June 2, 1985

SHIITE Moslem forces last week advanced in their drive to win control of West Beirut and southern Lebanon, where they are the largest ethnic group. The Shiite successes dealt new blows to the virtually powerless Government of President Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Christian. Mr. Gemayel, who narrowly escaped injury when the Presidential Palace was shelled by unspecified enemies (there were several possibilities, including dissident Christians), flew to Damascus seeking help. He hinted that President Hafez al-Assad would dispatch troops to Beirut to back up the Lebanese Army in restoring order, an assignment the Syrians relinquished during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon three years ago.

A UNION contract giving female clerical employees special raises to reduce pay disparities between their jobs and those held mainly by men was recently adopted by the town of Cortlandt. About 25 clerks, typists and stenographers are to receive salary adjustments this year of $30 to $3,000. The raises, totaling $36,000, are in addition to a 6 percent pay increase this year for about 150 town employees covered by the contract. The two-year contract expires at the end of next year.

THE waiting room is filled with the normal mixture of maladies. Diabetes. Chest pain. Lung disease. Distraction is found in magazines, or in watching the freckle-faced woman try to keep her children from rearranging the furniture. A tiny, stoop-shouldered lady arrives, and hands the receptionist a plastic bag. ''Dahlia seeds,'' she says. ''For the doctors' gardens.''

The Mets defeated the Padres tonight when they rallied in the late innings for a 5-3 victory that kept them in first place in the National League's East. The Mets, who had lost their first three games against the Padres this season, came close to losing this one at the start. Ron Darling walked four of the first seven batters he faced and fell two runs behind in three innings. But he got stricter as the game got longer, and the Mets came back with three runs in the sixth, another in the seventh and one more in the ninth.

MANY suburban communities developed so haphazardly that some of the streets are private, neither serviced nor maintained by the municipality. Sometimes the street evolved from long driveways of former estates along which new owners were given rights of way as they bought their lots. This is the case, for example, of the 20 houses along a network of private roads inside the former Dana estate in Old Mastic, L.I. In parts of Fairfield County, Conn., developers found that they could avoid the expense of conforming with municipal regulations by turning old farm paths and narrow Indian trails into private roads. And of course, there was also a certain cachet and rustic appeal in having one's property tucked away along a private lane.