Week (Brisbane), Friday 4 October
1895, page 11
Postal Evasions
According
to the report of the Post and Telegraph Department for 1894, it has been observed
with much satisfaction that the attempts to use stamps that have been
officially defaced for the prepayment of postage have not been nearly so
frequent during the past year as in 1893, but the instances brought under
notice in which communications that can only be legally sent through the post
office at the letter rate of postage have been sent as packets in open covers,
and frequently with endorsements such as "Printed matter only”,
"Commercial papers," &c., have been so numerous as to indicate
that the revenue of the department has been seriously affected by the payment
of the lower instead of the higher and legitimate postage. The majority of the
mistakes referred to are probably tho result of ignorance or inadvertence. It
must be obvious that every article purporting to be a packet cannot be closely
examined when posted, and probably the greater number of the illegally posted
packets escape detection; those that are detected are charged as insufficiently
prepaid letters, and are therefore refused by the persons to whom they are
addressed. This, however, is not sufficient to protect the revenue, and if the
practice continues it will be necessary to take some more stringent action.
