The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1884-04-01
THE ST. LOUIS & CAIRO ROAD.


strong indictment against the road named,
the salient points of which are as follows:
"The st. Louis & Cairo Railroad, with
all its boosted advantages and increasing
capacity to accommodate the travelling pub
lie and afford transportation to the wants of
trade, is virtually killing Sparta and other
towns along its line, and will continue to
do so until the people relieve themselves
from the monopoly imposed, by building
competing lines of railway. This seems to
be the only way out of the difficulty our
manufacturing industries are laboring I'M
der.
"In November, 1888, Mr.. A. II. Burlin-
game, pillow manufacturer in Sparta, pur-
chased a trip-hammer in Hamilton, Ohio,
weighing $500 pounds, and the freight
charges from that place to East st. LOUIS,
distance of 36l miles, were $16.50, and
from East St. Louis to Sparta, distance of
"a miles, including transfer, the freight
bill was $780, difference of twenty
cents in favor of the st. LOUIS & Cairo
read. In point of fact, we may say, the
cost was the same on both routes. Now,
this Is the condition of things not to be
disputed, and the case referred to is not an
isolated one; this freight monopoly exists
with everything else---lumber, merchan-
disc, grain and farm products of every de-
scription.
"The monopoly exercised by the St.
Louis & Cairo Railway Company is depopu
lating the heretofore prosperous towns
along the line of its franchise. The few
manufacturing establishments in Sparta
our people are straining every nerve topre-
serve and build up are daily sinking and
going out of existence because they cannot
compete with localities enjoying equalized
freight rates, rates placing them on an
equal basis with their neighbors and the
manufacturing facilitses Of other less ia
vorable towns"
The same indictment could no doubt be
found against nearly all other roads in the
country; but the fact will remain, while in
nearly all other things that pertain to the
management of this road, this company is
worse than most any other in this section
of country, In the matter of freight dis
elimination, it is just as bad as any of
them. The salvation of the St. Louis g.
Cairo Railroad will lie in the prompt re-
moval of dickering lawyers from the high
est positions Of authority in the company
lawyers who have no more idea of business,
particularly the railroad business-than a
muley COW has of the tariff, and whose
very nature is to obstruct and oppose and
resist, rather than to facilitate and push
with intelligence and liberality. But for
the mulishness Of these dickering lawyers,
the little trouble between this company
and the city Of Caro- would have been
settled years ago, and the road would have
proved little bonanza for its owners and
for the country through which it passes, in.
stead of perpetual aggravaton and dis
appointment.
As a sample of the policy which has gov.
erned the management of the road, and of
the shyster methods employed by the legal
numskulls who are at its head, in order to
evade just obligations and override common
equity it may be mentioned that in one
police court alone in this city five claims
for destruction of property Of citizens, in
which judgments had been rendered
against the company and in which there
was not shadow of ground for a contest
on the part Of the company, have been ap.
pealed and carried from one court to an
other in the hope of worrying the plain
tiff out Of the case. The claims in
all these cases we're trivial, comparatively,
and the costs in most of them will ultimate
ly amount to more than the sum sued for
But this niggardly policy has been OBJ.
served in more important cases as well,
which has brought heavy losses upon the
company and gained for it the hearty con-
tempt of those with whom they had deal
ings. 1t is because the city of Cairo, after
being swindled out two hundred thousand
dollars in stock and compelled to build
fifty thousand new levee in place of
the old one which the railroad company had
promised to keep up and permitted to fall
into the river, refused to donate to the
company perpetual protection of its prop
erty in the city, that the company has per.
mtted its tracks to 90 to the devil every
year outside of the city, paying ten times
as much every year in the way of repairs
on tracks after the flood and losses by in
terruption of traffic during the flood, as
would have been necessary to place their
tracks beyond the danger of destruction by
floods and given them communication with
this city all the year round.
In pursuit of this contemplate policy,
the managersof the company have frequent
ly presumed upon the credulity and ignor.
ance of those from whom they sought I'M
reasonable concessions but in Cairo's case
II