Part 12

6. Are the Registered Letters and Mail Key kept in a safe place?

7. Are the letters and papers for delivery properly post-marked? Are they all intended for the delivery of the office? Are they sorted into the proper boxes? Are there any which should have been sent to the Dead Letter Office?

8. Are the newspapers for delivery all sorted in their proper pigeon-holes.

9. Are all letters and papers posted for despatch as well as for delivery at the office properly pre-paid by stamp?

10. Are the entries in the Book of Mails sent and received, and the Registered Letter Books properly made?

11. Are the instructions and circulars received from the Department properly fyled?

12. Are the notices sent for exhibition to the public properly posted?

13. Is there a notice posted in the lobby indicating the office hours and the times at which mails are closed and received?

14. Is the Postmaster supplied with postage stamps sufficient to meet the requirements of the public?

15. Are the mails regularly received and despatched, and the provisions of the contracts under which the office is supplied properly carried out?

8. In the event of the office being a Money Order Office ascertain--

1. If the entries in all the books are properly made.

2. Whether the Cash Book at Offices where a Cash Book is kept is made up to date, and whether the date of the Deposit Receipts agree with the date for which credit is taken therefor.

3. Whether the Postmaster has in hand the balance due on Money Order Account.

4. Whether all the numbers of the Money Orders taken from the Order Book are properly accounted for.

9. You should take every opportunity of ascertaining and noting down the character and standing of the several parties employed in the Postal Service. The information thus obtained may be of value.

10. You should also take every opportunity of collecting accurate information in regard to the settlement of the country, the position of Post Offices, roads and distances, and with this object you should carry a map of the section of country through which you pass, and mark thereon as much as you can of the above information.

XV.

CASES OF LOSS OR ABSTRACTION.

1. All cases of alleged loss of mails or letters, or of abstraction of money or articles of value from letters should be promptly and thoroughly investigated.

2. The circumstances attending those cases are so various that it is difficult to lay down any specific rule as to the mode in which the investigation should be conducted.

This must be left to the judgment of the Inspector. The following course, however, may be taken in ordinary cases.

3. The printed form of questions should be filled up by the applicant in each case. If the applicant cannot supply all the particulars required, they should be obtained from such other parties as may be able to furnish them.

4. A "Tracer" should be filled up, and sent to the office at which the letter was posted.

5. The particulars of the cases should be at once entered in the book for the record of applications for lost letters.

6. The papers connected with each case should be enclosed in a printed "Missing Letter Envelope." This should be docketed, the date on which, and the name of the office to which the Tracer was despatched entered thereon, and placed in a pigeon hole appropriated to Missing Letter cases "awaiting answers."

7. A prompt return of the Tracer must in all cases be insisted on. On no account should its unnecessary detention at any office be permitted.

8. If on return of the Tracer it is shown that no loss has occurred, the applicant should be so informed, a memorandum to that effect written on the envelope in which the papers are enclosed, the papers put away amongst cases of application for letters which have been found, and the entry of the case in the record of applications for Lost Letters scored out with a blue pencil.