1--Pay the railroad an agreed percentage (usually about 50%) of the charges levied and collected by the express company for its service of sending matter by express. 2--Throw open its books and tariffs to the scrutiny of the railroad and furnish the railroad whatever additional documents and records may be necessary to determine the correctness of the sums assigned the railroad by the express company. 3--Carry free of charge money and other matter concerned with the business of the railroad. 4--Be responsible for any damage to the expressed goods. 5--Make its charges at least 150% of the freight charge of the railroads for similar merchandise. (The present charges average about 300% of the freight charges.) 6--Furnish, heat, light and man the cars necessary for the transportation of express matter. NOTES NOTE 1--This estimate is based on the following considerations. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, the official report of the Interstate Commerce Commission gives the average charge per shipment of the Adams and the United States Express Companies on August 18, 1909, and December 22, 1909, respectively--namely, $.4962 and $.4999, or an average of $.4980-1/2 per shipment in 1909. (Many shipments contain more than one parcel.) By dividing this sum into the known total amount of money collected by the express companies for the express services, we can obtain the total number of shipments for that year. But with the establishment of the parcel post in 1913 the character of the express business underwent a radical change. The fact that the parcel-post limits its shipments to parcels under a certain weight and under a certain size is one factor of the situation tending to transfer to the parcel-post from the express companies a larger number of smaller packages than of larger packages, and hence to make the average charge per package of the express company in 1917 higher than in 1909. A second factor tending in the same direction is the fact that the parcel-post limits the amount of insurance which may be placed on a valuable package, while the express company has no such limit, thereby keeping with the express company most of the valuable packages on which the high insurance makes a high rate. A third factor tending similarly is the fact that for shorter distances the parcel-post rate is lower on the whole than the express rate, whereas for longer distances the express rate is lower on the whole than the parcel-post rate; and accordingly the express companies' average haul was longer and hence at a higher rate in 1917 than in 1909, although not so much longer as might be expected, as has been shown above. A fourth factor of similar effect is the railroad congestion in 1917, causing the expressage of many heavy shipments which had formerly been dispatched as freight, especially in the latter part of the year.