We’ll first divide (look back at that 1907 table), 873,412,077 pounds by .3638—that being the percentage of second-class to the total of mail carried, as reported in the “special weighing” of 1907.
Well, .3638 into 873,412,077 gives us 2,400,802,850 pounds as the gross mail weight carriage in 1910.
That does not look near so large, nor so questionably peculiar, as does some other “answers” we are figuring out on our little red school-house slates.
Looking back to that 1907 tabulated estimate, we find that, of the total weight carried—and paid for as mail—.4308 of that total for which we patriotic, likewise confiding, kitchen-garden citizens pay is not mail at all.
A glance at that 1907 tabulation will show us that 43.08 per cent. of the total mail weight for which the government pays is for “equipment” and “empty equipment dispatched.”
Now let’s take our slates again and multiply that total weight 2,400,802,850 pounds by .4308. “Well, what’s your answer?”
One billion, thirty-four million, two hundred forty-five thousand, eight hundred and sixty-eight pounds!
Well, that’s some tonnage, is it not? Of course, as the reader will readily grab hold of, that tonnage is not, in itself, staged as a “feature” in this “ciphering.” This is a big country and its tonnages are big, whether of wheat, corn, pigs, fools, or mail. It is a “curtain” comparison we desire to have noticed and studied. Look at it, study it prayerfully, then put your thinker to work for about thirty seconds.
According to the Postoffice Department’s own figures and estimates, it appears that a total tonnage of 2,400,000,000 pounds (omitting the tail figures), were handled, and the cost of all paid for by this grand old government of ours.