Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/448

 436 PEDEEAL EBPOBTEB. �trains as the proper authorities of the post-office department may require, and for such compensation as may be agreed on between the parties ; or, in case they cannot agree, then at rates fixed by certain commissioners, at not less, -when carried on passenger trains, than the rate for transporting an equal weight of matter on ordinary merchandise trains, with provisions for compensation for car, extra speed, etc. Article 4235. �The legislature had full and minute Knowledge of the ex- istence and extent and manner of conducting the express business of the country, and was mindful to impose on every person, firm, or association of persons doing an express busi- ness in this state an annual tax of $750. Article 4665. The legislature, at least equally with the courts, had knowledge that express matter was carried in a particular manner on passenger and other fast trains, and not received, receipted for, or taken charge of by any of the servants of the railroad corporations. The legislature had knowledge also that this business, as to the compensation to the railroads therefor, had ever been and continued to be regniated by special con- traets between the railroad companies and the express com- panies. Express matter is nowhere in any way specially mentioned in the statute. It is not provided that such mat- ter shall be carried on other trains than ordinary marchan- dise trains, �It is, perhaps, true that the terms of the statute do neces- sarily include ail matter received by the railroads and trans- ported in the care of its servants, without regard to the quality of the matter or the train upon which it is carried. A rail- road Company could not, perhaps, receive a hundred pounds of fresh oysters in the shell at Galveston, and haul the same to Dallas, and (because its servants called it "express freight," and consented to haul it in a baggage car attached to a pas- senger train) charge more than 50 cents per hundred miles for the haul. �Upon a careful consideration of ail the provisions of the Texas statutes bearing upon the subjeot, the inclination of my mind is to the opinion that it was not the intention of ��� �