The San Francisco call., 1898-01-12
Notary Public.


 This affidavit the farmers are per suaded to sign and swear to, though numbers of them, 1t is learned. who are familiar with the law have declined to do so. and the orders are filed with the board. Each application is signed by the middleman. and he incorporates the stereotyped notice shipping in- structions to follow"
 When the harvest time comes he has all the applications he made forwarded in carload lots. In this particular in stance his freight rate amounted to s1 8 thousand. The local rate is s1.62Ib. and the extra 6211 cents he added to the farmers account.
 The farmer who signed the affidavit for 5000 or 10000 sacks, as the case may have been, while he required only 300 or 1000 in 1897, paid 8 40 per hun dred with the 1.62h freight per thou sand added, and the middleman but into his warehouse the remainder of the consignment for s4 75 and g.: for the most part at the former figure.
 Many, if not nearly all of the small farmers thus imposed upon, are ignor- ant of the law, and, therefore unaware of the fact that they are tempted into committing a misdemeanor by it's very terms. Not so with the middleman, who does not hesitate to make tools of these men, and convert their necessities and ingenuousness to his personal pro- fit.
 This petty rascality is not common only to one community. It Is practiced in many. and demands the rigorous surveillance of the board
 The Call believes that the board should revise their methods of dealing with the grain-sack product. and mere ly makes this statement preliminary to a fight it intends to wage until the farmers have a thorough hearing, to the end that more prudent and con- siderate supervision of the subject may be enforced Governor Budd has been appealed to by complainants acquaint- ed with the errors and mischief of the present manner of management, and may be expected to interest himself in the matter.
 The board will attempt to justify the extraordinary course they have pur- sued, on the ground of business expe- diency. Maybe their motives were satisfactory to themselves. They have hankered and hungered for quite a while for the unrestrained control of the sale of bags, and at one time went so far as to advocate the sale of prison sacks in neighboring States. In fact, they incorporated this idea, after the Attorney General had reproved 1t for mally, in that part of their 1S94-96 re- port which recommends the repeal of the Ostrom restrictions on their dis cretionary powers. They might well argue at the time, in support of their position, that the revolving fund was somewhat depleted by a surplus pro- duct they could not dispose of at home with profit, or for cost, yet how could they expect to dispose of 1t in contig- uous States to better advantage. with the Calcutta sacks still in the market against them?
 While the Ostrom provision may be subject to criticism, as difficult to com ply with, 1t has not received the trial by the board to which it is entitled First of all, no tenable reason can be urged why the board cannot sell for cost every sack produced at the prison mill. No profit Is required or expected by the people. What is desired above all other considerations is that the