MONEY-LETTERS :

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 452, 9 March 1909, Page 3

MONEY-LETTERS :

REQUEST FOR REGISTRATION. The Post Office, by means of a conspicuous notice placed over every posting-box in the Dominion, cautious the public against sending money and valuable articles in unregistered letters. Notwithstanding this warning, money continues to be sent by post in unregistered letters in the most careless manner. It will hardly be credited by people who exercise ordinary prudence in such matters that it is a common thing to find in the post-office letters crammed full with bank-notes, very often in the flimsiest ot covers. Frequently the contents protrude from the envelopes, or are found loose in the mail-bags, having burst their envelopes, and as frequently letters filled with notes are carelessly thrown loose into railway-vans for the guard to deliver with the mails. Many other cases could be instanced of carelessness on the part of the public in sending money by post. It often happens that letters containing money are alleged to have been lost in the post-office, aud it has generally been proved that such letters were either not posted or were mislaid or lost after due delivery When an unregistered money letter, alleged to have been sent by post, is reported missing, it may happen that suspicion is cast on everyone concerned —viz., on the person supposed to have posted the letter, the officers of the post-office through whose hands the letter would pass, aud the person who would in ordinary course receive the letter from the post-office, either from a street-door letter-box or a private letter-box, over the post-office counter, or from the hands of a letter-carrier.

No record is kept of unregistered letters, and persons who post such letters containing money expose to temptation every one through whose hands they may pass, and in the event of nondelivery suspicion is cast on many innocent persons. The public are again earnestly requested to register all letters containing money or valuables intended to be sent by post. Tetters can be registered at every post-office in the Dominion, and the fee for such registration is only twopence. Receipts are given for registered letters. The letters are traced from hand to hand, and a receipt obtained on delivery; therefore it is very rare that a registered letter is lost.