The Delay in Issuing this Number of our Papers has been as annoying to us as it can possibly have been to any of our readers. For, while we do not publish a newspaper, or a magazine of current gossip, or one containing the latest fashion plates, yet we have been accustomed to issue regularly every month, except when on several occasions it seemed best to combine two numbers, and have felt no little annoyance at the delay which has been caused by various circumstances over which we have had no control, and which has necessitated the combining of three numbers under one cover.
But as we give our readers their full quota of pages, and a number of great variety, deep interest, and decided historic value, we are sure they will not complain, and we promise them to endeavor to be more prompt in future.
Renewals are now in Order, and promptness in renewing very much desired. Remember our terms are strictly cash in advance, and we will not send our January number to any one who has not paid his subscription, or at least notified us that he will do so very soon.
The subscriptions of the larger number of our subscribers expire with this number, and we beg each one, without waiting for an agent to call or for us to send any further appeal, to sit right down and send us three dollars [$3] or authorize us to draw on him for that amount Better still, let each one endeavor to send us a new subscription along with his own. Please attend to this at once, lest you lay aside this appeal and forget all about it.
This number completes volume viii., and we will be able to furnish the bound volumes so soon as we can have them bound. But we will be compelled to change our custom of exchanging new bound volumes for old numbers, as we find that we cannot keep on hand a stock of bound volumes sufficient to meet this demand, and that we thus accumulate worn numbers which we find unsalable. But we will (as a matter of accommodation to our subscribers) receive old numbers, have them bound, and return them as soon as this can be done; charging them only for the cost of binding, and they paying postage and express both ways.
Our next volume (vol. ix.), which begins with the January number, shall not, in interest or historic value, fall behind any of those which have gone before. Indeed we are proposing new features which will add to its interest and value, and which will be more fully announced in our January number.
