OVERSEAS LOTTERIES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 591, 24 July 1933, Page 7

OVERSEAS LOTTERIES

FEW APPLICATION S FOR TICKETS REACH DESINATION. RETURNED TO SENDERS. In recent years letter-sorters in the post offices of New Zealand. have had a more or less new duty thrust upon them, a duty that is continuously demanding more of their attention (says the Dominion). The publdshed lists of prohibited addresses have almost trebled in the last five years, mainly owing to the great increase in size and numbers of overseas lotteries, and in the letter-sorters' hands lies the decision as to whether they are to be patrondsed by the financially ambitious New Zealander. The latest list of prohibited addres'ses issued by the Postmaster-General comprises about 200 naxnes, and more are being added every week. Naturally enough the number of sorters who are capahle of memeorising all of these addresses must be very few. The work of recognising, such letters as they arrive, however, is not quite so difficult as it might seem. A glance down the list shows that almost three-quarters of the addresses are either in Hobart or Dublin. Letters to these two places automatically become suspect and are referred to the list for final decision as to whether they are to he returned to the sender or allowed to continue on their infended course. The Danzig lottery has become so well-known that there is usually little question of the actual destination of letters addressed to that city, buft the New South Wales address, for instance, presents infiruitely more difficulty. This State also fig- ! ures prominently on the prohibition list. No exceptions exist to the New Zealand ban on overseas lotteries, be they financially dubious or quite above reproaeh and for the worthiest of causes. The Deaf and Blind Kiddies' Art Union of Sydney might be truly excellent enterprise, yet letters from New Zealand with that address have" no hope of ever reaching it. His Worship the Mayor of Limerick is douhitless a model city father, yet th'e accident of his having some connection with th'e Limerick Sweepstake 'effectively hars the chance of even personal correspondence from a New Zealand friend reaching him. Many of the addresses on the list seem perfectly innocuous to the outtsider. They may be. the channel

through which quite respeetable lotteries aive contributed to; then again, they may be the means of postal notes reaching some fraudulent or oitherwise iilieit concern. In the prohibited list are the names1 of many bookmakers, and also of those who carry on the occupation of "reeeiving money under pretence of foretelling future events," as a section in the Post and Telegraph Act puts it. Of course, there are ramification. Probahly many are the postal notes that pursue a devious and indirect course through intermediate addresses before the final destination is reached. But the mind of tthe New Zealand Post Office is aeute. How they have discovered the details of so many of these addresses in the first place before prohihiting them is one of the unexplained mysteries of the service.