Jan. 9.
With the workings of the Chinese Post Office in provincial regions we are not at present concerned. Complaints have been made, not, as we very well know, without reason, and amendments promised. Certainly at the beginning of & new year, if ever, we may in fairness wait a little to see how those promises are kept. Meanwhile, a word or two might be said about the Post Office in Shanghai, and that not so much of what the public expects from the Post as what the Post may without being wholly unreasonable ask of the public. Less than a hundred years ago, on the occasion of a certain very popular social event, a considerable number of residents, all in one section. entirely failed to receive the expected invitations which had been sent through the post. Such, at least, is the story generally believed, the kind of thing that is remembered years after the thousands of letters which safely find their way to their destination within an hour or two of posting buried in oblivion and the waste-paper basket. And just as it must be admitted that there would have been no rubber boom and disastrous failure in 1910 if the public had aot displayed at} least as great a taste for gambling as the brokers, so, in calmer moments, as for example in a season of traditional peace and goodwill one may concede that fewer ters would go astray if the public took little more pains to ensure correct delivery. For example some months ago the Post Office circularized all residents, asking them to have a letter-box put in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.