"We are getting more of the city out into the country each year," says a big suburban passenger agent; "and with the wide increase in the use of electricity as a motive power for the standard railroads this business is bound for increases that we can hardly foresee to-day. I think that I am quite safe in predicting that another decade will see the belt of from 30 to 50 miles outside of New York terminals as thickly settled as the belt from 10 to 30 miles is to-day settled. The railroaders have done their part by expensive increase in terminal and track facilities; they have helped the real-estate men in their broad advertising of the possibilities of suburban life: the harvest is all that now remains to be reaped." CHAPTER XX FREIGHT TRAFFIC INCOME FROM FREIGHT TRAFFIC GREATER THAN FROM PASSENGER--COMPETITION IN FREIGHT RATES--AFTERWARDS A STANDARD RATE-SHEET--RATE-WARS VIRTUALLY ENDED BY THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION CLASSIFICATION OF FREIGHT INTO GROUPS--DIFFERENTIAL FREIGHT RATES--DEMURRAGE FOR DELAY IN EMPTYING CARS--COAL TRAFFIC--MODERN METHODS OF HANDLING LARD AND OTHER FREIGHT. In England they speak of it as "goods" and regard it as almost a minor factor in the conduct of their railways. In the United States it is freight-traffic, and is the thing from which the railroads derive by far the greater part of their revenues. In England it is represented by delicious little trails of "goods-wagons," four-wheelers of from five to eight or nine or ten tons' capacity, the "goods" often left exposed to the rigors of winter, save for possibly a tarpaulin covering; in the United States, fast-freights and slow-freights crowd upon one another's heels; the sixty-ton steel car has long since come into its own. If you do not realize the importance of the freight traffic, you should talk to those shrewd old souls in Wall Street who measure a carrier, not by its ticket sales, but by that fascinating thing that they call "tonnage"; you should go out upon the line and ask any operating man how his territory is holding up in traffic. He will answer you in tons, in freight-cars moved within a single twenty-four hours. If you are still unconvinced, go to the passenger man you know best. He will tell you that while he is pleading vainly with the biggest boss of all for some new Limited, eight or ten passenger cars all told, some shouldering freight-hustler has been welcomed into the inner sanctum and comes out with an O. K. for 800 or 1,000 box-cars or gondolas in his fist, a dozen new freight-pulling locomotives in addition, for good measure. There is your answer.