In drafting the above recommended legislation Mr. Hitchcock no doubt was greatly assisted by the luminous suggestions, advice, analyses, etc., of his Third Assistant, Mr. Britt, to be found on pages 331 and 332 of the 1910 report--which suggestions, advice, etc., is based largely on “estimates”--“estimates” which any student or careful observer of the Postoffice Department methods of figuring and accounting will readily discern are, in several particulars, somewhat “influenced,” if not, indeed, “fixed.” Up to January 1, 1908, periodical publishers were allowed to mail sample copies of any issue in number equal to that of their subscribed lists. Acting on the recommendation of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, no doubt approved by Mr. Hitchcock, the mailing privilege on sample copies was cut down, January 1, 1908, to 10 per cent of the subscribed issue. Now comes Mr. Hitchcock with a bit of recommended legislation, as quoted above, which would, if favorably acted upon by Congress, deny the mailing privilege to _all_ sample copies at the cent-a-pound rate. Though not pertinent to the subject immediately under consideration, I desire here to call the reader’s attention again to a point in Mr. Hitchcock’s recommended legislation as quoted above--a point which is conspicuously worthy of a second notice and to which I have called attention on a previous page. Mr. Hitchcock’s report, from which the foregoing piece of recommended legislation is quoted, bears date of December 1, 1910. Keep that in mind. In that recommendation he would grant a _continuance_ of the cent-a-pound postage rate on periodicals “sent to subscribers,” but to such only. No sample copies are to be carried and handled, mind you, at the cent-a-pound rate after Mr. Hitchcock’s recommendation becomes law--that is, if it ever does become law. Now, the subscribed mailings of any periodical--newspaper or other--are piece or single-copy mailings, which are admittedly the most expensive or costly to the government to transport and handle. Yet Mr. Hitchcock recommends that _the cent-a-pound rate shall continue to be extended to such single copies_--a most just and sensible recommendation. But Mr. Hitchcock when he wrote that bit of recommended legislation was thinking--and thinking only, if indeed he gave the subject any _personal_ thought at all--of curbing the circulation growth of periodicals and, as a means to that end, recommends the exclusion of all sample copies from the pound-rate privilege. Read carelessly or superficially that bit of suggested legislation in itself does not appear to have anything to do with sample copies. On second and more careful reading, however, its purpose becomes clear. If the cent-a-pound rate is to be allowed only to regularly _subscribed_ copies of a periodical, then _all_ sample copies must be mailed, if mailed at all, at the third-class rate--_must pay eight cents a pound_.