Arizona republican., 1903-03-22
HAVE LETTERS ADDRESSED
Patrons of Postofice Should Not De-
 pend on Personal Acquaintance.

The greatest cause of worry to the Phocri., postofice clerical force and | the greatest cause Of friction between the clerks and the patrons Of the office results from the insufficient address on About ore-half the letters that come here for delivery. The standing appeal of the clerks to the public is to please have correspondents address letters as fully as possible Box holders should impress on their correspondents the necessity Of having box numbers placed on the envelopes: those getting their mail b:7 carrier should insist on hay ing street and number placed on their 1 letters, and those on rural routes should insist on having the route number stated on their letters.
 1 The reason for this is ret that the | carrier does not know his patrons, though he has hundreds of them, but somewhere in the scheme ct things, | where the sorting Of mail begins there i is somebody who makes the flrst sep aTatiCn and that somebody, does not know everybody, for there are . great many thousand people getting mall tn ! Phoenix, beside all the tr2nsients II 1 the letter gets to a certain clerAs s de- partmclt he generally knows if it oe- longs there. but the trouble is to get it i that far along the line.
 i Many old settlers imagine that be- i cause they are personally known b3 one or by half Q dozen employees CT the office their mail cannot go astray- The contrary is true, however John 1 Doe may have been getting mail here 1 for twenty years and be known to many clerks, but they don't know where he is at this particular time. He may leave orders for his mail to go in any one of a thousand boxes, or on one carrier route CT another. If he stays in one place, or one part of the city long enough the clerks will, no doubt, | if they are acquainted with him, learn eventually where to put his mail, but if it is fully addressed he will get 1t whether they ever heard of him before CT net.
 There isn't a week goes by but what there are some letters. frequently many | of them. advertised and eventually sent to the dead-letter office, when the ad- dresses are known personally to half dozen postoffice clerks. But the clerks cannot find them, perhaps have not
 
 have no way of knowing but what theJ have left the country OF been translated to the sweet subsequently,. II this wer' an occasional letter it would be held no doubt for 9 personal inquiry among ] the friends of the patron of the oHlce, but it runs up into the dozens and the hundreds and the postmaster cannot employ an army of sleuths to kaer track Of trifing patrons.
 Patrons therefore should not presume upon their being fixture in the coIri- rlurity, that like a country road can always be found in the same place, for they are not, and even though they have lived here from their youth, likt other people they sometimes find il cheaper to move than pay rent, and every time they move they have the postoIice guessing. The dead letter office is the great exhaust valve for the post office department, and but for il the postal boiler would bust" Many q good man who thinks he is consider able steam in the community drifts out through that aperture through the fault of nobody but himself.