COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 



1411 



matter in the newspaper of the day, the Gazette, and those concerned learnt through 

 that channel of the arrival of letters addressed to them. The mail matter thus collected 

 was delivered to the early inhabitants at the rate pf eightpence for letters, and 

 eighteen-pence for parcels weighing up to twenty pounds avoirdupois ; parcels over that 

 weight being charged for at the rate of three shillings. In cases where the letters were 

 addressed to persons living out of town, or in the country which in those days merely 

 comprised the neighbourhood of Windsor, Parramatta and Newcastle the care of their 

 delivery was entrusted to the police, or failing that, to any person who might be 

 travelling in the required direction. These were remunerated at the rate of four- 





A BACK-BLOCKS POST OFFICE. 



pence per letter. Under these exceedingly primitive regulations, a certain method in 

 postal matters and the beginning of a postal revenue were inaugurated in the infant 

 colony. Things went on in this way for nearly twenty years, before the growth 

 of the settlement called for any remarkable development of the system, but by that 

 time it began to be recognized that the condition of the colony was showing signs of 

 change. In 1829, therefore, Governor Darling's Council passed the first Postal Act, 

 establishing a uniform postal rate, and formally constituting the Postal Department of the 

 colony. The lowest rate for inland letters was fixed at threepence, the highest being 

 one shilling, the weight of each letter was one fourth of an ounce, and tenders were 

 for the first time invited for the regular conveyance of mails. Some idea may be 

 gathered of the slow advance in postal matters, from the fact that no response was 

 made to the first appeal for persons willing to take up these early mail contracts, and 

 recourse was had to the services of the mounted police for the purpose. A few of the 

 higher officials of the colony, after the example of the custom obtaining in England, 

 were allowed to frank letters. In the year 1828, the whole postal establishment of New 

 South Wales consisted of the person in charge of the office in Sydney who began to 

 be known by the title of the Postmaster-General one clerk, one letter-carrier, and 



