For this and several other reasons, the tonnage of franked and penalty matter reported as carried in the last half of 1907--even if the “special weighing” Mr. Britt mentions was accurate and dependable, which it _was_ not and could not be, either then or now, under the lax methods by which such weighings were and are made--the reported weight of such franked and penalty matter carried in the last half of 1907 furnishes no fair or safe basis upon which to predicate 1910 totals or to base a dependable estimate of them. Another defective factor is used in Mr. Britt’s estimate--the reported total weight of “free in county” second-class matter as ascertained by special weighing in the last half of 1907. As previously stated in discussing the raid of six to eight hundred thousand dollars a year made upon the postal service revenues by this “free in county” matter, the department’s reported figures for it are little more than a robust _guess_ at its tonnage, even now, and the figures given for 1907 are much less trustworthy than are the department’s estimates and guesses for the fiscal year ended in 1910. Whatever may be said of its faults and faulty purposes, it is but simple justice to say the present departmental administration has shown more judgment and activity and has put forth more strenuous effort to get to the bottom of things and at dependable facts in mail weights than has been shown by any of its recent predecessors. Still, I repeat that its reported figures for the total tonnage of “free in county” for carriage and delivery of second-class mail matter are not sufficiently reliable to warrant their use as a basis for making a dependable estimate of the tonnage of another free division of second class mail. Especially unreliable are the figures reported as total tonnage of free-in-county-matter as a basis for estimating the tonnage of a division of the service so far removed from “free in county” as is that of free franked and penalty matter. All that aside, however, the fact is the Postoffice Department should receive credit for every pound of franked or penalty matter it handles for the legislative and other departments of the government service. Mr. Britt himself appears to recognize the force of that fact. On page 335 of the department report for 1910, he speaks as follows: