In Tonga
p. 45 · Read in the full issue
That Queer “Tin-Can Mail”
UNDER the heading, “Bogus Mail’’, the Melbourne “Herald” recently pub lished this: — Once again a season approaches in which people post envelopes to Niuafoou Island. No greeting and no personal or business message of any kind goes in most of these envelopes. The senders are in terested only in having the covers de livered by “Tirt Can" post, and returned to them duly stamped and post-marked.
In July, the Union S.S. Co.’s ship •Maunganui” reached Niuafoou Island in the course of a cruise to Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. The mail, which is one of the star novelties of stamp collectors, was duly dropped overboard in sealed tins to be picked up by the island mailman in a canoe.
The Australian collector of philatelic curios sends sixpennyworth of unused stamps with a cover addressed to himself.
The Tongan postal service gets 2id. on each transaction, and there is a small profit left for the islanders. Perhaps the profit is not so small, however. Since 1930, more than half a million letters have been mailed from Niuafoou to addresses in 65 countries.
Mr. F. T. Maryn, Insnector for the De partment of Justice in Holland, arrived in Sydney at the end of August by the “Maetsuycker”, after a visit to New Caledonia to investigate the conditions under which Javanese coolies live and and work in the French Colony.