Newark post., 1918-09-18

given first consideration. Others
can be avoided, and steps to that
end, which were impossible under
military restrictions upon civil au-
thorities have been or are being
taken.
Only in exceptional cases, and
under circumstances which will be
explained, does it take more than
three weeks for properly address,
ed letter to reach a soldier in
France, who is attached to an or
ganized unit of the army. Most of
the mail reaches its destination IN
less time than that. The great mass
of letters to and from the Expedi-
tionary Forces go and come on
scheduled time.
Yet, exceptional circumstances
may delay a soldiers mail as much
as two or three months, or he may
not get it at all. In the extreme
cases where there are several SOL
diers of the same name, it will be
because his letters are improperly
addressed and he has failed to cor
rect the conditions by furnishing
his proper address There are no
delays, or at most none greater
than few days, when the soldier
is located with the organized forces
and the letter is properly ad-
dressed.
Secret troop moves cause delay
for where the success of such
movement depends on secrecy, no
mail can be sent until the mobile
force is established at the selected
destination.
Delay is sometimes due to CEN
sorship. Usually the delay from
this cause is slight but there have
been cases where it has been as
much as three weeks, when it has
been deemed inadvisable to furnish
civilian authorities with the sail
ing dates of vessels from other
ports when one port of embarka-
tlon is unable to handle the amount
OF mail delivered. This matter has
been adjusted now, so that postal
authorities may take advantage of
sailings from other ports for the
despatch of mail.
Letters for sick or wounded SOL
diers whose whereabouts are un-
known are marked "sick" or
wounded" and sent to the central
office at Tours, which is furnished
with the names of all those under
treatment, identified by the desig-
nation of the unit to which they
belong. A perfect card system is
employed to keep track of all who
are in hospitals.
The mobile post Offices which are
in charge of 27 men and equivalent
to a post Office for $4,000 people,
keep right along with the troops
into the fighting trenches.
1t is estimated that million let
ters a day arrive in France for the
American Expeditionary Forces.
Warehouses have been built at
ports of debarkation for sorting
the bags of mail as they are re-
corded from the United States and
on approximately 1000 miles of
railway mail service is now in op-
Grafton.
The matter of the address to in
sure prompt delivery is of vital i'm
portance. The misspelling of
name or the use of initials where
a word should be spelled out may
not only retard the delivery of a
letter, but may prevent its being
delivered at all. Many thousands
OF letters are being constantly re-
ceived which cannot be promptly
delivered, if delivered at all, on ac-
count of the manner in which they
are addressed.
Duplication of names or Officers
as we'll as soldiers run into the
hundreds and in some cases into
thousands. The name of the soldier
addressed should be written in full,
instead of using initials, and the
branch of the service to which the
soldier is attached should be writ
ten in full with the designation of
company and regiment, or battery
and regiment, as well as that of the
branch of the service to which he
belongs. There are machine gun
companies and machine gun bat
talions, entirely different and Sc
parate organizations. In some of
the engineer organizations there
are several different battalions.
each battalion having company
designations, the same as compan-
les of other battalons. For these
! ORGANIZATIONS if is therefore pacoe