Some Northampton traders at once began proceedings under this law, and after 2 years of litigation at a cost to the plaintiffs of $10,000 they got a verdict, but the companies declined to accept the case as a test, so that any one who feels aggrieved by an excessive rate must spend the time and money necessary to carry his case through the Commissioners’ Court to a decision. The Board of Trade reports to Parliament every few years all the complaints presented to it and the disposition thereof. By the last report at hand, issued in 1902 and covering the years 1899, 1900, and 1901, it appears that nearly 3,000 complaints (2,946) have been filed from 1888 to 1902,—2,032 related to “unreasonable increase of rates” since 1892, and in 101 of these cases, when no amicable settlement could be made, the Board gave certificates of appeal to the Commission, but only a few of the complaints were carried up. Complaint of excessive rates (not cases of increase) numbered 423, 88 of them in the last 3 years reported: higher charge for shorter distance than for a longer haul on the same line, 66, 11 of them in the last 3 years; disproportionate rates, or higher charge for a given distance on one line than on another 157, 37 of them in the last 2 years; and 268 miscellaneous cases, 95 of which were entered in the last 3 years. About 4 percent of the complaints relate to canals, the rest are railway cases. It takes 50 large pages to state the 325 complaints entered in the last 3 years. A very large part, practically all in fact, are either in form or in substance, cases of discrimination; even in complaints of excessive rates the gist of the charge is usually that the rates complained of are excessive as compared with other rates the companies make.[421]