If the owner of an Egyptian hen ranch had a shrinkage in his castor bean crop, he would not think of charging the cost or loss on those castor beans up to his hens, would he? Hens do not eat castor beans. That is useless--well--yes, of course. Well, hens do not eat castor beans, anyway. So my ill-chosen illustration, though may stand--stand anyway until someone finds a breed of hens which likes castor beans. But, if the hens of that hen-rancher invaded his vegetable garden, scratched up his set onions and seeded radishes, pecked holes in three hundred heads of his “early” cabbage and otherwise damaged the fruits of his labor, care and hopes--likewise disarranged his figures on prospective profits--if the hens did that, that hen-rancher would most certainly charge his loss to the hens, would he not? That is, he would do so, if the hens had attended to their legitimate business as industriously as they looked after his vegetable garden and, by reason of that legitimate effort, showed a “profit balance.” The preceding is based, of course, on the assumption that the rancher has acumen enough to distinguish a hen from a rooster and a sunflower from a cauliflower. If he is so wised up, whether by experience and observation or by academic training, he will most certainly charge his loss on vegetables against those hens. “What is the application of all this to the Postoffice Department deficits?” some one is justified in asking. Well, my intended application of it is, first, to show a generally recognized and practical business method--a business method practiced by both public and private corporations and by individuals and firms, from the hen-rancher to the department store. My second purpose is to show that this almost universally recognized business method has been and is _totally ignored in conducting the vast service affairs_ of the Federal Postoffice Department. FREE-IN-COUNTY MATTER. The 1910 report of the Postoffice Department states that 55,639,177 pounds of second-class mail was carried and distributed _free_ in the counties of these United States. Of course, this 1910 _gift_ to country publishers is the result of a moss-grown custom--a custom born of an ingrown desire common to crooked politicians--a desire to trade the general public service for _private_ service. All the second, third and fourth class cities in the country, as well as a majority of our towns and larger incorporated villages, have their _party_ newspaper or newspapers.