For many years past the Erie has operated two ferry-lines from its historic terminal at Pavonia Avenue, Jersey City, to New York--Chambers and Twenty-third streets respectively. To meet the large suburban passenger necessities of the road it is necessary to operate these upon fairly frequent headways. Yet Pavonia Avenue is not an accepted route for through motoring, either freight or passenger which means that the Erie ferry-boats have been more crowded in their cabins than upon their team decks. Yet it is obvious that it costs little or no more to operate a well filled ferry-boat than one that is but half-filled. Moreover in Pavonia Avenue, Jersey City, the Erie possesses not only ample freight-house facilities but room for a large future expansion of them. Of course, it was quite out of the question to expect the average merchant of Manhattan Island to go to Jersey City to get his freight, particularly when the Erie's enterprising competitors were crying their willingness to set it down in the West Street piers. Mohammed would not go to the mountain, but in this instance the mountain would come to Mohammed. The Erie made arrangements with a large trucking concern in the City of New York to take classified freight in ten-ton units to the merchants' doors. These truck-bodies are four-wheeled, their forward wheels being rather light and rather small. There are three of these bodies to one tractor unit, which means of course that while one body is in transit attached to the tractor, the other two are at the respective termini being loaded and unloaded. So is time saved; and so is saved the expensive overhead upon the tractor-unit while the clock goes steadily ticking forward. Eighteen of these truck and tractor combinations go upon a single ferry-boat. The ferry-boat headway is seven and one-half minutes, which means that working at full speed 1760 tons--a fair-sized train-load, for classified freight--can be handled each hour. And if you wish more figures still, please understand that the terminal cost of trucking to the merchant of Manhattan has been lowered by this method from eight to ten cents a hundred to but five or six. Economies? Sometimes I think we of America do not know, even yet, the real meaning of the word. Yet this is but the beginning of the Erie's work at its New York terminals. Its big job, upon which it is just now embarking, is bringing into play the container in its most real sense not merely as a detachable truck-body but as a steel-box which can be loaded and then handled in almost any conceivable form of transport.