Prohibitions

There shall not be posted or conveyed or delivered by post any postal packet or parcel– (a) consisting of or containing any indecent or obscene print, painting, photograph, cinematograph film, lithograph, engraving, book, card or written communication, or any indecent or obscene article, whether similar to the above or not; or (b) having thereon or on the cover thereof any words, marks, or designs which are grossly offensive or of an indecent or obscene character; or (c) consisting of or containing– (i) opium, morphine, cocaine, or other narcotics, provided that such narcotics may be sent for medical or scientific purposes in insured boxes to countries which admit them when so sent; (ii) any explosive or inflammable substance; (iii) any dangerous substance; (iv) any filth; (v) any corrosive, noxious or deleterious substance; 19 (vi) any sharp instrument not properly protected; (vii) any living animals, except– (aa) bees, leeches and silkworms; (bb) parasites and destroyers of noxious insects intended for the control of those insects and exchanged between officially recognised institutions; (viii) any article or thing whatsoever which is likely to injure any other postal packet in course of conveyance or any receptacle in which the same is conveyed or an officer of the Post Office or other person who may deal with such packet; or (d) containing– (i) (except in letter packets, parcels, printed consisting of literature for the blind and insured boxes) any article liable to Customs duty; (ii) samples of which the number forwarded by the same sender to the same addressee shows an obvious intention of avoiding the payment of Customs due to the of destination; (iii) any article which by the laws of the country or place in which the packet is 20 posted or to which the packet is addressed it is unlawful to send by post; (iv) gold bullion and coin of gold or silver exceeding $25.00 in value, provided that a sample packet may contain articles liable to Customs duty where the importation of such articles by sample packet is permitted in the country or place to which the packet is addressed, and there is affixed to the address side of such packet a label in the prescribed form; or (e) bearing on its address side an adhesive label or printed design either resembling a postage stamp in shape or size or in the form of a frame for a postage stamp; or (f) containing any counterfeit bank or currency note or counterfeit postage stamp; or (g) purporting to be prepaid with any stamp or impression of a stamping machine which has been previously used to prepay any other postal packet or any other Revenue duty or tax; or (h) the cover whereof or the part thereof reserved for the address is divided into separate sections for the insertion of successive addresses; or (i) the cover whereof is entirely transparent or has therein an open panel, provided that there may be a transparent panel in the cover for the purpose of showing the address of the addressee, subject to such rules as may be prescribed; or 21 (j) having thereon or on the cover thereof any words, letters, or marks (used without due authority) which signify or imply or may reasonably lead the recipient thereof to believe, that the postal packet is sent on Her Majesty’s service; or (k) having thereon or on the cover thereof any words, marks, or designs of a character likely, in the opinion of the Postmaster General, to embarrass the officers of the post office in dealing with the packet in the post; or (l) of such a form or so made up for transmission by post as to be likely, in the opinion of the Postmaster General, to embarrass the officers of the post office in dealing with the packet in the post; or (m) having anything written, printed, or otherwise impressed upon or attached to any part of that side of a postal packet which contains the address at which the packet is to be delivered which, either by tending to prevent the easy and quick reading of the address of the packet or by inconvenient proximity to the stamp or stamps used in the payment of postage, or in any other way, is in itself, or in the manner in which it is written, printed, impressed, or attached, likely, in the opinion of the Postmaster General, to embarrass the officers of the post office in dealing with such postal packet; or (n) having its address parallel to the breadth instead of to the length of the envelope; or (o) posted in any place outside the country and addressed to a person resident or carrying on 22 business in the country by or on behalf of any person also resident or carrying on business, if the equivalent amount in dollars and cents of the postage paid or payable is less than the amount of the postage which would have been payable had the packet been sent as an inland postal packet and if in the opinion of the Postmaster General the packet was so posted with the object of evading payment of inland postage; or (p) consisting of or containing two or more postal packets (of the same or of different descriptions) addressed to different persons who are at different addresses.