the 1911 report of the Postmaster General, both of which are before me, as I write. Of course this is the President’s busy season and he may not be able to devote as much time to our enlightenment as he would like to and otherwise would. In that event, he may turn the subject over to Mr. Hitchcock and request him to separate himself from a few interviews to clear these matters up for us. In each annual report of the Postoffice Department I have at hand (1907 to 1911 inclusive), there appears an item which reads, “Expenditures on account of previous years.” For the years indicated, the figures on this item of expenditures are as follows: 1907 $ 303,045.55 1908 823,664.64 1909 586,404.69 1910 6,786,394.11 1911 7,132,112.23 As figures are always more or less of a serious nature, we will here drop the personal element in discussing these points on which information is desired, and much _needed_, if public press notices can be at all depended upon as informative. Of course “figures do not lie.” Still, it is generally known that, however truthful they may be in correct calculations, they sometimes appear very peculiar, if not queer, in tabulations. Some persons have even gone so far as to assert that “official figures” have frequently been so arranged and manipulated as to “conceal the facts.” Now, the figures for that item, “Expenditures on account of previous years” may conceal no facts which the public has any right to know. Still, there is something about them which irritates one’s bump of curiosity; that is, if one’s bump is not abnormally dwarfed or stunted. At any rate, it appears from press comment that those figures have sand-papered or otherwise frictioned several bumps of curiosity into a state of irritation. It is the hope of securing some official light that will act as a linitive or demulcent to my own and other bumps that persuaded those figures into evidence here.