Six companies control more than 90% of the country’s express business, and of these the Adams is one of the oldest and most powerful. Organized more than fifty-six years ago, its capital stock had grown to $10,000,000 by 1866, in which year the members of the association, as the shareholders are called, received a stock dividend of $2,000,000. The $10,000,000 of stock itself did not represent shares issued for cash. According to the company’s own reports, no shares were ever issued for cash. The 100,000 shares were given to members of the association to represent each member’s pro rata ownership in the assets which had accumulated from earnings. As late as 1890, according to the census figures, the company had an actual investment in property employed in its business of but $1,128,195. Yet it had been paying 8% dividends for many years, or 80% on the actual value of the property in use. In 1898 it distributed $12,000,000 of its own bonds to stockholders, these bonds to be secured by the deposit in trust of the surplus funds not used in the express business. At this time the company reduced its dividend rate to 4%, but as 4% was also paid on the bonds, the stockholders did not suffer any loss of income. By 1904 the dividend rate had mounted to 10%, the bond interest remaining at 4%. In 1907, $24,000,000 additional bonds were given to the stockholders, likewise secured by another fat surplus, and like the first issue, paying 4% in interest. Dividends on the stock have since been maintained at 12% and there has grown up another surplus of nearly $25,000,000 which must soon be disbursed. Meanwhile the property actually employed for express purposes has grown to but something more than $6,000,000. Moreover, there is another large fund slowly but surely accumulating in connection with the 1907 bond distribution. This 1907 gift to the shareholders was in the form of a bond issue secured by the deposit of stocks and bonds of other corporations formerly owned by the company itself. The deed of trust provides that if the income from these stocks and bonds is more than enough to pay interest of 4% a year on the $24,000,000 of Adams Express bonds, the surplus shall accrue and be distributed in 1947 among the holders of the Adams Express bonds. As a matter of fact there is a computed excess income derived in this way of $151,517.50 a year and by 1947 this will have mounted up to more than $6,000,000, not allowing for compound interest. Here is a 50% extra dividend being nourished along toward maturity. If there is any better example of being able to eat one’s cake and have it too, I have yet to hear of it.