, however, delivered as soon as possible after arrival. The ordinary deliveries may be retarded by such mails.

The last delivery of Registered Correspondence is at 4 p.m. There are no deliveries on Chinese New Year's Day.

To Shipping.

7. As a general rule correspondence for shipping in harbour is delivered to the agents, but if desired it will be delivered on board at noon and 4 p.m. on week days.

PILLAR BOXES,

8.-Pillar Letter Boxes are cleared daily except on Sundays and holidays. Letters containing any article of value should not be posted in a pillar box, but should be registered at the General Post Office.

Persons posting in these boxes may cancel their stamps by writing the date across them. The time of clearing these boxes may sometimes be later than is stated, and, as the postman has to finish his delivery before taking any letters he finds in the boxes to the Post Office, it is in most cases about an hour or more after the box is cleared before such letters reach the General Post Office.

PRIVATE BOXES.

9.-Private boxes may be rented in the General Post Office, Hongkong, and in the Post Office, Shanghai. The fee is $10 a year, payable in advance.

10.—Each boxholder is supplied with an account book free, but must himself provide at least two stout bags (Shanghai firms require four), marked with his name in English and Chinese on both sides. Chinese nankin makes the best bags for this purpose. They should be without strings, but have a couple of iron rings at the mouth for suspending. Boxholders should insist on their coolies returning these bags to the Post Office as soon as emptied, or at any rate not later than next morning. The only safe way to empty a bag is to turn it inside out.

11. Each boxholder's coolie must be provided with a stout ticket or badge of wood, metal, or pasteboard, bearing his employer's name in English and Chinese. This will enable him to obtain letters whenever a mail arrives.

12.—The advantages of renting a box are many. It secures a quicker and more accurate delivery of correspondence. Boxes are required to be cleared by Boxholders on the arrival of European and American Mails; on ordinary days delivery will be made by postmen unless boxholders desire that their daily correspondence should remain in their boxes to be cleared by themselves. Access to the boxes will be afforded to the boxholders between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily except on Sundays, when the time will be between 8 a.m, and 5 p.m. “Unpaid letters are delivered to boxholders with- out the delay of demanding payment, change, &c., as they are charged to his account. The boxholders of Hongkong and Shanghai send bags down in the mail steamer to be filled. _Boxholders are allowed to post their letters in sealed boxes* and to mark their Postage Stamps. They receive free copies of all notices issued by the Post Office, Tables of Rates, &c. Many inconveniences are saved to them by the facility for charging their accounts with small deficiencies of postage when there is no time to return a short-paid letter. This, however, is only done as an exception when the letter cannot go on unpaid, no boxholder being allowed to make a practice of sending short-paid correspondence or letters to be stamped.

13.-Boxholders' books are sent out for settlement on the first day of each month and should be returned promptly. As a general rule no information can be given as to the correspondence charged in these accounts, where it came from, &c. There is only one way to obtain such information, and that is to file the covers of all unpaid corres- pondence received. Entries On Board are for unpaid correspondence dealt with by the marine officer on his way up from Singapore.

*The boxes should be closed with some recognizable seal, Locked boxes cannot be allowed. A receipt book should be sent with each box, but as the receiving officer cannot undertake to count the correspondeuce sent, he omy gives a receipt for One Box, No attention is promised to anything written in the book—To be Registered for instance.