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Show Answers, therefore, particularly where the advertiser is located Jn one of the larger cities, Just h frequently are returned to the senders. "That'e a penny-wise and pound-foolish pound-foolish policy," Mr. New said. The return of one letter marked 'Not Found,' will do the advertiser more harm in the town from which U came than he can repair with many thousand thou-sand dollars worth of advertising. The person to whom it is returned will give him plenty of advertising, but it will be of the wrong kind." 'Almost as foolish is the firm and there are many of them which fails to carry its complete address, including includ-ing street number, city and state, on its letter heads and other stationery,! particularly, order blanks. i venience in the receipt and' delivery of mail matter. Yet, with all this expert handling and careful study of hand-writing on the part of the postal clerks, the annual an-nual revenue from dead mail matter received by the government amountf to approximately $300,000. Last year, the Dead Letter Offia received $120,000 from the sale of or phaned packages which could neithei be forwarded to the address nor returned re-turned to the senders because of inadequate in-adequate adilresses. The same offict returned into the United States Treasury Trea-sury $55,523.96 in cash removed from misdirected letters or found loose in the mails. Postage stamps were taken from letters or found loose in the mails SUSE COMMON SENSE IN MAILING PRACTICE I Offenses against good mailing j practices are not confined entirely to the average man who mails only his yearly quota of 112 letters, Postmawt-, Postmawt-, er General New, doclared today in connection with his better mailing ; . campaign. The business man, who is naturally expected to take precaution in the interest in-terest of intelligent communication with his clients or customers, often falls woefully short in providing ade-v ade-v quate safeguards for the efficient de livery of his maiL It is true that comparatively few business letters reach the Dead Let- More and more public schools throughout the country are establishing establish-ing regular courses of instruction in the proper preparation and dispo-j sition of mail, not as a favor to the post office, but as a duty to the community com-munity as a contribution to business efficiency, for the postal service Is the life blood of business. The Post Office Department, of course, is in favor of the general ex-1 tension of this practice, and stands naving a value of $12,165.67, almc.t double the entire revenue of the po t-al t-al service in 1789. Three-cent fees collected for the return re-turn to senders of letters which cou!d not be delivered totaled $92,007.3!. But this is not half the story. Checks, drafts and money orde.s, whose owners could not be located, and amounting to $3,540,542.54 finally fin-ally found a resting place in the Dead Letter Office. cer unice because the business man learned long ago to have his return address printed on his envelopes if only for its accruing advertising val- ue. f There are firms, however, that purposely leave off return cards when II . sending out circulars and advertia- I .. in- matter. They seek this method of H arousing curious recipients to examine I lettters which otherwise might be con- It signed unopened to the waste basket. or want of correct or complete address ad-dress 21,000,000 letters were deposited deposit-ed in the Dead Letter Office, not to speak of 800,000 parcels which had been improperly addressed or wrapped. wrap-ped. Strange to say, this depositing of letters and packages in the mail with incomplete, inadequate or incorrect addresses and wrapping comes, in a large majority or cases from those patrons who are the most liberal contributors con-tributors to this branch of the United States government. It has been estimated by postal officials of-ficials that 200,000,000 pieces of mail are given "directory service" every year, which means that employees must take time from -the ready to supply teachers and pupils with any information that will aid in such studies. While is it generally accepted that this is not the age of miracles, nevertheless, never-theless, there are thousands of patrons pat-rons of the United States mails who take it for granted that Uncle Sam has many wonder-workers on his pay roll. The very fact that there are wizards wiz-ards in the employ of the Post Office Of-fice Department men and women who are uncanny, to say the least, in deciphering illegible hand-writing1 has caused no end of trouble and expense ex-pense to the government as well as to the tax-payer, along whlth incon- i But '.'Nixies" meaning letters re- 1: quiring1 directory service before de- j livery can be effected are compris- h d largely of business letters, and j this service costa " the Post Office nearly two million dollars yearly, t The practice of buying sales lists i?) usually antiquated ones for adver- tsing soliciting through the -mails is f. especially prolific of nixies. The own- V era of such lists seldom attempt to keep them current although the Post f Office will furnish clerks to revise such lists at the nominal charge of I 65 cents an hour. Advertisers In newspapers, maga- ; i sines and elsewhere often fail to si specify their own street addresses. ,: handling and dispatching of mail in Uie endeavor to provide correct addresses ad-dresses for this huge volume of misdirected mis-directed matter. In New York City alone, the cost of tliis service approx-! approx-! imates $500 every day in the year and the total amounting through the country is stupendous. While the revenue from the Dead Letter Office is sufficient to keep that branch of the postal service fun-tioning fun-tioning it is not nearly enough to pay 'NIXIE1 t01' SUPPrt f UlC I A "NIXIE," is a letter or parcel so improperly addressed that it can neither be delivered to the addressee nor returned to the sender without special treatment. This special treatment treat-ment costs the Post Office Department Depart-ment or the tax payer in the final an alysis, approximately $1,740,000 every year. I |