It is clear, therefore, that scalping is not a lost art. The regular one-price ticket agents say that the cut-rate business is still in flourishing condition. It may be that railway offices no longer act with scalpers to evade the law, but when a scalper says he will give you a first-class ticket (worth $18 at the depot) for $15 any time you want it, it looks as though he had some pretty certain source of supply. One scalper here, I am told, is the brother of the advertising manager of a monthly magazine. Railroads advertising in the magazines pay in tickets and the manager turns these tickets over to the scalper. The same thing is done in New York and Chicago, and probably in other places. Scalpers also get unused portions of excursion and other tickets. And perhaps some of the railways are still in direct collusion with scalpers. Every freight pool or agreement to prevent cutting freight rates that was ever made was broken by some railroad secretly cutting prices, and it may be that an agreement to maintain fares is not safe against secret cutting either. One of the most peculiar things about scalping is that, unlike other forms of discrimination, its benefits go to the poor man instead of the rich man. It is the only kind of discrimination that gives the poor man any comfort or tends to diffuse wealth instead of concentrating it. In this one case the rich help to pay for the poor man’s transportation; in all other cases the poor man and the man of moderate wealth help to pay for the service the rich man gets. Perhaps this partly explains why it is that many railroads have taken a more decided stand against this abuse than against any other in the long list of evils that afflict transportation in this country. CHAPTER IV. FREIGHT DISCRIMINATION. We come now to a kind of discrimination that enables a railway manager to determine which of the merchants, manufacturers, mine owners, etc., on his line shall prosper and which shall not; what cities and towns shall grow, what States shall thrive, what industries shall be developed. The purpose of discrimination may be (1) to keep business from going to a competing line; (2) to increase revenue by creating new business for which, if necessary, rates may be dropped very low, as anything above the cost of handling on new business will add to income; (3) to simplify and solidify traffic; (4) to favor persons who, through political influence or other power may aid or injure the road, or who, through friendship, marriage, business or civic relation, or otherwise, have a “pull” with the management; (5) to advance the interests or enhance the value of a business, or property, or place, in which the railway or its officers or their friends are interested; or (6) to kill or injure a place or person or business that has incurred the enmity of the railways or their allies.