The following Scale of Charges will apply as herein before instructed:

Fresh fish requiring ice for preservation in transit may be carried between all points at net weight, with 25 per cent added when ice is used.

DECISIONS

AND

ADJUSTMENT OF COMPLAINTS.

Free Passes.

The Commission in session December, 29, 1897, issued order as follows: WHEREAS, By section 4 of the Railroad Commission Act, ratified March 5th, 1891, it is made unlawful for any railroad to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person in any respect whatsoever in any matter of transportation to the prejudice or disadvantage of another person in any respect whatsoever; and whereas, said Act, according to the construction of the courts, prohibits the collecting or receiving from any person a greater or less compensation for any service rendered in the transportation of passengers or property than it demands or collects or receives from any other person for a like service under substantially similar circumstances and conditions; and whereas, said Act prohibits any discrimination whatever between individuals, firms, companies or corporations, in the matter of passenger or freight service, and commands equality as to all, subject to certain exceptions particularly set forth in section 25 of said Act; and whereas, said Act has been judicially interpreted to prohibit what is known as “dead head" or "free passes," subject to the exceptions aforesaid; it is therefore

Resolved, That this Commission will take whatever measures that may be lawful to enforce the aforesaid provisions of said Act, and to enforce the penalties therein prescribed for its violation.

It is further ordered that the Clerk of this Board give due notice of this resolution to all railroads doing business in this State, by transmitting copy of this resolution to the managing officers of the railroads of the State.

January 1, 1898.

Lost Freight.

LAMBETH & BRO.

VS.

RALEIGH AND AUGUSTA RAILROAD COMPANY.

Complaint for failure of defendant to deliver shipment of wool, and asking that an order be issued requiring the payment of damage sustained. Served November 18, 1897.

At a session of the Commission January 1, 1898, it appearing that the loss complained had been paid to plaintiff and no further relief was demanded, case was closed.

January 1, 1898.

CONNER

VS.

WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH COMPANY.

Telegraphic Service.

Plaintiff filed his complaint alleging very poor and unsatisfactory telegraphic service at Rich Square; that for hours at a time a message can not be sent or received on account of the poor equipment of the line.

Copy of complaint was served on defendant, with request to investigate the cause of complaint. Answer was received through Superintendent J. B. Tree, saying that the service had been improved, a new set of repeaters and other telegraphic appliances, and that in future there would be no cause for complaint.

At a session of the Commission January 1, 1898, it appearing that no further relief was asked, case was closed.

January 1, 1898.

Telephone Rates.

The Railroad Commissioners, having considered the matter of Telephone Rates, issued order as follows:

CIRCULAR No. 73.

On and after the first day of February, 1898, all Telephone Companies within this State, whether incorporated or otherwise, will be allowed a maximum charge for service, as follows, viz:

This tariff does not apply to service rendered outside the corporate limits of any city or town.

On January 17, 1898, the Southern Bell Telephone Company filed exceptions to this order as follows:

(1) The Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company excepts to the ex parte order of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of North Carolina fixing the annual rentals of telephone instruments and exchange service, on the ground that, under what is known as the Railroad Commission Act, passed by the Legislature of said

State during the year A. D. 1891, and the acts amendatory thereof, the said Railroad Commission had no authority or jurisdiction to enter said order.

(2) That the Railroad Commission sitting as a Court of Record in a cause known as the State of North Carolina upon the relation of the Board of Railroad Commissioners upon the complaint of G. W. Purefoy, M. D., et als. against The Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, a corporation of the State of New Yorkadjudged, and decreed that said Board had no jurisdiction to regulate or fix the rate for the rental of telephone instruments and exchange service, as witness copy of its said adjudication or decree herewith annexed, marked Exhibit "A." That each adjudication and decree has not been appealed from, and remains in full force and effect, as res adjudicata between the parties and between the State of North Carolina, the said Board of Railroad Commissioners and the said Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company.

(3) That said order of January 7, 1898, was made without notice to the said Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company without giving it an opportunity to be heard and without evidence submitted to the said Board of Railroad Commissioners to support the said order, and it is setting aside by the said Board not sitting as a court, but as a ministerial body, of what it had decided and decreed as a court, and what could only be set aside by judicial proceedings duly taken.

(4) That the said Board of Railroad Commissioners attempted to lawfully prescribe rates for the annual rental of telephone instruments and exchange service, and the same were published on pages 51 and 52 of its Sixth Annual Report; that even if the said Board had the power to fix such rates yet it was necessary for the said Board to have testimony before it in order for it to change the rates to those as set forth in its said order of January 7, 1898, or for it to show in what other, way it concluded that the said rates set forth in its said order of January 7, 1898, were just and reasonable.

(5) Without evidence it would be impossible for the said Board to say what rates would be just and reasonable, and the said Board must say upon what evidence the said rates ordered January 7, 1898, are based.

(6) That in fixing the rates named in said order of January 7, 1898, the said Board of Railroad Commissioners did not consider the requirements set out in section 5 of said Railroad Commission Act passed A. D. 1891, and ignored the legislative restrictions therein set forth-the same being published by said Board in the Sixth Annual Report thereof.

(7) That the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, from which Board of Railroad Commissioners derived its power, authority and existence, did not give or attempt to give the said Board the power to make an arbitrary rate; and the said rates as per said order of January 7, 1898, being arbitrary, are void.

(8) That if the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina attempted to give said Board the power or authority to make arbitrary rates, the said rates as per said order of January 7, 1898, being arbitrary, are null and void, it being beyond the power of the said General Assembly to give said power as aforesaid.

(9) That said order of January 7, 1898, was in derogation of the constitutional right of the said Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company in that it violates the provisions of section 1, of the 14th amendment to the Constitution of the United States in that the enforcement of said rates would deprive said company of its property without due process of law and deny to it the equal protection of the laws which protect private property.

(10) That the said rates prescribed or fixed in said order of January 7, 1898, are not fair, just or reasonable.

(11) That the said Board of Railroad Commissioners is not lawfully constituted(a) For that the part of said Railroad Commission Act giving the Governor of North Carolina the power to remove the Commissioners was in violation of the Constitution of North Carolina and of the United States.

(b) For that a supercedeas had been allowed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of said State and had been issued preventing L. C. Caldwell and John H. Pearson from acting as members of said Board, and when said order of January 7, 1898, was made said Caldwell and Pearson were acting as such members.

On February 17, 1898, a hearing on the exceptions was given. After argument of counsel and consideration it is ordered:

That each and all the exceptions of the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company to Circular No. 73 fixing a tariff of rates for Telephone Companies be and are hereby overruled. Said rates effective on and after the first day of February, 1898.

From this order the defendant appealed.

Case pending.

January 1. 1898.

N. GLENN WILLIAMS

VS.

SOUTHERN RAILWAY.

Commutation Ticket.

Complainant bought a reduced rate return ticket from Greensboro to Charlotte; the said ticket was marked in red ink, "Not good on Southwestern Vestibule Limited." Plaintiff, on return from Charlotte, got aboard this train and conductor refused to honor the return coupon of ticket, and demanded the regular fare from Charlotte to Greensboro. Plaintiff paid the fare and now asks the Commission to require that sum be refunded to him inasmuch as he held a return ticket.

At a session of the Commission January 13, 1898, this case was called for hearing and it appearing that the conditions were marked in red ink and plainly, as above set out, the company, it seemed, had a right to impose these conditions in consideration of the low rate charged, and the commission concludes that the relief asked by the plaintiff ought not to be granted, but that plaintiff was entitled to such refund as would be under chapter 83, Laws of 1897, which reads as follows:

"That when any round-trip ticket is sold by any railroad company it shall be the duty of said company to redeem the unused portion of said ticket by allowing to the legal holder thereof the difference between the cost thereof and the price of a oneway ticket between the stations for which the said round-trip ticket was sold.”

January 13, 1898.