MILLIONS OF LETTERS

Evening Star, Issue 22383, 6 July 1936, Page 11

MILLIONS OF LETTERS

HOW MANY GO ASTRAY 7 TMVMNDS WITHWT ADDRESSES The dead letter branch of the General Post Office last year returned 603,19 2 letters to senders in New Zealand, and although this total appears large, it comes into proper perspective when contrasted with the 154 million letters delivered in the same year. Actually the proportion of undelivered letters to the total delivered was only 0.49 per cent., and it could have been smaller but for certain little weaknesses displayed by some of the department’s customers. For instance, the Dead Letter Office record for 1935 includes the following facts:— Letter* destroyed (senders unknown and contents of no value 24,823 Letters and letter cards posted without address 10,568 Letters imperfectly or insufficiently addressed. 19,138 Letters returned to other postal administrations ... 38,344 There was a large increase in undelivered letters owing mainly to the uw of the mails by the Electoral Department to check the . Dominion’s electoral rolls. The posting of' a notification to alt electors on the roll enabled the electoral officers to ascertain whether electors were still living at the recorded addrsas. Thousands of letters failed to reach the intended recipients because of failures to notify the local returning officer of changes of address and the consequent, use of addresses some years old. Many letters which come to the Dead Letter Office because the addressee has not been found are destroyed, because the contents provide no clue enabling the Post Office to return the communication to the sender, whoso address is either not given at the head of the letter or is of such an indefinite nature that a signature confined to a Christian name is of no use in tracing. All undelivered postal packets (except those . which bear on the outside the name and address of the sender) go to the Dead Letter Office, the only branch of th» department where they can be opened. Many letters held there find their ultimate destination following an inquiry for a missing letter. Possibly the address has been inadequate, but an inquiry leads cither to discovery of the correct address or to the return of the letter to its sender. There is ,» very small proportion of serious irregularities in posting of correspondence ’in New Zealand; the General Post Office last year found it necessary in only 115 cases to intercept letters which bore a libellous address and to return 2,431 letters addressed to persons or firms on the prohibited list. If the public in New Zealand could be educated to show the name and address of the sender on the outside—preferably on the back—of every letter posted, the Dead Letter Office would be saved an immence amount of work and letter writers would avoid many disappointments, misunderstandings, and even heartbreaks. Letters bearing on the outside the name and address of the sender are returned to the sender unopened from the office of address. It is noteworthy that, judging bv the mails reaching New Zealand, tne Canadian and United States public almost invariably follow this desirable practice.