12 BULLETIN 589, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
ables the shipper to get his stock to market sooner, and that he is 
benefited through not having to pay for feeding his animals at sev- 
eral points in transit to market. It appears, also, that some carriers 
have resorted to the practice of marking their waybills to show that 
the confinement of the animals for a period of 36 hours has been 
authorized by the owner or shipper, when, as a matter of fact, such 
was not the case. 
The law requires that the request for extension of the period of 
confinement from 28 to 36 hours shall be a written one. A separate 
request must be made for each particular shipment. This require- 
ment was included in the law in order that the owner or shipper of 
live stock should exercise his own judgment as to the necessity of 
additional time. In other words, Congress believed that 28 hours 
was long enough, as a general rule, to keep live stock confined with- 
out feed, water, and rest; but the shipper or owner of the animals 
was allowed, if he thought it wise or to his interests, to authorize the 
carrier to continue the confinement of his animals for 8 hours more. 
Some carriers have procured such requests from the shippers upon 
the threat that they would unload the animals before even the 28-hour 
period had elapsed, unless the 36-hour requests were signed. The 
result of these practices is the practical abrogation of the 28-hour 
law and the substitution therefor of a 36-hour law. 
There seems to be a belief on the part of many of the agents of the 
railroads that oral requests by shippers to continue their live stock 
in transit for 36 hours before unloading for feed, water, and rest 
comply with the law. This is not so, and carriers should instruct 
their agents accordingly. In many cases such instructions would 
obviate the necessity for the Government to institute prosecutions 
and would save the railroads from the payment of penalties for the 
failure on the part of their agents to secure written instead of verbal 
requests. 
Another practice which sometimes has been followed by some of 
the carriers is that of placing upon the waybills and other shipping 
memoranda wrong notations as to the times of loading or reload- 
ing. As the various employees of the carriers along the line rely 
upon this information as correct, this often results in the confine- 
ment of the animals beyond the statutory period and the institution 
of prosecutions against the carriers for violations of the law. This 
is another instance in which the railroads undoubtedly could save 
themselves considerable money and inconvenience by issuing instruc- 
tions to their employees that notations made upon the waybills or 
other records should be strictly correct. The Government has no 
alternative but to prosecute the carriers when animals are confined 
beyond the statutory period without feed, water, or rest owing to 
