SMOKER’S SURPRISE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 July 1938, Page 9

SMOKER’S SURPRISE

NOTE IN CIGARETTE PACKET. GIRL SEEKS A FRIEND. On opening a packet of New Zealand made cigarettes the other day, an Aucklander was surprised to find in it a small slip of paper bearing in pencil the word “Lonely,” followed by a name and address. “Miss” had been added in parentheses by way of explanation. Search in a directory showed that the surname and address were genuine, and it could therefore be inferred that the pathetic little note was a real attempt by the sender to win the friendship—or something more —or the person into whose hands the packet would eventually fall. Although women smoke a large part of the cigarettes made nowadays, it was much more than a 50 per cent chance that the purchaser would be someone of the other sex.

Instances of notes enclosed in packages of merchandise come to light from time to time. More than once bachelor fruitgrowers in the outer parts of the Empire have used this means of seeking wives in England by putting messages in boxes of apples. Young English women have adopted the more direct method of writing to persons in authority in the Dominions. Within recent years the Mayors of Christchurch and Dunedin received letters from English girls who stated that they were willing to come to New Zealand and contract marriage if someone suitable would consider the proposition. Not long ago the Lord Mayor of London read to a public gathering a letter sent to him by a young Canadian coloured woman with a university degree who was prepared to marry any eligible man, regardless of race, nationality or religion, if he would “assist her in her career.”