Correspondents pay a high compliment to the postal authorities by' formulating complaints. in Fegard to certain vagaries which obviously are the direct outcome of what Is restrainedly described og an abnormal situation, When for example the post office is asked' to explain why letters from Hongkong come in batches by one ship instead of being regularly delivered in accordance with the routine hopefully prescribed in the official notices, it is evident that its eMfcieney is expected to treat even the equator with scant respect, Nevertheless. this journal ventures to hazard the view that the post once human and, dependent og it is upon eommunications which just now are affected by all kinds of eccentricities due to conditions beyond control it, may occasionally fail to conceal the fact that "there is a war On." Tt is endeavour ing, so far ax casual observation yoes, 10 eliminate war from its vocabulary but if in the present conditions a letter takes three or four Gays to find its way from one part of Shanghai the other the proper attitude isnot so. much one of surprise but rather relief that the delivery has been safely effected at all. Things are improving and soon it may be legitimate to brace the post effec up with the tonic of complaint, That time is not yet.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.