RETURN TO SENDER

Taranaki Daily News, 11 July 1933, Page 11

RETURN TO SENDER

GROWING POST OFFICE WORK.

PROHIBITED ADDRESSES.

In recent years letter-sorters in the post offices of New Zealand have had a more or less new duty thrust upon them, a duty that is continuously demanding more of their attention. The published lists of prohibited addresses have almost trebled in the last five years, mainly owing to the great increase in size and numbers of overseas lotteries, and in the letter-sorters’ hands lies the decision as to . whether they are to be patronised by the financially ambitious New Zealander.

The latest list of prohibited addresses issued by the Postmaster-General comprises about 200 names, and more are being added every week. Naturally enough the number of sorters who are capable of memorising all of these addresses must be very few. The work of recognising such letters as they arrive, however, is not quite so difficult as it might seem. A glance down the list shows that almost three-quarters of the addresses are either in Hobart or Dublin. . Letters to these two places automatically become suspect and are referred to the list for final decision as to whether they are to be returned to the sender or allowed to continue on their intended course. The Danzig lottery has become so well-known that there is usually little question of the actual destination of letters addressed to that city, but the New South Wales address, for instance, presents infinitely more difficulty. This State also figures prominently on the prohibition list. No exceptions exist to the New Zealand ban on overseas lotteries, be they financially dubious or quite above reproach and for the worthiest of causes. The Deaf and Blind Kiddies’ Art Union of Sydney might be a truly excellent enterprise, yet letters from New Zealand with that address have no hope of ever reaching it. His Worship the Mayor of Limerick is doubtless a model city father, yet the accident of his having some connection with the Limerick Sweep effectively bars the chance of even personal correspondence from a New Zealand friend reaching him.

Many of the addresses on the list seem perfectly innocuous to the outsider. They may be the channel through which quite respectable lotteries are contributed to; then again, they may be the means of postal notes reaching some fraudulent or otherwise illicit concern. In the prohibited list are. the names of many bookmakers, and also of those who carry on the occupation of “receiving money under pretence of foretelling future events,” as a section in the Post and Telegraph Act puts it. Of coui’se there are ramifications. Probably many are the postal notes that pursue a devious and indirect course through intermediate addresses before the final destination is reached. But the mind Of the New Zealand Post Office is acute. How they have discovered the details of so many of these addresses in the first place before prohibiting them is one. of the unexplained mysteries of the service.