POST OFFICE PUZZLE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 27, 16 February 1937, Page 11

POST OFFICE PUZZLE

Finding Father Christmas THE CHILDREN'S MAIL The Post Office, priding itself upon the correct apd prompt delivery of millions of packets ©very year, ia faced about Christmastime with a delicate problem. which it has not yet been abJe to solve. . Scores oi little New Zea-. landers happily expecting a visit from Eather Christmas write letters giving i that bilsy personage some definite ideas of what will please them. These letters, usually addressed "Santa Claus ' ' and nothing more, come into the mails, and ^aone of the postmen aeem to know how to catch the elusive Father Christmas, for they send al] these letters to the Dead Letter Office "in Weilington. Reasons for non-delivery of corrosponde^e are usually capable of being oxpressfd in laconic nentences on a few rubber stamps kept in every mail-ioom, and each of these letters to Father Christmas had to be specially marked. The most imaginative effort, possibly the most appropriate, waa "Santa Claus, Dreamland." This season's batch of requests to Father Christmas provided a charming picture of the faith of the children xr: his capacity to provide a most wonderful assortment of presents. Letters from little girls showed a marked preference for dolls (one request: "a doll that sleeps, and golden hair"), prams and dresses. The taste of boys seemed to be more in , the direction of bicycles, sports equipment, tool sets, guns and aero* planes, while one little hopeful, reaiismg that his presents if- they all came would be bulky, wrote: "I hope you are not stuck in our house. ' ' Very few a^tempts were made to give Father Christmas any more information than a catalogue of presents Tequired, although many correspondents were careful to add an assurance that they had been good ^ children, while one smal] boy promised: "If you call J will leave you an apple on the kitchen sink. ' ' It is one of the disappointments of eympathetic postal officials ' that these letters do not actually reach the personage who distributes such happiness at^ Christjnas tinje, for he is too ubiquitous to carry a postal address. However, the wrjting of these interesting little notes wit1 tlu "fvistanc© of father and mother probably conveyed the information to the right quarter in some mysterio-js way and thus lifted a load of responsibility off busy postmen who did' not know what to do.