Excerpt from Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, 1908, Vol. 31 Recent events have brought private freight-car lines into unpleasant prominence. Popular articles have been written denouncing the evil practices of the companies owning such cars. The Interstate Commerce Commission has investi gated these companies, holding special hearings for the pur pose, and the Committees on Interstate Commerce of the Senate and House of Representatives have received testi mony in regard to them. The principal alleged abuse which has given rise to agitation against privately owned cars has been the icing charges of certain powerful com panics operating refrigerator cars, and it is about this type of car that the controversy has thus far largely centered. Private companies also own cars built to carry cattle, oil, coal, furniture, and many other commodities, which differ in important respects from the majority of the freight cars owned by the railroads, although the railroads, too, now own many cars of special design. Private freight cars are usually, therefore, cars built to carry particular kinds of commodities. Box cars and flat cars are thus eliminated, and, although coal cars come under this description, they will not be treated to any extent in this monograph. It will be convenient to refer to such cars in future as special equipment cars. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.