LETTERS THAT GO ASTRAY.

Western Star, 18 October 1932, Page 3

LETTERS THAT GO ASTRAY.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

IN THE POST FOR TEN YEARS

Although the great majority of letters and other articles dropped into the postal receiving boxes find theii way expeditiously and uneventfully to their correct destination, departments in every country have had experiences of “freak” deliveries.

It is a tradition of all postal departments that no effort should be abandoned until all means of tracing the addressee have . been exhausted. This tradition lias been applied even to letters which have been “in tlie post” for ten years or more.

Some years ago an old receiving box in a Melbourne office wa s dismantled. Beneath it there was found a little pile of letters, dusty, covered with cobwelM, and with nearly faded addresses. By some extraordinary chance these letters had slipped down a crack in the bottom of the box so small that) it had always escaped notice. The oldest letter had been there for more than ten years. By good fortune the person to whom it was addressed had not died in the meantime, and alter he had been traced from suburb to suburb the letter was readdressed and triumphantly delivered. Postal officers declare that by far the greatest number of delayed deliveries ar 0 due to the forgetfulness of persons entrusted with letters to post. The domestic consequences of the nondelivery of invitations and replies, it is declared, are often grave. Therefore many defaulters, instead of posting the letters find it prudent unobtrusively to burn all evidence of their carelessness.

Another fruitful cause of delay in Australia is tlie omission of the name of the State from interstate addresses. There are, unfortunately, many towns in three or more States of the same name, and several weeks are often. lost in delivering, b.v process of elimination. a letter insufficiently addressed to one of three towns.

On the other hand, delayed deliveries are often avoided in extraordinary circumstances. At the Sydney Post Office recently tli e attention of a sorter was caught by an unusual name to which a letter was addressed to a street in Sydney. By chance lie knew that the owner of the name lived in a street of the same name in Dubbo, over 200 miles from Sydney, and by re addressing the letter he forwarded it without delay. Except for tlii s coincidence delivery probably would have been impossible, and the letter would have been returned to tbe sender or transferred to the dead-letter office.