TWO POSTAL PUZZLES.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 23 October 1919, Page 2

TWO POSTAL PUZZLES.

"Wanderer" writes to the Herald:— " The distance from Waipu post office to Maungaturoto post.ioffice is 14 miles. There is a good coach road, travelled by numerous motor cars,; throughout the greater part ot" the year, There is a.triwee,kly mail-service, by train, to and from Maungaturoto - Auckland, by way of Ranganui—three miles from Maungaturoto. Should a man in Waipu address a letter to another in Maungaturoto, 14 miles distant, the letter (if posted) takes the following journey: By coach from Waipu to Marsden Point (12 miles) ; by launch from wharf to steamship; by steamship to Auckland wharf (90 miles); thence to Auckland office, and on to Auckland railway station; thence by train (via Helensville) to Ranganui (86 miles), and finally, by coach, to Maungaturoto. One hundred and ninety-two miles altogether. Nobody in Waipu seems able.to explain the, reason of this roundabout arrangement for the carriage of local correspondence."

One hears many complaints about the slowness of mails in arriving, but all ordinary instances of this sort are easily put in the shade by the record of a postcard which has ju6t reached Dunedin after a journey of pver thirteen years' from Wairnate (says the Qtago Daily Times). The card, which now possesses, much more than its original interest, bears three clear postmarks on its face and one undecipherable one on I&e. picture side of it. The first mark show that it was posted at Wairnate on May 14, 1906, perfectly clearly and correctly addressed to Master S T A. Pail?, 33, Manor Place, Dunedin. After disappearing from official yiew for 13 years, the card made its next appearance in London on May, 17th, 1919. London appears to have beena little hazy as to the difference between " Dunedin " and " Dublin," for the next mark records that tlio card was in, Pqhjin on June 4th. Dublin denied all knoVledpre of the owner, and offered the advice to "try Dqnedin, New Zealand," with the result that Mr S. A, Park, who is now living in a home of his own, has at length the satisfaction of knowing that the friend from whom he parted in Dunedin in May, 1906, arrived safely in Wairnati in due course ! '