The reason why the mail arriving "by the R. M. S. Empress of Asia was not delivered on Wednesday, though it, if course, arrived in port on Tuesday night, was because the major portion of it was not landed in Shanghai until late on Wednesday. People who were awaiting letters by the Empress were natually surprised that though the ship reached Shanghai on Tuesday afternoon tha expected missives did not come to hand by tiffin time and then complaints began to come in.
Mr. Everett, the U.S. Postal Agent, was good enough to explain matters to our representative yesterday. When the tender from the Empress arrived at Shanghai on Tuesday she brought only 42 bags of mail. for his office, only three of which contained letters, leaving a largo balance still on the ship. These were at 8 o'clock that night. Wednesday morning the str, Ecuador brought in 800 bags which arrived at the U. S. Post Office at about 9 am. These were at once taken in hand and sorted out before 11.30 when the boxes in the post office wore for the most part full to overflowing. Mosb of those renting boxes were at once telephonically informed, but @ substantial proportion of them failed to clear their boxes until after tiffin and they, naturally, did not get their mail until late in the day.
The balance of the mail brought by the Empress was expected at the Post Office shortly after 5 p.m. on Wednesday and Mr. Everett stated that on arrival it would be once put in hand and distributed that night.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.