New Orleans Cotton Exchange v. Louisville, New Orleans and Texas Railway Company.

1. Posting schedules of rates and charges.-Common carriers are required to post in their depots, stations, and offices, schedules showing the rates and charges for transportation in force on the routes of such carriers, as well on freight which is, as on that which is not, for export.

2. Order of reparation.-Where a carrier corrects the inequality of rates complained of and thus makes all the reparation asked in the complaint, or that the Commission could afford, no order is required, and none will be issued..

The Delaware State Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry v. The New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad Company, The Delaware Railroad Company, The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Company, and The Pennsylvania Railroad Company.

1. For a special service by a carrier, such as the transportation of perishable freight, requiring quick movement, prompt delivery at destination, special fitting up of cars, their withdrawal from other service, and their return empty on fast time, all involving greater expense to the carrier, a higher rate than for the carriage of ordinary freight is warranted by the conditions of the service and is reasonable and just.

2. But the higher rate for a special service should bear a just relation to the value of the service to the traffic, and is not wholly in the discretion of the carrier. While a carrier should be fully compensated, the public interests require that the traffic should not be rendered valueless to the producer, if the charges of the carrier have such an effect and can be reasonably reduced. 3. The requirement of the statute that all rates shall be reasonable and just involves a consideration of the commercial value of the traffic, and implies that rates should be so adjusted that producers of traffic as well as carriers may carry on their pursuits successfully, if practicable for both, and without injustice to the carrier. The public good requires what is plainly the spirit of the law, that the transportation interests are not alone to be considered, but that in the just exercise of regulation care should be taken that the lawful and necessary occupations of citizens are not unjustly burdened.

4. The complaint was that the defendants' charges for the transportation of specified perishable articles of truck-farming from stations on their lines of railroad to. Jersey City and Philadelphia were excessive and unreasonable, and that the charges were higher for the shorter distances from their stations on the peninsula in Delaware and Maryland than for the longer distance from Norfolk, Va. It was found that the charges on certain articles specified from stations on the peninsula were excessive and a reduction was ordered. The reduced rates are, however, in many cases still considerably above the rates on the same articles from Norfolk, and the showing not being sufficient to enable the Commission to determine satisfactorily how far the lower Norfolk rates were justified by the differences in the conditions and circumstances, that subject is left for future consideration.

John P. Squire & Company v. The Michigan Central Railroad Company, The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company, The Boston and Albany Railroad Company.

1. The provision of the third section of the act to regulate commerce, prohibiting carriers from making or giving any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, firm, company, corporation, or locality, or any particular description of traffic, in any respect whatsoever, not only applies to relative rates on one description of traffic shipped to or from competing localities, but also to relative rates on differently described articles which are competitive in the same markets; and when carriers have established rates on articles of competitive traffic - which are relatively reasonable and fair, they can not arbitrarily select particular articles of such traffic and materially raise or lower rates so established thereon without violating that provision of the statute.

2. The relation of rates ought to rest upon fixed and stable conditions. The fluctuations of markets are so frequent, especially as to competitive articles, and oftentimes unexpected, that commercial considerations alone would not furnish a sufficiently stable and fixed rule for guidance in making a rate that should remain substantially permanent through all fluctuations. The Commission does not, by a fixing of rates, attempt to overcome advantages which one producer or dealer may have in his geographical location, and to produce equality between competitors in all markets. It would be a useless task, even if it had the power, to attempt to accomplish such a result. The proper relation of rates for transportation of strictly competitive articles over the same line should be determined by reference to respective costs of service ascertained. with all possible accuracy.

3. Violation by one carrier of principles laid down in this case as governing relative rates on competitive articles does not justify similar violations by its competitors.

4. The rates involved in this case are those on live hogs, live cattle, and the dressed products of each. These are found to be competitive commodities, and therefore entitled to relatively reasonable rates for transportation proportioned to each other according to the respective costs of service.

Jacob Shamberg v. The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company and The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad Com

pany.

A firm of cattle dealers in the city of New York, who procured their cattle on a large scale from Chicago and other Western points for domestic consumption as well as for export, make an arrangement with two interstate rail carriers, constituting a through line from Chicago to New York, that the said firm will, under the name of an express company of their own creation, furnish not less than 200 or more than 400 improved live stock cars for the transportation of these cattle. For the rental of these improved stock cars the carriers pay this express company three-fourths of a cent per mile, whether loaded or empty. Extraordinary facilities and rights of way are given these cars to enable them to make a large mileage, and they make more than twice the mileage of ordinary stock cars. Besides this, the carriers pay 50 cents for the loading of each of said cars with cattle at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago,

for which no charge is made against the express company or the firm represented by it. In addition to this the carriers pay this firm yardage at the rate of 33 cents per hundred pounds on all their cattle, and upon all other cattle hauled for other firms in the care of this firm, owning the express company, to its yards at Pier 45, East River. This yardage charge is thus paid to the said firm by the said carriers for keeping their cattle in the firm's own yards after delivery of them to the firm, and then this yardage charge is deducted from the tariff rate charged by the carrier. The amount of these rebates to this firm in rates on these cattle by these carriers more than pays the entire cost of the improved stock cars within two years after operations are commenced with them, including the expenses of operation, leaving said firm owning the cars and still operating them with all these advantages and rates and facilities. Held—

1. This is an unlawful preference to the firm owning these improved stock cars and a violation of the act to regulate commerce.

2. It is an unlawful and unjust prejudice to other cattle firms and dealers in New York who are competitors in the business of said firm owning said improved stock cars.

The New York and Northern Railway Company v. The New York and New England Railroad Company, The Housatonic Railroad Company, and The New England Terminal Company.

1. Discrimination between connecting lines.-The respondent, which is a carrier by a railroad running through the State of Connecticut to a point in New York, had had for some time a through billing arrangement and an agreement upon through rates for traffic over its own line destined to New York City, with petitioner's road, which connected therewith at its New York terminus. This arrangement respondent broke up and declined to enter into any new one in its place.

The reason for breaking up the arrangement was that respondent had entered into a new arrangement with another road connecting with it at a point in Connecticut, whereby a New York City line was formed over which it was intended to take the business which formerly passed over respondent's line to petitioner's. It was not complained that petitioner's road was insolvent or not responsible for its contracts, or that the arrangement as before existing was unfair or unequal as between the parties thereto. Such action of the respondent is held to be in violation of the second paragraph of section 3 of the act to regulate commerce, which requires that "every common carrier subject to the provisions of this act shall, according to their respective powers, afford all reasonable, proper, and equal facilities for the interchange of traffic between their respective lines, and for the receiving, forwarding, and delivering of passengers and property to and from their several lines and those connecting therewith, and shall not discriminate in their rates and charges between such connecting lines; but this shall not be construed as requiring any such common carrier to give the use of its tracks or terminal facilities to another carrier engaged in like business. 2. Interest in the competing line.-One reason assigned for breaking up the arrangement with petitioner was that respondent was joint owner with the road making the new line of a terminal company for delivery of freight in New York. This interest is not an ex

cuse under the statute for discrimination against petitioner's line, and this whether the interest in the terminal company was large or small. Petitioner did not require or ask the services of the terminal company, but only to be allowed to continue as competitor for the business affected by the discrimination, and to offer its services to the public as such. It is found in the case that the public interest was injuriously affected by the discrimination. 3. Terminal delivery by an agent.-It is of no importance to the question involved that after freight carried by petitioner's road reached High Bridge, in New York, its delivery from that point to the pier, which constituted the terminus of the carriage, was made by an agent or contractor employed for the purpose. Petitioner, being carrier for the whole distance, was entitled to the privileges given by the statute accordingly.

Frederick P. Beaver and William D. Chamberlin, doing business under the firm name of Beaver & Company, v. The Pittsburg, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway Company, The Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad Company, The New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company, The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway Company, The Dayton, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway Company, The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company, The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company, The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, The Wabash Railroad Company, The Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City Railway Company, The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad Company, The Missouri Pacific Railway Company, The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company, The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad Company, The Union Pacific Railway Company, and The Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company. 1. Where two kinds of soap are made use of for the same purposes, and are advertised and held out to the world as suited for like purposes, and are substantially equal in value, they should both for purposes of transportation and rating be placed in the same classification.

2. The soaps known as the Ivory Soap and the Grand Pa's Wonder Soap fall within this rule. Both are represented as suitable for laundry and also for toilet purposes, and both are used for those purposes. It would therefore be unjust discrimination to place one of them in a classification as toilet soap and the other in a much lower classification as laundry soap.

The James & Mayer Buggy Company . The Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway Company, The Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, and The Georgia Railroad Company.

1. Same rate for longer and shorter distances.-Ordinarily longer distances warrant higher charges, but carriers may lawfully accept the same aggregate, though less profitable, rates for longer distances, provided such carriers do not "subject any particular person, company, firm, corporation or locality, or any particular description of traffic, to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage."

2. Greater charge for shorter distances.-The circumstances and conditions which make a greater charge for a shorter distance law

ful relate to the nature and character of the transportation service rendered by the carrier over the same line to the longer and shorter distance points.

3. Same.-Water competition to justify the greater charge for the shorter distance must be competition in transportation to the longer-distance point and as to freight which, if not carried over the line on which it is located, would reach such destination by water transportation.

4. Same. Goods shipped from Cincinnati, Ohio, to points in the State of Georgia are interstate traffic and all the roads forming a part of the line over which such goods are carried to their destination are engaged in interstate commerce and are subject to the act to regulate commerce. Where two or more roads forming a continuous connecting line between points in different States bill and carry interstate traffic through to certain stations on the last road forming such line, neither the roads together nor any one of them can evade the obligations of the fourth section of said act by declaring that as to such traffic destined to such stations on such terminal road it is a local carrier.

The Boston Fruit and Produce Exchange v. The New York and New England Railroad Company, The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, The Central Railroad Company of New Jersey, and The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company.

At the hearing of this case. upon its merits, the Commission prescribed the freight rate upon peaches in carload lots, from New Jersey and the Delaware Peninsula, to Boston, Mass. One of the defendants filed a motion for rehearing, based upon the claim that some of the other defendants construed the decision of the Commission as justifying them in insisting that the freight charge prescribed should be divided among the carriers on a mileage basis merely:

Held, That the former decision of the Commission could not be fairly construed as justifying the claim that the single freight charge between the interstate points should be divided on a mileage basis merely; that many of the considerations which induced the fixing of an increased rate for the special service were peculiar to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and in which the other carriers east of the Harlem River did not participate; that, under the pleadings and evidence in this case, the Commission could only prescribe a single rate for the service as an entirety, to be reasonably and fairly divided among the several carriers by themselves; that the motion for a rehearing be overruled.

Daniel Buchanan v. The Northern Pacific Railroad Company. The rates on wheat and barley, of 50 and 56 cents per hundredweight, respectively, charged by defendant from Ritzville, Wash., to St. Paul, Minn., a distance of 1,576 miles, in view of the circumstance and conditions surrounding the traffic, held not to be unreasonable.

The Railroad Commission of Florida v. The Savannah, Florida and Western Railway Company, The Charleston and Savannah Railway Company, The North Eastern Railroad Company of South Carolina, The Wilmington, Columbia and Augusta Railroad Company, The