TWELFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 183 



me some time ago on the matter of insurance on stock while in 

 the yards at Chicago. He said they had been discussing the 

 matter in the exchange and trying to locate the responsibility in 

 case of loss by fire. They didn't think they were liable, and had 

 been advised by lawyers whom they had consulted that the cat- 

 tle were the shipper's until they w^ere sold. The occasion of his 

 writing me was that there was a proposition on foot to add 25 

 cents a carload to the commission charges to pay insurance, but 

 he said the Corn Belt Meat Producers' Association had kicked 

 so against the increased commissions that he wanted to know w^hat 

 we thought about it before he took a position as a member of 

 the board. That was two or three years ago. Recently I asked 

 him if there had been anything done about the matter, and he 

 said no. I wrote him that as far as I was concerned, 25 cents 

 a carload didn't amount to anything. He thought 25 cents a 

 carload on what came in there would pay an insurance that would 

 protect the shippers, and I have sometimes thought maybe it was 

 worth looking into. 



Mr. Ames: I don't remember of one carload of cattle being 

 lost by fire in the stock exchange at Chicago — not saying but 

 what there might have been. In the next place, as soon as the 

 cattle leave your hands and enter the stock exchange of your 

 shipping station, they don't belong to you. I doubt very much 

 if you can go down to the stock exchange at Chicago, after eon- 

 signing a load to your commission firm, and get that load of 

 cattle until they are sold, unless he wants to give them to you. 

 They belong to the man who has them in charge. You ask the 

 railroad company to settle for your cattle in case of an accident 

 on the way, and because it has assumed the responsibility of 

 those cattle for the time being they belong to it. If my steers 

 were lost in Chicago by fire, I wouldn't go to the Stock Exchange 

 Company, and I doubt very much if I would go to the railroad 

 company. I would have to go to my commission firm, and if they 

 were worth it I could get my money. 



Mr. Wallace : Does not the commission company act as your 

 agent in selling those cattle? 



Mr. Ames : No ; they own those cattle, to all intents and pur- 

 poses. They have it in their power to sell a load of cattle con- 

 signed to them in^spite of all that you can do. 



