. under its franchise, and undertaken to be fulfilled, must be performed. The order appealed from is affirmed.

Furnishing of Incidental Services.

Affirmed.

MONTANA UNION RY. CO. v. LANGLOIS.

9 Mont. 419, 24 Pac. 209. 1890.

HARWOOD, J. The whole question involved in this controversy is compassed by the proposition, on the part of the plaintiff, "that it is the owner of said grounds, depot buildings, and platform, and that it may regulate the use of said platform as it desires, providing the traveling public is not inconvenienced; that it may, if it desires, engage in carrying passengers in hacks to and from its trains; that, if it was so engaged, it would have the right to its own property for such purpose; that, if it has such rights, it can as well employ Lovell Brothers with hacks to do such service as to own the hacks; that, if the plaintiff has the right to its platform, it has the right to sell that right to Lovells for a valuable consideration," and should be protected in the exercise and benefits of these rights. These propositions are controverted by defendants in so far as they affirm the right of the plaintiff to grant exclusive use of a portion of said platform to one party to approach and occupy the same, to convey passengers thereto and receive passengers therefrom, and exclude all others from so doing. We do not find it consonant with reason, based upon those general propositions, to draw the conclusion that the railroad company may bring its passengers to a common landing, where the necessity, comfort, or convenience of their situation compels them to obtain on their own account transportation to some place beyond, and there introduce them to one favored party, saying: "If you engage transportation from this party, you may do so here on the spot, without delay or inconvenience, and take passage from this platform without delay or inconvenience, provided you will engage this particular party, and pay his demands; otherwise, you must suffer the importunity of this party to take passage with him, and if you will not, you must suffer the inconvenience and delay of going to some other point to engage conveyance and take passage." All this

the railroad does, not for a benefit to the passengers, but for a benefit to itself, over and above what the passenger has paid for transportation over the railroad. If the railroad company set bounds beyond which all hackmen were forbidden to come, and undertook to forbid all solicitation within the depot or on the platform on the part of hackmen or others for employment, this would be an entirely different proposition.

The company does not undertake to protect the passengers from that annoyance in these cases, but invites it, and farms out the exclusive privilege and opportunity to do this.

The passenger has purchased, or proposes to purchase, from the common carrier, transportation, and he must come to the station to receive such transportation, and on arriving at his destination he must depart from the station. The right to come to the station, and depart therefrom, under reasonable regulations which apply alike to all passengers without special conditions, is incidental to the main contract; while the supply of refreshments or newspapers, or the cultivation of flowers, at the station grounds, has, as we conceive, no appropriate connection with the engagements of the passenger and the common carrier.

Upon the grounds of sound reason, public policy, and the general principles of law governing common carriers, as well as the provisions of the Constitution, we believe the order of the court below ought to be affirmed; and it is so ordered.

Obligations Toward Dependent Services.

THE EXPRESS CASES.

117 U. S. 1, 6 Sup. Ct. 542. 1886.

WAITE, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court:

These suits present substantially the same questions and may properly be considered together. They were each brought by an express company against a railway company to restrain the railway company from interfering with or disturbing in any manner the facilities theretofore afforded the express company for doing its business on the railway of the railway company. [Individual cases appealed are here outlined.]

The exact question, then, is whether these express companies

can now demand as a right what they have heretofore had only as by permission. That depends, as is conceded, on whether all railroad companies are now by law charged with the duty of carrying all express companies in the way that express carriers when taken are usually carried, just as they are with the duty of carrying all passengers and freight when offered in the way that passengers and freight are carried. The contracts which these companies once had are now out of the way, and the companies at this time possess no other rights than such as belong to any other company or person wishing to do an express business upon these roads. If they are entitled to the relief they ask it is because it is the duty of the railroad companies to furnish express facilities to all alike who demand them.

Such being the case, the right of the express companies to a decree depends upon their showing the existence of a usage, having the force of law in the express business, which requires railroad companies to carry all express companies on their passenger trains as express carriers are usually carried. It is not enough to establish a usage to carry some express company, or to furnish the public in some way with the advantages of an express business over the road. The question is not whether these railroad companies must furnish the general public with reasonable express facilities, but whether they must carry these particular express carriers for the purpose of enabling them to do an express business over the lines.

In all these voluminous records there is not a syllable of evidence to show a usage for the carriage of express companies on the passenger trains of railroads unless specially contracted for. While it has uniformly been the habit of railroad companies to arrange, at the earliest practicable moment, to take one express company on some or all of their passenger trains, or to provide some other way of doing an express business on their lines, it has never been the practice to grant such privilege to more than one company at the same time, unless a statute or some special circumstances made it necessary or desirable. The express companies that bring these suits are certainly in no situation to claim a usage in their favor on these particular roads, because their entry was originally under special contracts, and no other companies have ever been admitted except by agree

ment.

Rights of Connecting Services.

SEASONGOOD v. TENNESSEE & OHIO TRANSPORTATION COMPANY.

21 Ky. Law Rep. 1142, 54 S. W. 193. 1899.

GUFFY, J. The principal grounds relied on by appellants for a reversal are as to the instructions given and refused. It will be seen from the pleadings (and the testimony conduces to prove the same) that one McGrew was the owner of a warehouse at the mouth of Hurricane Creek, which was the only point at which the goods were delivered to and from steamboats in that immediate vicinity, and that it was the custom of appellee, as well as other boats, to receive freight from said warehouse, and that McGrew was furnished blank bills of lading, and collected freight bills. The collection, however, was done at the cost of the debtors. He was also employed by appellee to carry United States mail from the steamboat landing to the post office at Tolou. It appears from the testimony that on a certain evening appellee's boat landed at the landing aforesaid, and that the clerk of the boat asked McGrew what he had, and McGrew replied that he had "some chickens and eggs for Evansville, and a box for Cincinnati, and do you want them?" The clerk replied in substance, that he would take the chickens and eggs, but would not take the box; that appellee had an arrangement with another company that carried freight between New Orleans and Cincinnati not to take freight to any point beyond Evansville, and that the other company would not take freight within the boundary between Evansville and Cairo or Paducah; and it further appears that the goods were stolen the same night that appellee refused to take them. It is the contention of the appellee that it was not required by law to accept the box tendered, for the reason, as now relied on, that it could not be required to receive freight destined to a point beyond the end of its own line, which it appears in this case was Evansville, Ind. It is true that the appellee was not bound to undertake to deliver the box to the consignee at Cincinnati, but it was its duty to accept the box if tendered to it as a common carrier; for it was then its duty to carry the same to the end of its line, and there deliver, or offer to deliver, the

box to some common carrier engaged in such business, to be by it forwarded or carried to Cincinnati. It is clear that the agreement between appellee and the other company did not furnish any excuse for its failure to receive the goods. Such an agreement is illegal and not enforceable even between parties thereto. Much less can it excuse a party for refusing to discharge its duty as a common carrier as to the third party. Anderson v. Jett, 89 Ky. 375, 12 S. W. 670, 6 L. R. A. 390.

Arrangements for Through Service.

SOUTHERN PACIFIC RY. COMPANY v. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.

200 U. S. 536, 26 Sup. Ct. 330. 1905.

These are appeals from orders or decrees of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of California, in proceedings wherein the court affirmed, and ordered to be enforced, the determination of the Interstate Commerce Commission, relating to the above named railroad companies, directing them to desist from maintaining or enforcing a rule adopted by them and pertaining to shippers of oranges and other citrus fruits in Southern California, whereby those shippers were denied their alleged right of designating the routes for the transportation of their property from California to the eastern markets, under a tariff of through rates, as mentioned in the orders or decrees.

PECKHAM, J.

It is conceded that the different railroads forming a continuous line of road are free to adopt or refuse to adopt joint through tariff rates. The Commerce Act recognizes such right and provides for the filing, with the Commission, of the through tariff rates, as agreed upon between the companies. The whole question of joint through tariff rates, under the provisions of the act, is one of agreement between the companies, and they may, or may not, enter into it, as they may think their interests demand. And it is equally plain that an initial carrier may agree upon joint through rates with one or several connecting carriers, who between each other might be regarded as competing roads. It is also undoubted