Although the magazine was free of charge to its readers, at first they were supposed to pay a subscription fee of 10 cents per year to qualify the magazine for the second-class mailing rate—an important consideration for such a bulky magazine (a single copy weighed more than 1-1/2 pounds!). Second-class postage saved the magazine nearly $8,000 per year. Always open-hearted, Mr. Holmes was not especially diligent in collecting this fee. By 1910 it, in any case, became unnecessary. That year, the Ziegler gained passage through Congress of a bill that allowed magazines for blind people to be mailed postage-free, provided they did not charge subscriptions or carry paid advertising. In 1904 Congress had enacted a free mailing privilege for books loaned by libraries for the blind, but the Post Office would not allow this to apply to magazines until 1910, when Congressman William H. Stafford of Wisconsin introduced a bill specifically designed to spare the Ziegler the expense of postage. This bill, which Holmes instigated, has since benefitted every comparable periodical for the blind and physically handicapped.