FINDING THE OWNER

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12074, 27 February 1925, Page 4

FINDING THE OWNER

"WELLINGTON, AUSTRALIA" HOW WRONGLY ADDRESSED LETTERS ARE TREATED. MAIL BAG PROBLEMS. “All kipds of people write letters and post them and the address on the envelope sometimes causes the sorters to wonder exactly for whom the missive is intended, ’ remarked a postal official yesterday when discussing,with a “Times” reporter the question of incorrectly addressed correspondence. “Generally speaking,” he added, “the public is very careful with addresses oni envelopes; and the staff loses very little time in repairing errors of carelessness or lack of knowledge on the part of letter writers. “Considering the great volume of postal matter which is handled in the course of a year there ia not a large proportion whioh finds its way to the dead-letter office. “Of course, in the case of overseas letters received which may be insufficiently addressed, we make every effort to locate the addressee. Say for example a letter from overseas is addressed simply to ‘Mr John Smith. Wellington,’ we will always endeavour to locate the rightful owner by reference to the directory or tho electoral roll.. The case of John. Smith is an extreme example, and I am pleased to say we receive very-few such letters! “Occasionally we have had letters addressed: to people with the name and then ‘Wellington, Australia’ but such casey are not common. When such letters are received from countries overseas we always try to locate the rightful owners, as we recognise that the writer may be handicapped by an indifferent knowledge of the geography of the country. INLAND CORRESPONDENCE MUST BE PROPERLY ADDRESSED. “Tho position with regard to inland mails ia different, and if, letters are insufficiently addressed . we invariably' return them to the sender to give him or her an opportunity of iorrecting their error. We insist that inland Correspondence must be properly addressed, but we handle very few in-land-letters that do not bear sufficient; directions to enable us to find the ] owner without trouble. Confusion does occur at times ia regard to place names. For instance, a letter may be addressed to somebody at Rich-, mond, and as there are three places of that name—at Auckland, (Jliristchurch and Nelson—it is not always i a simple matter to determine which the three is meant.” > “POTATO STREET, WINDY CITY 1” Our informant went on to say that then© war© fewer humorous or merely silly addresses on letters now than was the case a few years ago. j “We have had through this office,” ! be said, “a letter addressed to a person in ‘Potato street, Windy City,” which we interpreted' as meaning Alurphy street, Wellington. Our guess was a good one, and we found the addressee. Again we have handled letters addressed, in shorthand. Inland letters addressed in this manner are rent back to the sender, but in the case of overseas correspondence wo refer the letter to on© ‘of our shorthand writefs for transcription".” , PENNY POSTAGE. The official expressed the opinion that since the return to penny , postage last year there had been a gradual and steady increase in the number of letters handled. People seemed to be writing more letters now than they did when th© postage rate Was lid. The postcard appeared to have almost “faded out,” thor© being proportionately very few posted nowadays.' He attributed this, in part to the increas-j ing use of the letter-card' which gave correspondence .-.a privacy which could not be had on an ordinary postcard. -