THE MODERN ORACLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16338, 19 September 1916, Page 5

THE MODERN ORACLE.

POSTAL INQUIRY OFFICE.

INFORMATION SEEKERS.

SOME KNOTTY PROBLEMS.

Four men stood at the inquiry counter at the post office one day last week, waiting for national service enrolment forms, and six more hovered behind them waiting to hand the completed forms in, when a newcomer pushed hurriedly through the group and exclaimed: "Give me a timetable, for the Avondale races, please!" Oa being told that none were available, he departed with an aggrieved expression. " Thought you could get anything of that kind here!" he said. A few moments later, another man drew up at the counter, and when there was a temporary lull, confided bis difficulty to the officer in charge. "About this enrolment business," he, , began. " I'm not sure whether I'm an 1 eligible or not. .My father was a ScotchI man and my mother a Samoan and I was ■' born on board a Yankee ship one day out ' ' from Papua. Now, can you tell me • i whether I'm a British subject w not?" Tho officer in charge, after some thought, decided he was, and issued the necessary enrolment form. As the questioner turned away to fill it in, a youth, with a humorous eye and the returned soldiers' strip lof red ribbon in his buttonhole paused nt the counter, and said, "Perhaps you I can fix me up too. If a man had a Maori pa and an Egyptian mummy —." But the men in charge had had enough, and vanished hastily through a door with I a large pile of papers, leaving the quesI tion unsolved. These are but a few samples of the questions that the public puts to the officials at the postal inquiry bureau. No question is too technical, no subject too abstruse; they are expected to dispense i information on any and every subject, from death duties to railway time-tables. In making the post office the centre for national enrolment, an increased demand has been made on the tact and fund of general information possessed by the officers in charge. Another caller yesterday was a one-armed man, who required enlightenment as to his position under the new Act, and yet another was a Crimean veteran, who gave his age as 87, and demanded an enrolment form. Some Quaint Episodes. Ten minutes at any busy hour of the day, spent in the vicinity of the inquiry counter, would bring amazement at the variety of the questions upon which the ' public desires enlightenment, and the remarkable sang-froid with which an | answer is demanded. Perhaps one of the quaintest episodes that relieved the monotony of a recent busy morning occurred when an old lady came up to thn counter, carrying a bird-cage, and asked in a timid voice to bo instructed as to how to post a parrot to her daughter in Sydney. Shortly afterwards a nervous young couple arrived, and the voting man blushful'.}- asked if tho Chief Postmaster could marry them without delay? This rather extraordinary request was explained, however, by the fact that in country districts the' postmaster or postmistress usually acts also as registrar of births, marriages and deaths. Quite a different class of information was desired on another occasion, when two men. in earnest argument, paused in front of the grille, one of whom demanded, " Look here, what date was the Suez Canal opened?" As it happened, the man questioned knew the exact date, but while he was yet congratulating himself on having scored a win, another individual came along with a far more difficult problem. " What time is it high tide at Hokianga?" he asked; ''I'm expecting some fish." Then there arc the people who come and ask casually for a. dog-ticket to Te Kuiti, or a'steamer ticket to Paoron ; easily-be-wildered folk new to the bustle of the city who look round helplessly and ask to be shown "the way out," and strangers who ask confidentially for the name of a good boardiiighonse.

The Relatives of Soldiers. Others, too, there are, and of these a large number, who ask questions that the man in charge is quite unable to answer, but who over receive sympathetic and courteous attention — the mothers of soldiers, who have written to their boys " every mail since he left" and have received not a single letter: what is the explanation ? Sometimes they are the mothers of men reported "missing." They have been waiting a year or more for some definite word. Ts there anyone to whom l.hev can apnly in the hope of hearing something ? These are but a few of the many queries regarding the men on service, and although no definite answer can be .liven, the anxiety and doubt are. lightened somewhat by the assurance that everything possible has been done, or is hning done, to find a solution to the many difficulties that present themselves to the relatives of *he men at the front.