Page:Item 5 1853.pdf/61

morial, under the signature of A Resident, a correspondent of the Hastings News, wrote to the effect that a petition to the Postmaster-General was being signed by the people of St. Leonards, deprecating the removal of the post-office from that place on the ground of inconvenience being likely to occur. The writer stated that when the towns were a mile apart [a mile and a half between the two offices] there might have been some reason on the side of St. Leonards, but now that they were indissolubly one town [one borough, as at first, but certainly not one town], the adherence to the original plan of having two post-offices was both incongruous and inconvenient. [Neither incongruous nor inconvenient; for, whereas by having only one office, even though such office were central, there would have been twice the distance to the extremes of east and west than there would be between two post-offices in the same area, and a similar disparity in other directions.] “The consequence of the present arrangements” (continued the writer) “ is that those who have resided in one part of the borough and afterwards moved across the imaginary boundary line, are subject to the inconvenience of a complete change in the channels of postal communication, and in some cases a day is lost, and double postage has to be paid for redirection of letters. [The so-called “imaginary” boundary had been a well-defined one for over twenty years, and if persons moved out of Hastings into St. Leonards or vice versa, I, as having been in the Hastings post-office for three years and acquainted with all its details, am in a position to contradict the writer as to double postage being charged except in some peculiar case in which the receiver himself was responsible. The writer’s statement of a day’s delay was also an error, as there never needed to be more than a few hours. If a letter was addressed Adelaide place, Seymour place, Eversfield place or Norman ​road​, Hastings instead of St. Leonards, or even “St. Leonards Hastings,” and thus got into the Hastings post-bag, it would be sent on, a few hours later, from Hastings, after the arrival of the East-coast mail. Under any condition the inconvenience of two post-offices – supposing such to exist – must have been far less than it would be if there were only one. Fancy the inconvenience of having to go two miles from the west end of St. Leonards to the one general office at George street, for post-office orders, poste restante letters, and enquiries on postal matters generally, instead of the shorter distance to the sought-to-be abolished one in St. Leonards. True, the pro-abolition party sought at the same time to get the Hastings post-office nearer to themselves at York ​building​s or Wellington place, but that would have been no compensation for the loss of the St. Leonards office, whilst even that change was strenuously opposed by the greater portion of the people at Hastings. The prospective inconvenience resulting from the abolition of the St. Leonards office, was to some extent illustrated by a letter which appeared in the same newspaper relative to the one (only) police office. The writer of that letter said – “I could scarcely credit it, when -