A MILITARY POST OFFICE

Temuka Leader, Issue 7524, 6 January 1917, Page 3

A MILITARY POST OFFICE

jMr' Frederick G. Spurr writes for the Christian World a’ most interesting article describing a Military Post Office, the ollico where letters and parcels for the boys at the front, from all iparta of the worjd, are received, sorted out, broken parcel* mended and ro-addressed, and finally sent along to the lads for whom Hiey al ’° intended. Thu article is too long to reproduce in exteuso, but we make a few extracts frqm it, believing it will bo Interesting to all who have dear ones at the front, and to whom they send parcels and letters. The ofli.ee-Mr Spun; writes of has a floor space of 150.000 square feet, and another 50.000 feet is to be added. It sprung up, he. says, as of by magic, and the si all' consists of 600 men, together ith a cor lain number of girls, and the work, goes on day and night, and upon an average 200,000 parcels arc despatched daily. “The creation of a great Army of men of foreign service has brought into existence a new and groat postal problem. The correspondence going md from Britain and the colonics to the men at the front is incredibly large- But this a Tight problem compared with that of the parcels. Ah ! lira parcels ! They come in millions from the uttermost ends of the earth, From India and our Oriental possessions, from remote corners of Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and South Africa, from every town, city, village and hamlet of Great Britain and Ireland. Wherever the boys at the front have mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, sweethearts, friends, pastors and tcacbcp, from thorn come the parcels. And they cantabi all that loving hands can convenient!,v fashion or that larder or dion can supply—from comforts of "lofhing to questionable'’ comforts for the stomach. And it was in the parcels rather than in the letters that .1 was chiefly interested.” “The bags containing parcels from c ends of the earth and at home reach this distributing centre in Post vans and Mar Oflicn lorries, of which bitter there are 100. Tee mono.t hoy are unloaded upon the large receiving platform they becor/m ’At)iny mails, and from that time the miliTarp authorities assume control of them, for they alone know where the boys are to bo found. 'To the civi-

an sorter the mysterious letters written across the face of the parcels would convoy nothing. ‘B.E.F./ 'F.K.F., or ‘A. F. F.’ may mean one of fifty places upon the Continent of MjUi’opo or in 'Asia or in Egypt. Even (o the'military sorter the final „ cli stination of the parcels is unknown. Whan at length the last process' of sorting lias been concluded and the sealed bugs are ready to despatch, the mystery remains unsolved. All that the distributors know is that bags labelled! with a certain colour go to this station, and that other bags labelled with another colour go to that station, and that other bags labelled with another colour go to that station. The bags all pass into the land of mystery, and over their (transit there rest . 4 impenetrable veil which is not lifted until they pass into other hands across the water, ft is a perfect "system, spy proof, treachery proof 'The responsible brains at either end know, the hands between simply work ; the two combined accomplish the mission of the mail.

“In this immense space the most perfect order prevails. The first impression upon the mind of the visitor is that of bewilderment. Bags and parcels are heaped up on every hand. It is a maze of epistolary entanglement. Yet in a few moments the seeming contusion clears. Military discipline and order regulate everything. The precision and the rapidity with which everything is carried through is astonishing, and reflects the greatest credit upon the minds which direct 'gigantic enterprise. The bags arriving from everywhere are immediately opened , their contents arc classified. The vast area of the one storey Post Office is divided into clearly-marked sections. The general locality is first of all indicated. Australia has one section. New Zealand another. Hero the mails for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force arc Inalt with ; there those for 3alo uca ; yonder ■ those for Mesopotamia, and, again, those for Franco. Then the sub-divisions begin. Enormous letters indicate in which further section the parcels should bo placed. Open bags arc placed on each section, and into these the appropriate parcels are dropped. Every unit on . active service a bag is provided. The battalion, the regiment, the battery, the company ; whether for H.A.M.C., field ambulance, A.S.C. Engineers, gunners, rilletmin, or what not—all is marked with the utmost distinctness. Little little, by a double process of selection and

elimination, the identity of the addressee of the parcel is arrived at, and in an amazingly short space of time lie receives npon the battlefield or at the base or in hospital the gift designed for him. It is a miracle •of system and of rapid despatch.

"The marvel is increased when it is [remembered that incessant changes are continually in progress at the front, fnits arc moved, and the address given by a boy to-day may not bo his address in a, week’s time. Yet there is little or no delay in delivery even in these circumstances, since the telegraph continually keeps the authorities apprised of all changes in the locale of the units. Tl is the unit which is aimed at from this side ; all details are completed on the other.

“Two or three departments of this military Post Office are peculiarly iua* cinating. 'One is the repacking depart' meat, whore parcels which, arrive, in a broken condition are freshly done up before being despatched to the unit. (So great is the carelessness of senders that no less than three thousand parcels per day have to bo repacked before they can be sent forward. Great numbers of people apparently have no idea how to pack a parcel securely for the post. There are - defects in the enwrapping paper, which is sometimes so thin that it bursts asunder. In other cases boot boxes are used, which in their turn are easily broken. It is little wonder that the contents of many boxes are reported as missing ; the marvel is that the number of such is not infinitely greater than it is. For all that, 1 am glad to nave seen some of those broken boxes. Their spilled contents, never intended for the eyes of strangers, ’ hear ' eloquent i testimony to humble loving care and thought on the park of the poor. For nearly all these imperfectly packed parcels have evidently, come from poor people. The handwriting and the contents of the parcels betray the fact. There, for exniple, in one scattered parcel, slenderly held together by the remnants of a piece of string, I noted a tin of

ndensed milk, a jar of jam, a few; cigai’ettes, half a dozen - tarts (the jam of which was distributed over the milk Lin and the cigarettes), a few unripe apples and pears, a bojc of pills and a lead pencil roughly sharpened by, the uncertain hand of a no doubt' about that, it was a child’s sharpening. The simple humanity of the picture touched me. Can anyone doubt that the contents .of this too frail box the contribution of a poor family ? The wife, God bless her, was responsible, I urn certain, for't.he tarts—they worn her own make. And I can easily visualise the contribution of, the apples and the pears—a Boy who gauged his father’c-i appetite by his own ; and the pencil, badly cut, chewed at the other end and well sucked—that came from the schoolboy who included in the family box “what he could.”

“One department is marked with Ilia single word “Blind.” It has no reference to the blasted vision. Tf is the corner where uncertain or insufficbnt addresses scrutinhod and, ii possible, rectified. And it is surprising how many of these there are !