“SNOWBALL” OR “CHAIN’ LETTERS.

Evening Star, Issue 12964, 8 November 1906, Page 8

“SNOWBALL” OR “CHAIN’ LETTERS.

In answer to inquiries recently ad dressed to the Commonwealth Government on the above subject Ur Heaniker Heaton has received the following reply;— In 1896 Miss Audry Griffin, of Thalinga, Mill street, Hurstvillo, Hew South .Wales, initiated a “chain letter” with the object of obtaining 1,000,000 used postage stamps which she proposed to sell, devoting the proceeds to the erection of a children’s ward in connection with St.' George’s Cottage Hospital at Hurstville. The m > lus operaudi was as follows: —Miss Griffin wrote to three of her friends explaining the object in view and asking th-tn to send her ten use i stamps, and to write to three friends of theirs requesting them to do as she had done. Each person written to, therefore, was asked to write to three others. Miss Griffin put the number “ 1 ” at the head of her letters ; those to whom she wrote were asked to put the number “ 2 ” at the head of theirs ; those to whom they wrote were asked to put the number “3,” and so on consecutively until the number “80” was reached, which was to close the chain. Those who received letters numbered ‘‘80” were not expected to write further, but to return to Miss Griffin the letters they had received, so that she might" know the chain was complete. As a matter of fact, however, this injunction was not given effect to, and so the chain went on contrary (as subsequently stated by Miss Griffin’s father) to Miss Griffin’s desire and without her author! y, as wa-> also the extension of th ? circulation of the letters to Europe. As a result, hundreds of thousands of letters arrived at a\dney from various parts of the world for Miss Griffin, a very large number of them being insufficiently pr. paid. Of these letters Miss Griffin refused to take delivery on account of the surenarge, and they had, therefore, in accordance with the provisions of the regulations of the Universal Postal Union, to be returned to the countries of origin, thus giving considerable trouble both to the offices of exchange in those countries and to the Sydney office. In July, 1902, six years after the initiation of the chain letters re erred to, the Superintendent of Mails in Sydney reported as follows ; “On the 13ch iust. Mr Griffin removed thirteen bags of chain letters addressed to Miss Griffin, that being all that were on hand at the time, but by the American mail which arrived on Monday last a groat many more letters were received, and at the present time there are on hand about four bags of letters waiting to be taken away, in addition to these there are a large number (about 0,000) insufficiently prepaid letters which arrived by the same mail and which Mr Griffin relu->' to take delivery of on account of the sui* charge. These letters have to be marked ‘ refused ’ and sent to the Dead Letter Office f< r return to the country of origin.

It can easily be imagined how large aft 'amount of work is involved in dealing with them, and the trouble is increasio| with every mail.’ 1 In order to protect the Post Office from the inconvenience caused by insufficiently prepaid mail matter of this class, tbs Postmaster-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, the Hon. Austin Chapman, submitted to the Postal Congress which met at Rome recently a proposal for an addition to the detailed regulations for the executive of the Postal Union Convention which would deal with the matter. Clause XXVI. of the regulations in question, which requires the return to the country, of origin of all undelivered mail matter, says in paragiaph 3:—“ As an exception, two corresponding offices may by mutual consent adopt a different mode of returning undelivered correspondence and may also dispense with the reciprocal return of certain printed papers considered destitute of value,” and Mr Chapman’s proposal was to add to this clause the words “ and of chain letters (so called snowball letters) insufficiently prepaid, which have been refused by the addressee and which the office of destination is satisfied, after consu'tation with the addressee, are in reality chain letters.” This proposal was agreed to by the First Committee and adopted in full Concress,