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Show WICKERSHAM A8KED TO SETTLE MATTERS. Washington, Sept. 22. Officials of the department of Justice admit tonight to-night that Postmaster General Hitchcock Hitch-cock has asked the department, as have hundreds of other tiuthoritles, to construe the rights of congress to re-qulro re-qulro newspapers and periodicals to furnish information, about copies which do not enter the malls but which circulate merely in a city or town by private carriers or nows-boys. nows-boys. Tho question of the constitutionality of the law is also involved. Early last wce"k Mi. Hitchcock made public a statement in whltfh he said that although he wan opposed to the , law and did not want the owners of magazines and newspapers to blame the postoffico department for it, ho intended in-tended to enforce it at once The blanks for filing in by tho newspapers and magazines Mere printed and some of them were sent out, but suddenly thoso were recalled and tho whole matter held in abeyance while the law was "referred to the department of Justice for interpretation. One of the most important problems presented by the curiously worded provision is that the average number of copies sold or distributed dally to "pad subscribers' be filed with tho postofflce department. These words havo been usually used by the department to denote persons who receive the papers through the malls by having contracted In. advance with tho publisher for them. One of tho things Mr Wickersham will have to determine will be whether in the case of dally newspapers the average circulation Is to include papers sold to purchasers on tho street. |