When afterwards an attempt is made to hold the carriers to their duty as prescribed by any such rate sheet they escape responsibility through the neglect and omission of duty of their own agents.

Among the various devices which have from time to time been adopted by carriers for the purpose of reducing passenger rates without previously publishing notice of the contemplated reduction, as required by law, one deserves special mention.

It was availed of by one of the lines connecting Chicago with St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The price of unlimited tickets over the line in question, from Minneapolis or St. Paul to Chicago was, in March, 1890, $11.50, and the prices of special limited tickets, between the same places at the same time, were $7 for first class and $4 for second class.

The company's passenger rate sheet, in effect on the 12th day of March, 1890, and on file with the Commission, was, as respects rates from Minneapolis and St. Paul to Chicago, as follows:

On the day last referred to, to wit, the 12th day of March, 1890, cer tain prominent officials of the company in question sold to a ticket broker or scalper in Minneapolis 5,000 tickets, stamped on their face "special limited," at the price of $7 each, or $35,000 for the entire number sold. These tickets contained in the margin numbers from 1 to 31, inclusive, representing the number of days in the longest month, and also contained in the margin the names of all the months of the year, and figures expressing each year from 1890 to 1896, inclusive.

So that by means of cancellation of numbers expressing days and years, and of the names of the months, any date might be designated on the ticket from day of issue to December 31, 1896, inclusive. Each ticket also contained on its face the following:

This ticket will not be accepted for passage after date canceled in margin.

In point of fact no dates were canceled in the margin. Criminal proceedings were instituted against the officials of the company who sold the so-called "special limited" tickets above described, based upon the theory that such tickets were in fact "unlimited tickets. The charge of the indictment was, therefore, that the defendants violated the act by charging less to some persons than to others for the same service, etc., transportation from St. Paul to Chicago on unlimited tickets; and (2) by charging less than published rates for such transportation.

The published rate for unlimited tickets it will be remembered was $11.50, and the price at which the special tickets were sold by the officers of the company was $7. The court instructed the jury to acquit, holding under the evidence, and under its construction of the "special limited" ticket, that the latter did not carry all the privileges of the "unlimited ticket."

The court held in fact that the tickets in question, while unlimited as to the time within which a journey on one of them might be commenced, were limited to a continuous trip after the journey was once begun.

The evidence disclosed the common understanding of an "unlimited ticket" to be that there was no limit either to the time within which the journey on it should be commenced, or to the right to stop over at pleasure on the route.

The "special limited" tickets being held to differ from the " unlimited ticket” in the latter particular, the theory of the prosecution failed and the proceedings were ineffectual.

In the opinion of the court the "special limited" tickets, so called, differed in respect to the rights acquired by the holder thereof from both classes of tickets described in the published tariff of the carriers. From the unlimited ticket mentioned in the tariff, they differed in that they were limited as to stop-over privileges; from the limited ticket, mentioned in the tariff, they differed in that they were not limited as to time of commencing the journey under them.

The sixth section of the act to regulate commerce requires that the schedules of rates, fares, and charges, i. e., the tariff, published and filed with the Commission by carriers subject to the provision of the act, shall state separately "any rules or regulations which in anywise change, affect, or determine any part of the aggregate of such aforesaid rates, fares, and charges."

The rule or regulation affecting the price of limited tickets was probably intended by the carrier to be stated in that column of the tariff sheet, of which an extract has been given above, headed "days limit,” and fixing the limit at one day, this being understood to mean that a journey on a limited ticket could not be commenced later than one day after the issuance of the same. If this construction of the tariff sheet be correct it would appear very plain that the carrier issuing the socalled special limited tickets violated the law in failing to state on the tariff the "rules and regulations" affecting the same, or in other words the exact particular in which such special tickets were limited.

Had the district attorney framed the indictments against the parties upon this theory of violation of the law, the prosecutions might have been sustained.

If under the law as it now stands the device, which has been above explained, may be adopted by the carriers with impunity, the field would seem to be open at any time for a war of passenger rates between carriers, with all its attendant evils, or at least the provisions

of the act requiring previous publication, posting, and filing with the Commission of contemplated changes in rates may be practically set at naught.

The failure of railroad companies to establish, maintain, and make known to the public the rates the shipper must pay and the names of all the carriers undertaking to carry from place of shipment to destination at the stipulated rate leads to hindrance in continuous carriage, to the denial of equal facilities, to overcharges and abuses.

The following letter, received from merchants in Louisiana concerning the shipment of a single bale of cotton goods, illustrates how abuses result from the failure to establish, in conformity with law, joint rates and charges on continuous lines operated by more than one company: The following facts are already sworn testimony in a suit now on trial in our parish court, as yet undecided: In July, 1890, was shipped from St. Louis, Mo.,

to.

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Louisiana 1 bale of lowells or osnaburgs, under a bill of lading properly signed and stamped in every particular as usually required, and a rate inserted of 54 cents per 100 pounds, through to destination. On arrival, $1.18 per 100 pounds was charged, and upon our refusal to pay same and put in a claim for overcharge, waiting the pleasure of the railroad company to settle same, we were forced into a lawsuit for possession of the goods. The attorneys of the railroad company have availed themselves of every technicality and subterfuge known to our State laws to make us pay the $1.18 rate in a suit now lasting over a year, and yet undecided.

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Appendix C, prepared in the auditor's division, is an instructive report or statement both as to the practices of carriers and requirements of law in the matter of preparation, publication, and filing of schedules of rates and charges; and it must be admitted that, while substantial progress is being made in most of the subject-matters of regulation, there are many abuses still practiced which it was the object of the law to prevent. COMMISSION DEPENDENT UPON THE COURTS FOR EFFICIENT EXECUTION OF THE ACT.

Considered in its relation to the methods and practices prevailing at the time of its enactment, the law to regulate commerce enacted a new standard of right and wrong, and was intended to completely change many of the methods and practices then in general use in railway management. It was believed by the Commission that a law affecting interests of such magnitude as those involved in the business of railway transportation would not be best administered and executed by such hasty action as would necessarily invite and provoke hurtful opposition and antagonisms; and it was thought both prudent and just that such reasonable time should be given for adjustment to new conditions as might enable the carriers to so modify their classifications, schedules, and methods as to promote their own and the public interests while complying with the law.

Though required to execute and enforce the provisions of the act, the Commission not being invested with power to enforce its own

orders, is dependent for the efficiency of such execution and enforcement upon the courts; and while much progress has been made in the work of regulation and in the general observance of the law, the orders of the Commission are not always obeyed and performed by the carriers to be affected. Within the year, and in compliance with the provisions of section 16 of the act, applications have been made by petition to the United States circuit court, and suits are now pending for the enforcement of orders which, with a single exception, were made in previous years, and one or more of them by the Commission as originally constituted.

Such petitions have been filed:

In the southern district of California, against the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad Company, to enforce an order enjoining that company from making any greater charge on certain articles of general merchandise carried from places of production to San Bernardino, the shorter distance, than is at the same time charged on like articles carried from the same places through San Bernardino to Los Angeles, a longer distance.

In the eastern district of Pennsylvania, against the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, to enforce an order requiring reduction in the charges for carrying coal from the Pennsylvania anthracite coal regions to New York, and in which proceeding the authority of the Commission to determine what rates are reasonable as well as what are unreasonable is questioned.

In the northern district of Georgia, against the Georgia and other railroad companies, enjoining and forbidding any greater charge to Social Circle, Ga., a shorter distance, than is made to Augusta, Ga., over the same line, on buggies and carriages shipped from Cincinnati, Ohio.

In the northern district of Georgia, against the Georgia Railroad Company, to enforce order requiring equal accommodations and treatment of colored and white persons paying the same fare.

In the western district of Michigan, against the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railroad Company, to enforce order forbidding maintenance of free cartage at Grand Rapids, Mich., which is not maintained to the shorter distance station, Ionia, Mich.

Copies of the petitions and answers thereto filed in the cases in which these several orders were made are found in Appendix D.

ENFORCING THE ACT-CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS.

The act to regulate commerce contemplates two methods of enforcing compliance with its provisions; one by the imposition of criminal penalties for infractions of the law; the other by civil proceedings in the Federal courts to compel obedience to "the lawful order or requirement" of the Commission.

The tenth section of the act, containing its penal enactments, provides that

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Any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act, or whenever such common carrier is a corporation, any person acting for or employed by such corporation who shall violate the provisions of the act, by way either of commission or omission, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor.

It has been held by one of the circuit judges of the United States, apparently in view of the language above quoted, that-

Corporations acting as common carriers between States are not liable criminally for violations of the interstate commerce act; nor are they exposed to its penalties or forfeiture.

Nearly, if not quite, all carriers subject to the act to regulate commerce are corporations, and it is plain, therefore, under this construction, that criminal penalties can be visited only upon persons "acting for or employed by such corporations," and against such persons, presumably, only when they actually participate in, or are responsible for, the act or omission which the statute condemns. In this respect the law is defective at an important point, and should be corrected by suitable amendment. The imposition of criminal penalties upon railway officials, as well as the corporation itself, where such officials participate in a violation of the law, is unquestionably a wise and salutary feature of the act. Indeed, in those cases where punishment by imprisonment is prescribed, such punishment can, in the nature of things, be inflicted only on a real individual or natural person, and not on an abstract entity or artificial person like a corporation.

In very many cases, however, where the punishment prescribed is a fine, or pecuniary penalty, it is much more appropriate that the real offender, the principal rather than the agent, should be compelled to suffer; and the law-making power has undoubted authority to provide for the criminal prosecution of the corporation itself. Where criminal proceedings are instituted against the officers and agents of a railroad company for violations of the law which in no way inure to their personal advantage, but which are committed in the interest, real or sup posed, of the corporations they represent, there is liable to be a sentiment in the minds of the public, and possibly of jurors also, which militates against conviction, even when the evidences of guilt appear to be conclusive. In some instances this sentiment has been assiduously cultivated, and perhaps not without effect; for although it may be believed that a fine imposed upon an official will be paid by the company to which he belongs, yet the obvious fact that some employé, or petty officer is sought to be convicted, while the corporation itself, the real beneficiary of the transaction, not only goes unpunished, but is adjudged incapable of criminal wrongdoing, tends both to nullify the law in the particular case and to bring its penal provisions into general discredit. In addition to these considerations is the further fact that in many cases, especially where the offense consists in the failure or omission to