The Commission had itself, outrunning the complainants, been the first to "pointedly disapprove" the attempt to destroy the barrel shippers, and to call upon the railroads to rescind their action. This protest it had made repeatedly--first with the subalterns, then with the chief of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in personal interviews, letters, and finally in an official pamphlet, which was an appeal to the public to judge between it and the corporation. It had reiterated its protest in a formal decision rendered September 5, 1890, after deliberating seven months on the evidence and arguments. In this "they recalled the fact, now almost ancient history, that" the change was "pointedly disapproved by the Commission" when first made, and with lamentations noted that, though almost two years had passed, "the carriers have failed to comply with the suggestions there made. In charging for the weight of the barrels as well as the oil, the carriers that make use of both modes of transportation have disregarded the principles plainly and emphatically laid down by the Commission in the cases cited, and have paid no attention to the subsequent official memorandum explanatory of the decisions in those cases, but have persisted in maintaining a discrimination against barrel shippers. An order requiring the discontinuance of the discrimination has therefore become necessary."[279] An order has therefore become necessary. The Commission then ordered one road concerned in this separate case to "cease and desist" within thirty days. Although several cases affecting a number of refiners and a number of roads had been heard and submitted together, as practically one in traffic, territory, circumstances, and the main question, it confined its decision to the case which involved only one road, and that a subordinate. There the Commission stopped; and there it stuck for more than two years, from September 5, 1890, to November 14, 1892, refraining from a decision in the case of the principal offender, the Pennsylvania Railroad.