3000 A DAY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17231, 10 April 1930, Page 15

3000 A DAY

UNDELIVERED LETTERS ABSENT-MINDED AUSTRALIANS SYDNEY, March 29. Three thousand letters a. day come into the hands of the staff of the Dead Letter Office at the Sydney General Post Office, having been posted 'by absentminded people who either put insufficient addresses on them, or no addresses at all. Packages wrapped in flimsy paper, or not wrapped at all, which keep a- stall of 19 men engaged correcting the public’s mistakes, yield an astonishing medley of articles. One could hardly understand a man or woman posting five £lO notes in a blank envelope, yet such a strange find was made in the D.I-.0. recently. During last year, the department handled no less than 30 spectacle cases pasted by absent-minded persons in lieu of the fetters. Possibly, a suburban housewife wonders why Mrs. ,Tones did not keep her appointment, and a feud has started. Poor hubby, standing at tlm corner of Pitt street, laid taken out his spectacles, popped the case in the post-box, and gone off with the letter in his pocket. An Australian ilag posted to Canada never reached its destination, for the address was insufficient, while a feather duster, a. tin of cigarettes, and a toy aeroplane all suffered the same fate. NEVER. FULFIL PURPOSE. Dozens of articles of intimate feminine attiro corno into the hands of the Dead Letter Department, some having had no address, and others losing their covering. A lady's singlet, knickers, brassiere, jazz garters in dozens, handkerchiefs in hundreds, adorn a, cold office table instead of a feminine form, and a busy stall groans. Last year 4,329,101 letters and packages were handled by the Dead Letter Department for the whole of the Commonwealth, of which number New South Wales contributed 2.245,000. 1 liese were insufficiently addressed, badly packed so that the address was lost, or otherwise undeliverable. The number of letters posted without an address at all was 39.454 for the Commonwealth. New South Wales contributing 10.465 of them. "I think the public are becoming more careful.” said the Superintendent of Mails. Mr. A. B. Corbett, who showed that ihe. amount of money ip coin anti hank notes handled by the Dead Letter Department last year totalled £2350, as compar cd with £3687 for the year 19271928. lie .urges the public to, use better envelopes. There is no economy, he says, in cheap ones, while the practice of printing the name, and address o! thp sender on the envelope was a guarantee of letters being returned if insufficiently addressed.