As the roads have found it necessary to act together in establishing running rules and regulations, so, in spite of all rivalries, there must also be joint agreements reached in some way concerning rates. Usually the roads serving a certain territory form an "association," and their freight agents form "rate committees," which fix and publish joint rates. A tariff published by one of the trunk lines from the Eastern cities forms a good example. As the result of many long and bitter wars and many compromises, it has been agreed among these roads that the rates from New York to Chicago shall form a basis for all other rates, and a scale has been fixed showing the percentage of the Chicago rate to be used as the rate to each important point in the West. Thus Pittsburgh, Pa., is 60 per cent. of Chicago rate; Indianapolis is 93; Vandalia, 116. The tariff above referred to gives an alphabetical list of some 5,000 towns reached over these roads, and opposite each town the figure showing its percentage of the Chicago rate. The list begins with Abanaka, O., 90, and ends with Zoar, O., 74. The tariff next gives what is called the "Trunk Line Classification," which is a list comprising every article known to commerce, in all the different conditions, shapes, and packages in which it is offered for transportation, and opposite each article is given its assigned "class." This particular classification assigns every article to one of six regular, or two special, classes, and the present rates to Chicago in cents per 100 lbs. are given as 75, 65, 50, 35, 30, 25, 26, 21. The list of articles begins with Acetate of Lime, in car-loads, 5th class; in less quantities, 4th; and ends with Zinc, in various forms from 1st to 6th--comprising in all nearly 6,000 articles. From these tables any desired rate readily appears. Thus, 500 pounds of acetate of lime would cost, from New York to Zoar, O., 74 per cent. of Chicago's 4th class rate, or 74 per cent. of 35--say, 26 cents per 100 lbs., or $1.30. There is also given in the tariff pamphlet a list of some 300 manufacturing towns in New England, from each of which the same rates apply as from New York. So, on the whole, the pamphlet gives rates on about 6,000 articles from 300 points of origin to 5,000 destinations. In different sections of the country different classifications are in use, some of them embracing twenty or more classes, and allowing finer shades of difference between articles according to their value, bulk, or many other varying conditions which determine the class into which each article is put. Great efforts have been made to bring about a uniformity of classification over the whole United States, and the number of classifications in extensive use has been reduced from a very large number to perhaps a dozen.