APPENDIX. 593 



589. 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 a name of an express company of their own creation, 

 furnish not less than two hundred or more than four hundred 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-fourtlis 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 

 fifty 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 represe'nted by it. In addition to this the carriers pay this firm yard- 

 age at the rate of three and one-half cents per hundred pounds on all their 

 cattle, and upon all other cattle handled for other firms in the care of this firm 

 owning the express company, to its yards at pier forty-five, East Kiver. 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 own- 

 ing 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 im- 

 proved stock cars. 



595. 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." 



609. For the carrier to pay the larger expense of the transportation of a 

 remote shipper's merchandise to the station, and not to pay the less expense of 

 such transportation of the nearer shipper's merchandise, would be the equivalent 

 of a rebate to the former, the railroad service proper being the same to each and 

 at the same rate; nor would it be treating all patrons with statutable equality 

 to bear a part of the cartage expenses for one shipper and not bear a part of it 

 for -mother. 



S20. The possible influence of water competition upon rates for the trans- 

 portation of oranges and the nonexistence of such competition in the carriage of 

 berries, because the latter can not be carried by water in any considerable 

 quantities, does not authorize defendants to take advantage of the situation and 

 charge unreasonable rates on berries. 



632. Comparison with rates in other localities where dissimilar conditions 

 and modifying circumstances are found is not sufficient to establish the unreason- 

 ableness of the charges complained of. When no discrimination is alleged as 

 between points of production tributary to the same market, or on account of 

 disproportionate rates on different kinds of traffic similar in character and 

 volume, it must affirmatively appear that the charges assailed are unreasonable 

 and ought to be reduced. 



637. The Commission possesses no authority to compel carriers subject to 

 its jurisdiction to provide any particular kind of cars or other special equipment, 

 but, in the absence of adequate equipment freely afi'orded to all patrons alike, 

 carriers should so adjust rates between those who can not furnish their own 

 conveyance that in the relative charges to each there shall be no discrimination 

 against the dependent shipper. 



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