By weighing carefully the representative magazine, every copy of a year’s issue of 64 leading magazines, and by weighing 60 different classes of newspapers, daily and Sunday, the postal committee of the Periodical Publishers’ Association has found that the magazine weighs, on the average, _12.3 ounces and the newspaper 3.92 ounces_. The Postmaster General’s report for 1909 furnishes the total pounds of second class mail--764,801,370--and the proportion of newspapers and magazines in this weight--55.73 per cent and 20.23 per cent, respectively. This gives 154,719,317 pounds of magazines in the mails and 426,223,803 pounds of newspapers. The cost of transporting these, by the Postoffice Department’s figures, is 5 cents a pound for transporting magazines and 2 cents a pound for transporting newspapers, making $7,735,965.85 for hauling magazines and $8,524,476.06 for hauling newspapers. THE HANDLING COST. But the department says specifically, in the pamphlet referred to above, that the handling cost it apportions according to the number of pieces, in three classifications of expense--the railway mail service, rural free delivery, and postoffice service. The total cost of these items charged against second-class matter is (Postmaster General’s report, 1909), $39,818,583.86. The total number of pieces of second-class mail handled was 3,695,594,448 (H. Doc. 910, “Weighing of the Mails.”) Newspapers, averaging 3.92 ounces each, and weighing in the mails altogether 426,223,803 pounds, furnished 1,740,000,000 pieces to handle (taking round millions, which would not affect the percentages), or 47.17 per cent of all second-class pieces. The 154,719,317 pounds of magazines, weighing 12.3 ounces each, furnished 201,260,000 pieces to handle, or 5.44 per cent of all second-class pieces. Figuring these piece percentages on $39,818,583.86, the expense which the department says should be apportioned according to the number of pieces, _and which it does so apportion_, we have the handling cost on the 154,719,317 pounds of magazines $2,166,139.96, or 1.4 cents per pound. The newspaper-handling cost would be 55.73 per cent of $39,818,583.86, or $28,782,425.10, which, divided by the total of newspaper pounds, gives us the handling cost of a pound of _newspapers 6.75 cents_. THE NET RESULT. So, using the department’s own figures and methods of figuring, we have the cost of hauling and handling magazines, 5 cents plus 1.4 cents, or 6.4 cents; the cost of hauling and handling newspapers, 2 cents plus 6.75 cents, or 8.75 cents.