A DASHED NUISANCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 61, 30 July 1912, Page 6

A DASHED NUISANCE

ELOPEMENTS BY POST. Dunedin, July 26. "A Parent" writes- to the editor of the Star: —''May I claim your assistance in suppressing clandestine correspondence that goes on? Operatives working in factories and other places have their letters addressed to where they work, instead of to their homes. Quite by chance a mother discovered a letter from a married man to one of her daughters, arranging an elopement, which was frustrated, much to the man's -discomfiture. Employers would be conferring a great favor on parents if they prohibited employees having tlieir letters addressed to the workroom. Then mothers could see who their daughters were corresponding with, and wives would not be thus deceived."

'Enquiries made by reporters show that in the large manufacturing establishments the correspondence with the work girls is pretty extensive. A dozen letters a day would be a low average for a big place. In some houses the rule is to place the letters on a rack for the girls -to claim as they go to dinner; in other places, an office messenger delivers them personally just before the midday spell. One manager says: "It has always been done, and the letters seem to he increasing in numbers of Late years. Many of the messages are by postcards; the writing on tliem silly nonsense, or inviting girls to make appointments. One of the postcards received a while ago was so disgusting that it was promptly put in the fire, and it did not reach tlie girl. Apart from the possibility of objectionable messages being sent, I do not approve of the workshop being turned into a niailroom, and would be glad to see the letter writing fined down. Ido not see how we are to stop it altogether without grieving the girls, who once in a way get letters from friends who know no other address.""

Another manager declared: "It's a dashed nuisance, and if I can do anything to stop it I will." A third manager said he'never heard of any harm being done by these letters, but he reckoned it was not a good thing for a business house to be the medium of profuse and miscellaneous correspondence, most of the silly sort, so far as postcards were concerned, and he would discourage the practice as much as he could..