Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/514

500 rates exist where there is the greatest traffic, and that "between all the thickly settled portions of the State" the rates are considerably lower than prescribed by the orders of the commissioners. An appended table in the same report shows that during the year 1881 the principal railroad company in the State had forty-six stations from which no passengers were carried, sixty-two from which the daily average was from one passenger each two days to one in thirty days, and there were forty stations to which no tickets were sold. It is in these cases, the report explains, that the highest rates prevail.

It thus appears that the discriminations which may be fairly exercised as to persons are not affected by the personality, but by the traffic. Like rates under like circumstances to all is certainly the common rule in experience, and in nearly every State any violation of this is properly prohibited by law. The railroad takes no cognizance of the person, but exerts all its efforts toward developing the traffic. The passenger who pays a cent and a half per mile for a single-trip ticket may, if he chooses, buy a sixty-ride ticket at one third that rate. The possibility of development depends upon population; it is greatest between great cities and their suburbs, and least in the sparsely settled plains and mountains of the West.

The discriminations which are popularly supposed to favor persons in the transportation of freight, it will appear, are in a similar way caused by the traffic, and not by the person. Some of these depend on the difference between things, the remainder upon the differences in the situation of places.

—There are some discriminations between things, the justice of which will at once be recognized, as there is an obvious difference between them. Light and bulky articles occupying an unusual amount of space should, if charged by weight, be charged at a higher rate than more compact things; fragile articles involve a greater loss to the railroad from breakage, which entails a greater average cost in their transportation; and valuable commodities being more frequently stolen, and as frequently lost, entail an extra rate to cover the insurance while in transit which is assumed by the carrier. But, aside from these obvious differences of bulk and value, which justify a difference in rates, there are other discriminations between things which will be found to be chiefly based on the volume of the traffic and the possibility of its development.

On examination we will find that the discrimination in these cases also is justified by a difference in the cost of the service. Large quantities are moved at a lower rate of cost per ton per mile than are smaller quantities. A car fully loaded to one consignee is carried at a great advantage over the same car partially loaded with small shipments to various persons; and train-loads running through with grain or coal, it will readily be seen, may be carried and handled at a lower rate per ton per mile than shipments aggregating an equal tonnage