Notes from the Publishing Society

Why Mail Is Delayed

When we query the Post Office as to why, for example, an ordinary letter is received ahead of air mail, or a letter from Kansas City takes as long to get to New York or Boston as one from Los Angeles before "Pearl Harbor," the answer is, "There's a war on." Then the official will go on to explain that shortage of help and train delays are the main reasons for lateness of mails, adding that the Post Office handled eight hundred and eighty-one million more pieces of mail in 1942 than in 1941, and with less help. Post Office officials cite the following reasons for delays in the mails:

1. First class mail, ordinary letters, is about ten per cent above former years. Around thirty thousand mail clerks, carriers, and banders or ten per cent of the force, have gone into the Army or Navy. Sorting, handling, and carrying have been slowed therefore because the crack men lost to the armed services have been replaced in most cases by novices.

2. Mail trains are delayed by troop movements going all over the country. The Army has taken some of the Department's postal cars for Army kitchens to serve these moving troops.

3. Train delays account for much late mail because in many cities deliveries have been cut down to one a day, so if the morning train gets in too late for the morning delivery the whole mail is held up twenty-four hours.

4. Air mail is delayed, it is explained, because in the first place the armed services have taken roughly half the mail planes. Meanwhile there has been more than a fifty per cent increase in the amount of air mail to be handled. The armed services have priority on all mail plane space, and when they need this space, the ordinary air mails have to wait for the next plane or go by the quickest alternate route.

Post Office officials say they see no indications of improvement for the present. So if your letters or periodicals are late in arriving, let us regard these reasons of the Post Office with sympathetic understanding and look forward with expectation to peace-time promptness.

Church Services and Reading Rooms

Boston, Massachusetts.—The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist. Sunday morning service at 10.45. Sunday evening service at 7.30 (evening service omitted during July and August), Sunday school at 10.45 a.m., and Wednesday evening meeting at 7.30 are held in the Church edifice at Norway, Falmouth, and St. Paul Streets.

Reading Rooms: 84 Boylston Street (Little Building, corner Tremont and Boylston Streets), open week days from 8 a.m until 9 p.m., except on Wednesday, when it closes at 6.30, open Sunday from 1.30 p.m until 6.30 p.m., and on holidays from 12 m until 6.30 p.m.

At 333 Washington Street, opposite Milk Street, also an entrance at 24 Province Street, open week days, except holidays, from 8 a.m until 5.30 p.m.

At 60 Norway Street, corner of Massachusetts Avenue, near Church edifice, open week days from 8 a.m until 9 p.m., Wednesday 8 a.m until 7 p.m and from 8.30 until 9.30 p.m.. open Sunday from 12 m until 7 p.m., and holidays from 10 a.m until 9 p.m.

At 1316 Beacon Street (Coolidge Corner), Brookline, open week days from 9 a.m until 9 p.m.. except on Wednesday, when it closes at 6.30 p.m., open Sunday from 1.30 p.m until 6.30 p.m., and holidays from 10 a.m until 9 p.m.

Membership Notice

Applications for membership in The Mother Church are acted upon by The Christian Science Board of Directors, twice each year, as provided for by the Manual of The Mother Church, Article XIII, Section 2.

The next date for the admission of applicants in The Mother Church is November 5, 1943. Applications must reach the Clerk on or before Monday, October 4, 1943.

A letter of acknowledgment is sent to each applicant whose application is received by the Clerk, but this letter does not signify that he has been admitted to membership. When his application has been duly acted upon by the Board of Directors, he is notified promptly by the Clerk of the action taken.

If an application has been forwarded and, within a reasonable length of time, the applicant has not received acknowledgment, he is invited to make inquiry of the Clerk before forwarding a second application. This procedure avoids possible duplication of applications. However, applications received during the month immediately preceding the date of the current admission to membership will not be acknowledged until after that admission.

Application blanks for membership in The Mother Church are obtainable at Christian Science Reading Rooms and from clerks of branch churches and societies. Applications may always be obtained from Miss Mary G. Ewing, Clerk, 107 Falmouth Street, Boston 15, Massachusetts.