Why  do  not  our  postal  officials  and  commissions  reach  out  to
Cornville  and  summon  a  few  eighth-grade  nubbins  ?  Then  turn  over
to  them  the  wastefully  collected  and  collated  statistics,  data  and  talk
which  the  Postoffice  Department  has  in  cold  storage  and  tell  them  to
"go  to  it"  at,  say,  $25  per  week?

Yes,  why  not  ?

Skilled  lawyers,  reputed  "experts,"  men  of  "experience"  and
"students,"  it  would  seem,  have  told  all  they  know  about  this  railway
mail  cost  problem — told  the  truth  or  equivocated  or  lied  about  it,  to


POSTAL   RIDERS   AND   RAIDERS.  277

the  best  of  their  ability  and  in  full  accord  and  harmony  with  their
several  "standards"  of  veracity.  Still  they  have  failed  to  uncover  or
to  divulge  the  essential  and  governing  factors  in  the  problem — failed
for  thirty  or  forty  years.  Is  it  not  about  time,  then,  for  sensible  people,
I  would  ask,  to  enter  the  plea  of  the  Master  and  say,  "Suffer  little
children  to  come  unto  me?"

Any  average  "shock"  of  eighth-grade  nubbins  from  Cornville,  or
from  other  hamlets  where  the  "little  red  school  house"  has  been  in
fairly  active  operation,  will  "figger"  the  cost — the  cost  to  the  railroads —
of  mail  haulage  and  handling,  in  not  to  exceed  four  weeks.
