CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4190, 12 August 1892, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

Manners,

[To the Editor, Waibarapa Daily Tiara.] Bm, —The article wbioh appears in your issue of Wednesday last is being a-good deal canvassed by persons wbo think you are aiming a shot at one Post Office in particular. I do not v know, of course, whether this is the case; but I should like to offer one or two remarks on the general subject introduced in your leading columns. As in most things, the truth is not to be found all on one side. There is something in what you say about the temptation to publio servants like Post Office officials to slide into habits of discourtesy; and there is a good deal of force in the rejoinder, lightly referred to by you, that some of the public arc intensely irritating, stupid, and captious. But I want to point out that a Post .Office official can be disagreeable without using disagreeable words, A look, a manner, an inflection of voice—any one of these is quito enough to make the applicant at the counter fuel uncomfortable; and m the case of ladies it has the effect of preventing them from pursuing inquiries that they may roally waut to make, for fear of receiving little slights and rudenesses which are not the less gak) ling because they are almost indeffr nabk <

And this brings mo to another point —it would be difficult for a complainant to "sheet home" a charge of incivility, unless it is a gross and palpable case. There is such a thing as taoit combination among olerks to " teach the publio their placeand a person might be morally certain that he or she had been treated with improper curtness, and yet, in the event ol a complaint to the Chief Postmaster, , the evidence of the junior ofliciulp at the counter would tend to show' that the idea was a mere hallucination. 'So far, I.think your article is calculated to do good, especially among subordinate officers of the department. But, on the oilier hand I am not sure whether you realise the greatness of the temptation to impatience now and then. Of course our Post Office ol!i ials are paid to serve the publio— I know all that; but sometimes while I have been waitiug my turn I have seen people showing themselves so silly and bo unreasonable that thdjjr officer would be more than mortal ifV he could altogether forget that he was a man as well as a publio servant, 1 don't know that it has much to do with it, because 1 don't know whether your article is to be taken as having any local application, but I should certainly like to say that whenever I am in Mastorton Post or Telegraph Office I receive the completest attention and oivility that I could hope for. Last Wednesday—the day that your artiole was published—l went to the Post Office counter with a letter, and asked when the mail for the South closed. The moment had arrived for closing it; persons dropping letters in from outeido would have bean too late. But so far from giving a brusque answer to a stupid stranger who might easily ' have informed himself of the dosing time, the olerk (a lad) very politely told me that if I would give him my • letter he would put it in the box. It is my opinion, then, that your article,. is not aimed at Masterton, 6ft And I am absolutely certain tlia* it does not apply to Grey town, where the Postmaster is constantly offering to the public such little courtesies as he cam They are not" in tho bond,"if and they involve a certain amount o trouble which he need not take if he does not choose. The cadets in tho office are also obliging; infaot, as the undertaker said who put his newlypurchased kicking horse in the shafts of the hearse, 11 1 ain't heard no complaints,"

Ono can quite understand that your article was intonded to give a littlo good advice all round j and the only liarm it can possibly do is if it makes the painstaking Postal officers hereabouts think that they are meant, ioure, etc., Suum Guique. Grey town, August 10.