ITMES OF INTEREST January 1, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Vigorous recommendations for changes in the present law regulating transportation companies are contained in the twenty-third annual report of the interstate commerce commission, just transmitted to Congress. The proposed amendments provide that a physical valuation be made of the interstate railroads of the country; that the commission be given power to prevent advances in rates or changes in regulations or practices to the disadvantage of the shipper, pending an investigation into the reasonableness of the proposed change; that the commission be authorized to establish a joint rate and through route wherever, upon investigation, it is found that the public necessity and convenience require such action; that in certain instances the shipper be permitted to direct the intermediate routing of his traffic; that the law be so amended as to give the commission undoubted authority to enter a corrective order as the result of an investigation instituted by the commission upon its own motion.

The United States supreme court, reversing the decision of a lower court, has found for a plaintiff who sued a whisky concern for libel in using her photograph for advertising purposes, although used under another name. The court says: "If the advertisement obviously would hurt the plaintiff in the estimation of an important and respectable part of the community, liability is not a question of a majority vote. . . . No conduct is hated by all. That it will be known by a large number and will lead an appreciable fraction of that number to regard plaintiff with contempt, is enough to do her practical harm."

Acting as an arbitrator, Judge Tayler of the United States court has fixed a value of $21,127,149 upon the property of the Cleveland Railway Company. Upon this sum the company will be allowed an earning of six percent under a proposed twenty-five-year franchise. All excess earnings are to go toward betterments of the service. At a special meeting of the council recently the franchise ordinance was passed. It will provide for a rate of fare not to exceed three cents at first, and never to exceed four cents cash and one cent for a transfer.

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