Brisbane Courier, Tuesday 10 October 1876, page 2
Mr. W. J. Cosgrove, in his capacity as chair-man of a meeting held at Thornborough, forwards us the following message with a request for its publication:
Thornborough, Sept. 8
A meeting has been held here to-day, at which five hundred miners and others were present to rebut certain statements that appeared in a paper called The Week reflecting on the character of Howard St. George, Esq.; also, to forward per mail complimentary address, thanking him for the impartial and able manner in which he conducted the business of this field as warden and Police Magistrate.
From a note accompanying the foregoing, it appears that it was transmitted to Cooktown Post Office with duty stamps largely exceeding the cost of postage, the senders not having postage stamps at command. Acting, probably, on the regulations of the department, the postmaster at Cooktown refused to receive the duty stamps, and returned the letter to Thornborough, which accounts for its long delay in reaching us. Mr. Cosgrove and his friends will, no doubt, appreciate the strict sense of departmental routine which prevented the postmaster at Cooktown from taking on himself the formidable task of exchanging their duty stamps for postage stamps and forwarding their message on to its intended destination, instead of returning it, because of a difficulty so easily to be got over. Wo have no idea who the gentleman may be, but we certainly think so much devotion to "red tape," and so little disposition to oblige the public, as this affair indicates, is most undesirable especially … pioneer settlement ought to be dealt with in a common-sense way.
