The Green Forest tribune., 1911-03-31

.gEN. or several young men from
 X GsA N your town or city have en-
 AMHZE tered the railway mall .S7sS@ea M service and are now regu-
 larly employed in that work or have risen to higher positions in the same line Now your promis- ing boy can take up the work and sue ceed in it, if he happens to like this sort of employment. It is agreeable work, and fairly remunerative and there is high success possible as re- ward for industry if your boy will stay with it, besides the advantages of be- ing employed by the government un- der civil service regulations. That makes employment certain as long as the worker attends to business. Thus he is free from all the uncertainty that now and then disturbs the indus trial world and may look upon his career as fiXed-an advantage that is more attractive than a high salary with possibility that business re- verses of ones employer or other causes may compel him to look for an- other job without warning.
 This is how to go about it getting into the railway mail service: Write a letter to the United States Civil Service Commission at Washington, stating that you wish to enter the rail- way mail service, and you will receive full information as to the general preparation required, physical and mental qualifications, as well as the ttii1ile and place of the next examina- tion to be held in your vicinity. Your boy must pass the civil service tests before he is eligible to appointment; but examinations are held at frequent intervals in various parts of the coun- try. often enough and sufficiently near to where he lives so that he can ar range to attend them without diff culty. At some time in the year every State has it's examination for the rail way mail service
 Your boy must be between IS and 35 years of age to take the examina- tion, and must be at least feet 5 inches in height and weigh 130 pounds. The subjects of examination are as follows: Spelling, arithmetic, letter writing, penmanship, copying from plain copy, political geography of the United States, reading addresses, and systems of railway transportation. The test in reading addresses consists of comparing a number of written ad- dresses with printed copy on which variQus errors are purposely made.
 The questions on systems of railway transportation will be confined to rail roads entering and running through the railway division in which the ap- plicant lives and connecting the prin- cipal cities or important railway cen ters within or near it's borders; also junction points on these railway routes. The country is at present di- vided into 13 divisions, according to the distribution of volume of mail traffic. For example, the first division includes the New England states; the second, New York, New Jersey, Penn sylvania, Delaware, the eastern shore of Maryland, and Accomac and North ampton counties, Virginia; the 11th division, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. and so on.
 HaWng passed this examination, your boys name is added to the list of eligibles, and he awaits the summons from Uncle Sam that informs him that there is a substitute job awaiting him. This means that somebody is i'll or has been transferred, or that there is @ sudden increase of work and he Is wanted to take some place temporar- fly. He will remain on the substitute list for a year or a year and a half, according to the needs of the service; but during that time he will be paid at the rate of $500 year for the time he works. After that he will be given a reglver appointment at which he must worR on probation for six months be- fore being full fiedged postal clerk. However, the time he served as substi- tute is deducted from this probation period, and, if he has served for at least six months, which is likely, as he will have worked as substitute at least half the time-he will get his full appointment at once, at salary of 5000 year, or S75 month.
 Now he will be at his regular work, with no doubts of future employment and steady promotion on ahead of him. His duties will be on mail cars. where he will work for eight hours or more day, according to the require ments of his particular route.
 His work will be the distribution and routing of s1afl. This sounds sim pie enough; but it means that he should know the proper and speediest routeato send letter that comes from anyHA gre and goes anywhere in or