Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Problems getting mail from Rockhampton to Port Denison (Bowen) in 1862


Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld), Tuesday 21 January 1862, page 4

Rockhampton (from the Rockhampton Bulletin). Mails to Port Denison

We are given to understand that a large and important mail for Port Denison is now lying in the Rockhampton Post-office, which has been accumulating for seven weeks, and there is no immediate prospect of a means of conveyance offering. It appears that Messrs. Hutchinson., Hunter, and Co., who held a monthly mail contract for six months, decline to renew the contract at the same terms, chiefly because of the exorbitant charge for pilotage, amounting to £10 per trip, or £120 per annum. (This charge is certainly most exorbitant for a ketch, and is almost prohibitory to a small coasting trade.) The Postmaster-General is certainly culpable in thus permitting a contract to expire without making provision for the future. If the subsidy previously given be found insufficient, it should be augmented as we take it to be a short-sighted policy to be parsimonious in postal arrangements with the new and remote settlements of the colony. Mr. Prior, when in Rockhampton, left instructions with Messrs Haynes, Brown & Co., to forward the mail by their first opportunity.