The 1910 report of the Postoffice Department sets up something over $202,000,000 as receipts from cancellation of stamps, or stamp sales. Of course, millions of dollars’ worth of those stamps were bought for and canceled in third and fourth class service, catalogues, books, etc.--in third-class carriage and handling, and merchandise parcels in fourth class. One has no data--nor can he obtain such data from the Postoffice Department records--to show what sum or portion of that $202,000,000 worth of stamps was canceled in the transmission of letters and other sealed matter of the first-class. But it may be conservatively stated that if Mr. Hitchcock succeeds in cutting down or curtailing the circulation of weekly and monthly periodicals--especially their advertising pages--he will have no trouble in finding, for two or three years at least, a shrinkage of from $50,000,000 to $75,000,000 in that stamp account. That, with the falling away in _paid_ second-class matter, will provide him a “deficit” which should make him jubilant--should furnish wadding for his embrasured guns for two or three years in his attack on those recalcitrant periodicals which attend to their _own business_ in a clean, truthful way and expect nothing of a Postmaster General other than that he attend strictly and efficiently to his business, to the business of the Postoffice Department--to the business of collecting, transporting and distributing the federal mails. I have probably discussed Mr. Hitchcock, his faults and his excellencies sufficiently. I will therefore, pass to another phase of our general subject. THE HUGHES COMMISSION. First, however, I must introduce a few paragraphs here in summary of the work done by the Hughes Commission at its August session in New York City. The commission comprised Associate Justice Hughes, President Lowell of Harvard University, and H. A. Wheeler, President of the Chicago Association of Commerce. That this triumvirate of gentlemen will act disinterestedly and fairly, so far as their knowledge and the evidence relating to postal affairs extends, there is here no question.