The stock of express companies is _owned_ largely by a comparatively few people--a thousand, possibly five hundred, persons own 90 per cent of this stock. No one at all familiar with express company tangibles, unless he is exercising a loose-screwed veracity, will estimate their _aggregate_ tangible values _above_ twenty or twenty-five millions. More than that. The present tangible values in these companies _are_, as previously stated, almost wholly _investments from earnings_. So largely, in fact, is that true that _six million dollars_ is a _liberal_ estimate for the _actual cash capital_ at any time invested in actual operation. These companies paid their owners two to three and a half, or more, millions a year _in dividends_. Since 1907, the Adams company has paid $480,000 a year on $12,000,000 of bonds. Those twelve million of 4 per cent bonds were _given to the stockholders. Not one cent of actual cash was given in consideration._ What has that to do with the parcels post question? Simply this: When the government installs a parcels post service that accepts, carries and _delivers_ packages weighing from twelve to twenty or more pounds these _looting express and railroad raiders will go out of business_. SUBSIDY RAIDERS. Everybody who has studied the question at all knows that all alleged deficits in the postal service are the malformed progeny of an illegal union between crooked public officials and criminal violators of the law enacted to establish and govern the carriage and delivery of mail matter in these United States. So noticeable has been the closed eyes and “rear view” of government officials while the railroad and express raiders raided and walked off with their loot that petty thieves began to shin up the posts of the Postoffice Department directly or sneak in by way of Congressional legislation. “What were they after?” Why, they wanted a “subsidy” for carrying foreign or ocean mails, or they wanted a “pork” contract--one of those contracts which renders little service for much money. Did you ever hear of Tahiti? No. It is _not_ a breakfast food nor a sure cure for cancers. It is an island. “Where?” Ask the Almighty. I don’t know, and I am doubtful whether the Almighty knows or _cares_. I know it is an island somewhere, because a few years ago the postal department entered into a contract with some “tramp” steamer flying a _rag_, which _close_ inspection might discover had _once_ been the American flag. The Postoffice Department paid that tramp $45,000 for carrying our mails to Tahiti--_a service that another vessel in the Tahiti trade offered to render for $3,500_. Can there be any _legitimate_ surprise or wonder at a “deficit” resulting from such business methods?