But, Painstaking As Our Department Is With Our Mailmatter, It Excels
Itself In Its Handling Of Telegrams.
Southern red tape has decreed - no
doubt wisely as far as it goes - that telegrams shall travel by official
Persons only; but out-bush official persons are few, and apt to be on
duty elsewhere when important telegrams arrive; and it is then that our
Department draws largely on that surplus supply of common sense.
Always deferential to the South, it obediently pigeon-holes the telegram,
to await some official person, then, knowing that a delay of weeks will
probably convert it into so much waste paper, it writes a "duplicate,"
and goes outside to send it "bush" by the first traveller it can find.
If no traveller is at hand, the "Line" is "called up" and asked if any
one is going in the desired direction from elsewhere; if so, the
"duplicate" is repeated "down the line," but if not, a traveller is
created in the person of a black boy by means of a bribing stick of
tobacco. No extra charge, of course. Nothing IS an extra in the
Territory. "Nothing to do with the Department," says the chief; "merely
the personal courtesy of our officers." May it be many a long day before
the forgotten shipment of red tape finds its way to the Territory to
strangle the courtesy of our officers!
Nothing finds itself outside this courtesy. The Fizzer brings in great
piles of mail-matter, unweighed and unstamped, with many of the envelopes
bursting or, at times, in place of an envelope, a request for one; and
"our officers," getting to work with their "courtesy," soon put all in
order, not disdaining even the licking of stamps or the patching or
renewing of envelopes.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 258 of 304
Words from 71569 to 71864
of 84691
