If the contract stood for full four years on such false average, the railroad would pull down just 1,460 times $213.70 of unearned money or a total of $312,002 in the four years. I would, of course, not have the reader understand that our hypothetical example would fit all railroads. Many, in fact most, of the mail-carrying roads average in mail weight much below sixty tons per day--even below ten tons per day. Some roads were and are paid for an average above sixty tons. Nor would I have the reader understand that the crooked practice just mentioned was common to all mail-carrying roads. There were possibly--yes, probably, some exceptions--some roads that carried so little mail as not to make a steal of a sixth of its weight-pay worth while. I would, however, have the reader understand that I mean to assert that _most_ of the mail-carrying roads were parties to the crooked method here described and that the hypothetical figures here given applied, proportionally, to any average per diem weight of mail covered in the carriage contract, whether it was one ton or a hundred tons. I would also have the reader understand me to assert that, so far as information has reached me, no railroad man, or man representing the rail mail-carrying interests, ever questioned the “fairness” of the crooked practice just described--a practice which looted the government of millions of dollars. As a _raider_ into postal revenues, this thieving practice, it must be admitted, deserves conspicuous mention--more extended notice than I have given it. FOOTNOTES [9] 5,000 to 48,000 pounds, $20.30 per ton. Above 48,000 pounds, $19.24 per ton. [10] Land grant roads receive but 80 per cent of these rates. [11] This is the rate received for carrying each ton handled 1 mile, and is obtained by dividing the yearly compensation by 365 and then dividing the daily compensation thus obtained by the number of tons carried 1 mile each day. [12] This rate was obtained in the same manner as the ton-mile rate. [13] By full-sized cars is meant cars 40 feet or more in length and wholly devoted to mail. [14] Car and mile-run rates corrected for 1908 and since. [15] Tables corrected for 1908. [16] The rate 1907 and prior. Now the rate is $20.30 for tonnages between 2½ and 24 tons and $19.24 for each ton above 24 tons. CHAPTER XIII. RAIDERS MASKED BY CIVIL SERVICE. One other raid into the postal revenues I must notice before passing to a consideration of the parcels post question, in which consideration of other raids and raiders will be mentioned. Here I desire to refer to that band of raiders--thousands in number--who are carried on the payrolls of the Postoffice Department--carried at salaries ranging into the thousands in many cases--and who do little or nothing of service value for the money paid them.