Certainly this is a startling change of methods on the part of a government which has been attempting to establish a high standard of integrity in the conduct of all business. Slight as the difference in the wording of the two orders may seem upon a casual reading, the actual effect is drastic. Under the order of March 2, 1907, the total amount of mail weighed to obtain the average daily weight was to be divided by the total number of days on which it was handled. _Surely there could be no other fairer basis of determining the average weight._ But under date of June 7, 1907, the system of weighing was changed, so that to determine the daily average weight of mail the total weight should be divided, not by the number of days on which it was weighed, but by the whole number of days included in the weighing period irrespective of whether mails were handled daily during the whole period or not. _As a matter of fact in many cases they were not_, and this arbitrary “change of divisor,” as it is called, further reduced the pay of the railroads for the transportation of mails by about 12 per cent in addition to the reductions above mentioned which _congressional committees_ had previously characterized as unfair. There, now. Is not that profoundly and beautifully conclusive? The strictures, hard and unjust regulations and arbitrary impositions of the government in the matter of railway mail weights is working great wrong to the roads; is, in fact, so cutting into their earnings as to jeopardize their solvency or to force them to raise freight and passenger rates in order to continue business. Very sad, very sad, indeed! And how unjust it is for the Postmaster General so to cut down railway mail pay as possibly to cut down the dividends the railroads have been paying the “widows and orphans” who own stock in the roads--stocks and bonds aggregating two or three times their tangible value. Especially wrong was it for the Postmaster General to issue and enforce such drastic orders after “congressional committees” had declared any reduction of the weight-pay rate “unfair.” I shall not impose on the reader any extended discussion or consideration of the quoted bubble talk. A few comments I will make--comments which it is hoped will peel off sufficient of the rhetorical coloring to let the reader see at least enough of the real subject (the points involved), as will enable him to make a robust and correct guess at the “ground-plan” of both the sub and the superstructure the railway talkers and speakers are trying to erect. First: Every right-minded citizen should--and when he rightly understands the matter, I believe, will--give the Postmaster General unstinted praise and commendation for the issuance and enforcement of the two orders which the railway men quote and complain about. Second: The rail people say the last order (see quotation), “reduced the pay of the railroads by about 12 per cent.”