1 4 H AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



prise to undertake a monthly mail-service between England and the colony. This led to 

 a contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Company for ,84,000. But the steamers 

 were subsequently withdrawn, their services being required in connection with the Crimean 

 War, and mails were carried between Great Britain and Australia in sailing vessels. A 

 contract subsequently taken, in 1856, with the European and Australian Royal Mail 

 Company, to run by way of the Cape, was a failure, and ended disastrously to the 

 Company. The first mail-steamer to pass through Torres Straits, the A;/;/ Foo, arrived 

 in December, 1873. The service via Panama, preceded this; it was taken up in 1867, with 

 a subsidy of ,55,000 a year, but it broke down. In August, 1870, the Australian Steam 

 Navigation Company undertook the mail-service temporarily between Sydney and San 

 Francisco, and since that time great inter-oceanic mail contracts have been entered into 

 on large annual subsidies a system which continued unbroken until 1883, when for a 

 time a contract was accepted from the Orient Company, under which a poundage rate 

 was payable on all mail matter carried, with a premium for delivery under contract time, 

 and penalties recoverable by the colony in case of delay. The British Government now 

 shares with the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania 

 in the contracts with the " P. and O." Company and the Orient Company, by the Suez 

 route. Each runs a fortnightly mail, and they carry the bulk of the correspondence. 

 But Queensland subsidizes the British India Company to carry a monthly mail via 

 Torres Straits. New Zealand and New South Wales subsidize the San Francisco line, 

 the contract for which is with the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, but 

 which is worked by the Oceanic Company. New Zealand grants a subsidy to the 

 New Zealand Steamship Company, and also to the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company, 

 both of which run via the Cape of Good Hope, calling at Hobart. In addition to these, 

 the French Mcssagerics Maritime* run a monthly line, with a branch to New Caledonia, 

 and the North German Lloyd a bi-monthly line, with a branch line to and from Sydney 

 and Samoa, but they are subsidized by their own Governments. The transit of English 

 mails to Sydney now takes from twenty-nine to thirty-eight days. In 1889, there were 

 1,261 post-offices in New South Wales, and 305 receiving-offices, served by 2,650 persons; 

 the mails were carried over distances amounting, in the aggregate, to 7,299,400 miles, 

 and the total length of the postal lines reached 28,718 miles ; the return from the 

 Postal Department of the colony amounted to ,395,584, while the expenditure amounted 

 to ,393,606. About 53,971,300 letters were carried in the colony in 1889, and about 

 42,019,100 packets and newspapers, the proportion of letters per head of the population 

 namely, thirty-eight being nearly the same as that for England and Wales, 



In 1836, shortly after the settlement at Port Phillip was founded, Mr. John Batman 

 was elected by the pioneers as their first Postmaster. In February, 1837, a Mr. John 

 Hawdon contracted to carry the first mails fortnightly between Sydney and Port Phillip. 

 Four years later, the Melbourne Post Office was formally opened, and the first inward 

 mail was despatched to Mount Maceclon in February, 1844. The fine edifice that forms 

 the present General Post Office of Victoria was opened in 1867. At the end of 1886 

 there were 1,429 post-offices in Victoria, dealing with a year's total of 2,330,534 letters 

 and 1,642,289 newspapers and packets. A postage rate of a half-penny is charged on 

 papers transmitted in Victoria. The time allowed by contract for the conveyance of 



