Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/785

 778 FEDBBAL BEPOBTEB. �ing or inMbitiQg persons from consigning stock to complain- ants, and from refusing to receive and transport stock from complainants' yard, and from interfering with or in any way disturbing the business of the complainants, and from re- fusing to permit the complainants to continue their busi- ness on the same terms as heretofore." The injunction asked foris both inhibitory and mandatory; it seeks to pro- hibit the doing of threatened and alleged wrongful acts, and to compel defendant to continue the facilities and accommo- dations heretofore accorded by defendant to complainants; and the q^uestion is, are complainants entitled, preliminarily, to the relief prayed for, or any part of it ? �The facts suggest the very important inquiry, how far rail- roads, called into being to subserve the public, can be lawfully manipulated by those who control them to advance, inoident- ally, their own private interests, or depress the business of par- ticular individuals or localities, for the benefit of other persons or communities. As common carriers they are by law bound to receive, transport, and deliver freights, offered for that purpose, in accordance vrith the usual course of business. The delivery, when pracfcicable, must be to the consignee. But the rule •which requires common carriers by land to de- liver to the consignee personally at his place of business, has been somewhat relaxed in favor of said roads on the ground that they have no means of delivering beyond their lines; but it was held in Vincent v. The Chicago e Alton R. Co. 49 111. 33, that at common law, and independent of the stat- ute relied on in the argument, that in cases where a shipment of grain was made to a party having a warehouse on the line of the carrying road, who had provided a Connecting track and was ready to receive it, it would be the duty of the rail- road Company to make a personal delivery otthe grain to the consignee at his warehouse ; because, say the court, "the com- mon-law rule must be applied, as the necessity of its relaxa- tion" did not exist. �This rule is just and convenient, and necessary to an expe- ditions and economical delivery of freights. It has regard to their proper classification, and to the circumstances of the ����