Besides all this the Standard was accorded the privilege of systematic underbilling. According to the testimony before the Commission in 1898 by the Boston & Albany agent in East Boston, the centre of the Standard Oil business in New England, the Combine’s tank cars, which usually weigh from 35,000 to 50,000 lbs., were ordinarily billed at 24,000 lbs. Out of 14 cars sent over another road from East Boston to Newport, R. I., at least half were billed and paid for on the basis of 24,000 lbs. to the car, although their average weight was shown to be 48,550 lbs. per car. It was claimed that these underbillings were clerical errors. In considering the motives and reliability of such a claim we must not forget the curious habit shown by these clerical errors of piling up in great bunches in the Standard Oil business, and the still more curious fact that all the errors are in favor of the Trust—none against it. Long before the Commission had found that the railroads leading from the oil fields were in the habit of “blind billing” the Standard cars at 20,000 lbs., though the actual weight was frequently 30,000, 40,000, 44,000 or more.[98] Rice complained of this to the Commission in July, 1887. Immediately all the old numbers on the 3000 tank cars of the Oil Trust were painted out and new numbers painted on, so that the cars mentioned in the railroad accounts could no longer be identified with the cars on the tracks.[99] The Standard has some very oily ways, and knows how to use a pot of paint and a brush as well as a rebate. The Standard desired to fix the rates on oil to New England, the South, and the West, and as usual the railroads let it have its way. The result was a practice of adding the Boston rate to the local rate on shipments of oil into New England, which puts the independent refiners at a great disadvantage. The rate on corn from Cleveland to Boston is 15 cents per hundred lbs., and to New Haven the same, but the rate on petroleum from Cleveland to Boston is 24 cents, and to New Haven it is the Boston rate, 24 cents, plus the local rate, or a total of 36 cents from Cleveland to New Haven. Now the Standard Oil has got large warehouses in East Boston, and they bring their oil by boat and store it there, and then they get the freight rates simply from Boston down to the Connecticut point, whereas the Western refiner who has no storehouse has to pay first the Boston rate, and then this local rate also to the other point, even though the oil may go direct, so that the rates are practically prohibitive to the Western refiners.[100]