Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/103

 209 U.S. Opinion of the Court. criminal charges in each of the districts through which the transportation at an illegal rate is had. Take the present case. The charge is of a single, continuous carriage from Kansas City to New York at a concession. from the legal rate for the part of the carriage between the Mississippi River and New York of 12 cents for each 100 pounds so transported. This is a single, continuing offense, not a series of offenses, although it is continuously committed in each district through which the transportation is received at the prohibited rate. To say that this construction may work serious hardship in permitting prosecutions in places distant from the home and remote from the vicinage of the accused is to state an objection to the policy of the law, not to the power of Con- gress to pass it. Hyde v. Shine, 199 U.S. 62, 78. But this is �a large country, and the offense under consideration is one which may be constantly committed through its length and breadth. This situation arises from modern facilities for trans- portation and intercommunication in interstate transportation, and considerations of convenience and hardship, while they may appeal to the legislative branch of the Government, will not prcvent Congress from exercising its constitutional power in the management and control of interstate commerce. We think there was jurisdiction to prosecute for the offense charged within the Western District of MissoUri. It iz torther contended by petitioners that the statutes have no application to a shipment on a through bill of lading from an interior oint in the United States to a foreign port. It is alleged that the Elkins law refers to the original Interstate Commekce Act, and that its terms do not include such ship- mente. Analyzing the first section of the act (24 Star. 379), it is said that it applies to the following kinds of commerce: (a) interstate commerce; (b) cornmeres between the United States and an adjacent foreign country; (c) commerce between places in the United States passing through a foreign country; (d) commerce from the United States to a foreign country, only while being transported to a point of transhipment;

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