takes two letters and two stamps.  When a subscription is sent in by some suffragist who is acting as agent in forwarding subscriptions for other people, we acknowledge the order only to the sender, thinking that receipt of the paper by the subscriber is sufficient acknowledgment.  In this connection, one of our worst problems is to learn from those who mail us subscription orders whether they are simply forwarding for other people or are sending the paper at their expense in the hope of making a convert or of introducing it to someone, with the hope that she will want to continue the subscription.  The trouble comes in the question of knowing whom to ask to renew.  Sometimes the sender means to renew for the person, and sometimes she means to have us ask the person to renew for herself.  We have no means of knowing unless the sender tells us.  We have found that whichever way we do, some of our friends do not like it.  We have, therefore, adopted the system of asking the person who has been receiving the paper to renew for herself unless we have been definitely instructed not to do this.  Some people tell us to discontinue the subscription when the time has expired.  We do not think this a fair thing to ask, for the obvious reason that everyone ought to have a chance to renew for herself in case the giver does not want to renew for her.

The third step in receiving a subscription is to write the name in the proper place on the subscription lists that go to the mailing company every Tuesday night.  The states in these lists are arranged alphabetically, the towns and cities are arranged alphabetically and the names of subscribers are arranged in the same way.  In addition to this the books have to be arranged in districts that correspond to the mail routing of the United States post office.  This is an arbitrary dividing, and it increases the work of finding the proper place for entering a subscription.  In this a post office chart has to be used constantly.

After an entry has been made in the mailing books, the subscription order, before it is filed, goes to the subscription cards.  There the clerks must see whether the name is already on the books, or, if not, if it has ever been on our books (In the latter case we revise the former card instead of making a new one).  The subscription cards look like the one reproduced below.

[Illustration:  Subscription Card]

Some letters that bring subscription orders contain many other items that must be attended to before the order or letter is filed.  For instance, a letter may contain a new subscription, a renewal, a remittance or a request to send a bill, an order for sample copies, for papers to sell at a meeting, for literature, a request for information and an item or poem or article for the columns of the paper.  Each matter mentioned in the letter must, of course, be attended to before the letter can go to the files.  To avoid having a letter filed before all of its orders or requests have been attended to, we stamp each piece of mail with a little rubber stamp that looks like the following: