| From the Lynchburg Virginian |
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| September 21, 1864 |
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| The Southern Express Company |
| The Richmond Enquirer
is out in a severe article on this Company. It is charged with
practicing extortion upon the people, and a bill paid by the Enquirer
office is cited in proof of the fact. But why does the Enquirer
employ this agency to procure transportation for its supplies of paper
from North Carolina? Simply because it can secure transportation no
other way. That is our case, also, and but for this much abused
Company we would have been compelled, more than once, to suspend the
regular issue of our paper. We assume then that the Express Company is
a necessity of the times. It may be a necessity of the times. It may
be a necessary evil; but, in the present condition of affairs, the
public cannot do without it. |
| ***** |
| If the Legislature of Va.
should take the matter in hand, it could only control the action of
our own roads, whilst the evil, as to others, would be beyond their
reach. The charges of the Express Company are high, very high; but,
the Enquirer accounts for that very properly in the following extract.
It says: |
| "The Railroad Company is
prohibited by law from taking more than fixed rates for
transportation. It has only to refuse to make connection, and the
public must employ an express. The Railroad Company can extract any
price it thinks proper from the Express, and, although an illegal
contract, the Express will comply, rather than quit the road. It is a
matter of no consequence to the Express Company what it pays, since it
can charge the shipper with cost and a profit. It is thus the public
is either driven from its own roads or compelled to pay an intrusive
agency the exorbitant extractions which it may demand." |
| It would seem then that the
Railroad Companies, who have the Express Company completely in their
power, should come in for a large of the blame so freely bestowed on
the latter. We happen to know that the charges to the Express Company,
on some of these roads, the South Side especially, are enormous. Let
the charges of the roads to the Express Company be looked into, but
let us not through passion or prejudice, deprive ourselves of the only
facility now enjoyed for the safe and prompt transportation of
articles of merchandise between distant points. |
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