LETTERS GO ASTRAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23364, 2 December 1937, Page 6

LETTERS GO ASTRAY

POST OFFICE EXPERIENCE TRACING THE CAUSES Letters and other postal packets handled by the Post Office last year reached the remarkable total of over 534 millions, and the efficiency of the mail staffs was demonstrated by the fact that the proportion of postal packets reported as missing and not traced has to be represented by the decimal fraction of 0.00243 per cent. So much care is taken over complaints regarding non-delivery that each case is individually investigated and the result detailed. There were 6358 complaints of non-delivery, and the investigations resulted in, more than half of the missing packets being accounted for satisfactorily, the reasons discovered being as follows:

Sender responsible for delay 1,205 Addressee responsible for delay 1,144 No delay, or responsibility not fixed 782

Finally, the survey includes a frank admission by the Post Office that it was responsible for delay in 315 cases out of the millions of postal packets handled. These rare happenings have been sometimes found to be due to a letter becoming attached to the folds of a newspaper and thus accompanying it to a wrong address, the ultimate delivery of the letter being consequently delayed. The co-operation of the public is constantly being requested by the mail officers, who can be greatly assisted in cases of incomplete or incorrect addresses if the name and address of the sender has been enclosed inj” he packet. Although the Post Office does not permit correspondence to be forwarded under the very cheap rates of packet postage, it does not regard the name and address of the sender as an infringement of this condition; on the contrary, it appreciates this additional safeguard against the packet being included m the undelivered total.