A POSTAL MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15168, 6 December 1912, Page 8

A POSTAL MYSTERY.

LETTERS GO ASTRAY.

NAVY LEAGUE'S COMMUNICATIONS

[BY TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.} CHBisxcnußcn, Thursday. For. many months tho secretaries of the oversea branches of the navy league have been annoyed and put to much inconvenience owing to their Homo office correspondence being ignored or rather unanswered, says the Otago Daily Time 6. Protests, appeals, registered letters, cablegrams, were nil in vain. Occasionally a formal circular would filter through, and then silence.. Orders were not acknowledged nor sent, drafts on banking houses met the same fate, and all sorts of shifts wero resorted to by the secretaries in the endeavour to get in touch with headquarters. . Finally the reason for the silence, if not the cause of tho mystery, is explained by Tuesday's mail.

The following communication was received by the local secretary: " You will see by the accompanying circular letter we have now found out that the whole of our oversea correspondence has been going wrong for about a year. We can only conclude that it is either on account of some deep laid plot to injure the-com-munication of the Navy League with its New Zealand branches, or systematic thieving for the sake of gain on the part of someone through whose hands our correspondence passes. We do not, however, feel convinced that it is on account of theft, as in no case have wo been able to trace any cheque or draft having been presented for payment, but our letters, both in and out of New Zealand, and indeed all Overseas Dominions, have been apparently opened and destroyed. At the present moment there are at financial houses in the City of London, various amounts transmitted from New . Zealand and other oversea branches, making in the aggregate £150, to the credit of the Navy League, for which neither the first nor the second of the notes of exchange has ever been received.

"Tho whole matter is engaging the close investigations of the Scotland Yard authorities and the Post Office Detective Department, but up. to the present moment we have been helpless in finding out where the thieving has taken place."