Wait Two Days Before Complaining About a Late Magazine

19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today: 

Thursday, November 5, 1914:  <<no entry>>

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Sigh—another day with no diary entry., but (smile) another day to go off on a tangent.

—

Are you indignant when a magazine doesn’t arrive in your mailbox on the anticipated date? . . . or is it par for the course?

Well, apparently the mail was so dependable a hundred years ago that people wrote to Ladies Home Journal to complain if their magazine was even one day late in arriving:

Concerning Late Delivery

There is a large part of the edition of The Ladies Home Journal that is not carried on regular mail trains but is shipped by the Government on freight trains. These copies are subject to the delays incident to that method of transportation.

Every copy sent to a subscriber is mailed by us at a time which should insure delivery on the twentieth of the month. Any delay in transportation is beyond our power to control as the Government selects its own methods of shipment regardless of the wishes of the publisher.

So if at any time your copy does not reach you on the twentieth of the month as it should do not write to us immediately, for the delay is probably not due to any fault of ours. Please wait for at least two days before complaining. The copy will probably be in your hands by that time.

Source: Ladies Home Journal (January, 1914)