GIFTS BY POST

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 10 April 1945, Page 5

GIFTS BY POST

PATRIOTIC SERVICES TOBACCO AND CHOCOLATE Since 1942, when the scheme was inaugurated by the National Patriotic Fund Board. 151,181 orders have been received for the dispatch of cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, or pipe tobacco to members of the New Zealand forces overseas under the board's postal service. In the 15 mouths since the hoard started a similar service for forwarding chocolate to service personnel, orders have reached the total of 124.864. The prices charged represent substantial savings on the retail prices, and senders are spared the jobs of packing and posting. The chocolate orders, which are handled for the board by money order post offices average 8324 u month. Each order is for 21b. of block chocolate packed aud posted, which may be sent to any member of the Allied services. Because tobacco is subject to Customs du‘y and that under tne patriotic postal service is sent duty free, orders placed under this scheme are restricted to members of the New Zealand forces. Two hundred ! cigarettes, *llb. of pipe tobacco, or lib. of cigarette tobacco with cigarette papers may be sent at a time. Certain tobacconists and other retailers act a 6 the board's agents for the receipt of orders. There has been en increase lately in orders for pipe tobacco for men in the Pacific and India. Some explanation may be offered by a letter received from * New Zealand officer, who comes from Masterton. and who. when he wrote, was at Tarawa. Acknowledging the receipt of three parcels of tobacco, which, he said, arrived in perfect condition, he wrote: “The contents were as water is to a man dying of thirst in the centre of some vast, waterless desert. For months now I h ive been smoking a tobacco which resembles fine bread crumbs in texture. One puff and the entire contents of the bowl of nit pipe have disappeared into the stem of my pipe, then to my mouth, and from there most unwillingly received into my interior. . . . Now it is all changed and as I sit contentedly puffing into the calm evening air niv mind is at rest and mv thoughts dwell lovingly on the people who made this possible. . . .”