FINDING THE OWNER.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, 2 March 1925, Page 5

FINDING THE OWNER.

“WELLINGTON, AUSTRALIA. i | WRONGLY-ADDRESSED LETTER ! MAILBAG PROBLEMS. | WELLINGTON, March 2. "All kinds of people write lette and post them and the address on tl envelope sometimes causes the sorte to wonder exactly for whom the mis sive is intended,” remarked ;t post official when discussing with a N.i Times reporter the question of incoi reetly-addressed correspondence. •‘Generally speaking,” lie added, “th public is very careful with addressc on envelopes, and the staff loses ver little time in repairing errors of care lessness or lack of knowledge on th part of letter writers. “Considering the great volume < postal matter which is bandied in th course of a year, there is riot ,-i larg proportion which finds its way to th Dead-Letter Olfice. “Of course, in the case of oversea letters received which may be insuffl citntly addressed, we make every ef fort to locate the addressee. Say, fo example, a letter from overseas is ad dressed simply to 'Mr. John Smith Wellington,’ we will always endeavor, to locate tht rightful owner by refer er.ee to the directory or the electora roll. The case of John Smith is ai extreme example, and am pleased t> say we receive very few such letters. "Occasionally we have had letter: addressed to people with the name ani then ‘Wellington, Australia,' but suer eases are not common. When sucl 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. “The position with regard to inland mails is different, and if letters are insufficiently addressed we invaiably return them to the sender to give him or her an opportunity of correcting their error. We insist that inland correspondence must be properly addressed. but we handle very few inland letters that do not bear sufficient tions to enable us to find the owner without rouble. Confusion does occur at times in regard to place names. For instance, a letter may be addressed to somebody at Richmond, and as there are three places of that name —at Auckland, Christchurch and Nelson — it is not always a simple matter to determine which of the three is meant.” “Potato Street, Windy City!” Our informant went on to say that there were fewer humorous or merely silly addresses on letters now than was the case a few years ago. “We have had through this office,” he said, “a letter addressed to a person in. ‘Potato Street, Windy City,’ which we interpreted as meaning Murphy Street, Wellington. Our guess was. a good one, and we found the ad-' dressee. Again, we have handled letters addressed in shorthand. Inland letters addressed in this manner are sent back to the sender, but in the case of overseas correspondence we refer the letter to one of our shorthands Penny Postage. j 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 the postage rate was lid. The postcard appeared to have almost “faded out," there being proportionately very few posted nowadays. He attributed this in tfart to the increasing use of the letter-card, which gave correspondence a privacy which could not be had on an ordinary postcard.