The Illinois Glass Company at Alton, Ill., is the largest producer of glass bottles in the United States. In 1895 certain persons in its interest organized the Illinois Terminal Railroad Company, the principal business of which is to handle the cars of freight that come to and from the Glass Works. This terminal company in Alton is allowed by the railroads a division of rates amounting to 25 percent of the Chicago rate, and 15 percent of the rates to the Missouri River and to Eastern destinations, or $8 to $13 per car. This is the testimony of the Glass Works manager, but the Commission finds that as much as $17.10 has been paid the Terminal Company on a car shipped from Alton to Kansas City, an amount that is nearly double the 15 percent above mentioned. This $8 and $13 or $17 is a pretty heavy payment for switching a car, a service which the Terminal Company renders for $1.50 a car when the amount is to be paid by the Glass Works.[257] The St. Louis Preserving Company at Granite City, Ill., also gets large rebates in the form of divisions of rates with a toy railroad the company controls.[258] Rate divisions have also been made by the railroads with boat lines[259] belonging to or in league with large shippers, with “tap roads” belonging to lumber companies,[260] etc., and this method of securing a practical rebate is being rapidly adopted by large concerns all over the country. A division of rates with a private line is not necessarily unfair but if there is a desire to give an unfair advantage, this system affords a cloak for it. CHAPTER XXVI. PRIVATE-CAR ABUSES. Some of the worst discriminations now prevailing are connected with the private-car system. The private car originated in the need for special equipment for particular purposes. It was clear that the transportation of live-stock, fruit, vegetables, and other perishable products might be facilitated by the use of special cars. When the inventors of improved stock cars and refrigerator cars went to the railroad managers, they were informed that the railroads had no money with which to make experiments in such lines, but if cars that would do the work proposed were constructed the railroads would be glad to hire them for a fair rental. So the cars were built by private companies and used by the railroads on a mileage basis. The fact that such special cars are needed in different parts of the country at different seasons, their use in any large numbers being confined on some roads to a few weeks in each year,[261] makes the local ownership of such cars by the several railroads, less convenient and economical than their ownership by car companies able to distribute the cars to advantage throughout the country so that each section may have the cars it needs, at the proper time, without unnecessary duplications of equipment.[262]