He has just solved the puzzle (says the Sydney Sun, of March 28).
When he ordered the coal, he did so by addressing a postcard to Mr Ralph, coal merchant, Timaru.
The postcard, which did not reach its destination, was found the other day secreted behind the private letter boxes in the Timaru Post Office, where it had lain since the day it was posted.
An effort was made to deliver it to the coal merchant to whom it was addressed, but he had long since departed for a land where the postman's whistle is never heard.
The postal authorities then discovered that the sender, Mr Zander, had gone to live in Melbourne, where his coal order followed him in due course.
By that time, however, he had changed his place of abode to Sydney, and there his long-lost postcard found him.
As the card was in the possession of the postal authorities from the time it was posted in Timaru until the day it was delivered in Sydney, this probably constitutes a record in its way.
• An order issued at Trentham camp regarding separation allowances states: - Children's allowances applies only to children of non-commissioned officers and privates of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.
The rate is 6d per day for each child under 16 years of age with a maximum of 2s.
The allowance is retrospective to June 1, 1915, when married allowance was granted, and is in addition thereto.
It covers married men who have been honourably discharged since that date.
Also, the stepchildren of soldiers.
The allowance will be paid to guardians of motherless children.
It is not payable for illegitimate children.
Like the married allowance, it is not payable beyond New Zealand, except to wives and children domiciled in New Zealand, but temporarily absent therefrom.
No person is asked to spend money in purchasing birth certificates.
If no birth certificate can be produced, then the particulars will be checked in the Registrar-general's Office, Wellington.
• General Smuts has discovered official documents at Moshi providing for a settled German policy for the suppression of Mohammedanism in East Africa.
Its recommendations included the forbidding of Government officials to follow the Mussulman faith, interference with circumcision, and the registering of all mosques.
The newspapers' comment on this disclosure is having an effect on the Turco-German Alliance. - ODT, 11.4.1916.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
