FUZZLED POSTMEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 89, 15 April 1922, Page 13

FUZZLED POSTMEN.

LETTER WRITERS 7 VAGARIES. INSUFFICIENT ADDRESSES, j nmi.i.i-'> dyi-ni; oit. "Mr-, .lohn Smith." If you' were a postman, and found such a letter in your bundle, would yon feel annoyed': ",5 a matter of fact, one could not blame the postal people if they occasionally lost their tempers. On the contrary. however, they are the one Government. Department for which the public lias something approaching a regard. Occasionally »n irate firm or person raises a dust about an alleged letter which ha< t.-one astray, but nine times out of ten. when the matter is sifted it will be found that the per-on who was supposed to post the letter i_ to blame. Postins letter.- is very much like winding up your watch or locking the safe. Two minutes after the act you are not really certain that you have done it. How many men have started to wind np the watch for the second time, or triexl to double-lock the safe? And it is frequently so with letters. To return to 'Mrs. Smith. She would most likely get a fearful wigging lotnot Answering, and when she told the sendrr that the letter never arrived, just imagine the nice things that would be thought and said about tbe Postal Department by Mrs. Smith*s correspondent. "There. 1 knew that something terrible would happen alter they joined that dreadful Federation of Labour!" And the writer would not cool down until she bad received the letter back from the Dead Letter Office, with a ruhher stamp intimation "Address Insufficient." Even the postal people have their limitations, and, as yet, don't keep a crystal gazer on the sorting staff.

This Smith incident is tun a fiction. It is one of the puzzles that an unthinking public sets the postal people, "in-sult-dent address" is the most common cause of trouble in the post office to-day. There was a time when boil writing and ignorance set the sorters a few obstacles to negotiate, but education has been compulsory in New Zealand for so many years, that although there is plenty of mighty poor writing in the country, there is very little of the illegibility that comes from ignorance. .•ONU'XD-lOIS. Another hurdle that used to confront tbe postal people some years ago was the deliberate puzzle set by some correspondent with more idle time on his hands than common sense in his head. The classic example of this species of foolishness is, of course, the following, which was duly deciphered and "lelivcred:-

Wood. ( •lolin. i Hant.. - j which, being interpreted, means John < U,<__rv.o__, Andover. Hants. 1 Nearly a_> good is a letter tliat was delivered in Auckland. All innocent 1 old subje-t of the famous chief Te 1 Heuheu was engaged as guide to two 1 pressmen, and some weeks after r/l.eir ( return to town one of them was aston- i ished to have handed to him by the j postman a rather grimy epistle in an i envelope which bore tlie following' cryptic legend: — Xi Perete. j' Kate Perehi. \\ A lea rami. | fhat is to say, "To Fred, on the Press. ' Auckland."' The substitution of Spud ) Street for Murphy Street. Wellington, ia comparatively simple. , Another trick of the idle inane used to be to write the address backwards, to that to read it you had to hold it up before a mirror. Similar riddles are now happily things of the past. An instance of letter-writing eceer_tricity that comes to mind is a case of a postage stamp which went through the post office in Auckland. It was simply pasted on a piece oi paper, trimmed to the size of the stamp, the address written on it, and dropped in the letter-box at the C.P.O. The fact that it was found at all cays much for the keen eye of the man that cleared the box. It should.be explained that the posting of this tiny missive was to decide a bet. The postal people got even with the perpetrator by pinning a green label on it with an intimation th__t there was a fine to pay. the front of the stamp having been written on as well as the back. VAGUE. Scores of letters are posted every week with merely the address "Auckland/ '"Christchurch," ''Wellington." or whatever the town may be. That is all very well when the firm is one with a name that has becomp a household word, but even then it is hardly a fair address. Auckland is a big place now, and the postman is entitled to something more j definite than that. Even such an address | as "Symonds Street, Auckland," is in- \ adequate. Symonds Street is a very long j thoroughfare, and the lower end '« I"" ; of boardinghouses with a population i that is continually changing. "Epsom," j "Newmarket," a4id "Mount Eden are also addresses that cause a lot of waste time. Correspondents should give not only the street, but the number of the house. Even "Queen Street" is a very vague address, although it looks clear enough, and before a letter with such an address reaches its destination it may have to pass through several pairs of hands, beside wasting good time and public money. And odd as it may seem the insufficient address is not always the failing of the private individual. There have been cases where a letter card has been posted without any address whatever. Probably some hurried individual—ten to one a woman—has dashed into the postoflice, bought a card, dashed off a note to someone, and posted it on the run as she bustled down the steps to catch a train perfectly oblivious tbat she had forgotten to put on any address whatever. This superlatively hurried and forgetful lady is of course rare, but nevertheless she exists. r.OUXD THE WORLD. Taken all round, the troubles that assail tho postal official of to-day are those which come from want of thought rather than ignorance. The common use of the typewriter has eliminated the puzzle of" illegible addressek the man who used to send riddles is evidently defunct or reformed, and the chief culprit left is tbe one who puts on an insufficient address. Some amusing instances of this lack o! particulars on the envelope come from America. "Xew Zealand. Australia." is,

of course. _o common that it now ceases to raise a smilo. but circulars and other trade literature rome out with addresses that suggest that the American addressers gather their ideas of the size of -few Zealand from the tiny speck it makes on a map of the world. From time to time a letter ha* Keen known to £0 on a long and wonderful tour**efore it. reaches" its destination, and hy the time the addressee ha.* it handed to him it i_ probably useless

cx.epi as an instance of the truth of the old saying that everything comes to him | who knows how to "wait. A man up in Pukekohe once posted a letter to a mend in Bombay, which is just across the hill from that' well-known farming district. Months, if not years, pas.-cd before the Bombay man got the missive. which then bore as many Indian names a- h bottle of curry powder. Eijually odd is the fact that more than once letters drift out lo Auckland from England bearing the name Bi.-bop Auckland, which is a town in the count-, of Durham. England. We colonials somelimes express disgust at ihe superb ignorance of the Home people about New Zealand and its geography, but this little mark of attention from the English postal people in mistaking the juvenile Auckland for it< much older namesake at their own back doors sbows that Kipling's "la_st. loneliest." etc, has been sung to some effect.