"The railroad company has charge of all baggage mails in transit and receives them into and delivers them from the cars. It also handles other mails when necessary to transfer them between cars or trains. It is held responsible for reasonable care in their transportation. Deductions are made for failures to perform service according to contract, and fines are imposed for delinquencies. The company is required to keep a record of all pouch mails carried on trains in charge of their employees and handled at stations where more than one regular exchange pouch is involved and no mail transfer clerk is located, and to prepare and forward shortage slips when a pouch is due and not received. They are required to make monthly affidavits as to performance of service. It is understood that the company never assumes control of express matter. The Department is not informed as to the terms of contracts between railroad and express companies, and therefore can not state what responsibility is imposed as to transportation. "Mail cranes for the exchange of mail at points where trains do not stop are erected and kept in repair by and at the expense of the railroad company, whose employees must hang the mail bag on the crane and adjust it for catching at points where the company provides side service. The mail catchers are also furnished by them. No service of this character is rendered express companies. "A railroad company is required by law to carry the mails upon any train that may be run, when so ordered by the Postmaster-General, without extra charge therefor, and as a result the mails are carried on the fastest trains and with great frequency. Express matter is not as a rule carried on the fast limited passenger trains, nor with the frequency with which mails are carried. "In this connection your attention is invited to pages 84 to 94, 516, 517, 860 to 863, part 1, and pages 687 to 696, part 2, of the testimony before the Congressional Commission which investigated the postal service in 1900--Wolcott-Loud Commission. "Yours very truly, "F. H. HITCHCOCK, "_Postmaster-General_." The Government does not own any railroad, but, under the present system, the Post Office Department dictates to the railroad companies upon what passenger trains and in what kind of cars the mails shall be carried. It insists on such space and facilities as it deems necessary for the mails being furnished on the fastest and most expensive trains and demands that these trains keep their fast schedules; this means that all other trains on the road are side-tracked and delayed whenever that is necessary in order to expedite the mails. There are no such features in the express business.