His firm had their own tank-cars, in which their crude oil came from Pennsylvania. From Olean to Boston his freight cost him the last few years 50 cents a barrel. From the depot in Boston, to get it over two miles of track to his refinery, cost him $10 a car, or about $1.25 a barrel. This was at the rate of about 42-1/2 cents a ton a mile. The average freight rate for the United States is about half a cent a ton a mile. His rate was an advance of 8400 per cent. on the average. He appealed to the Railroad Commission of Massachusetts. "We wrote to the commissioners that we thought the charge was very high, and they ought to interfere to have it reduced. But it was not done. "We made repeated efforts, personal solicitations, to the railroad officers, and to the railroad commissioners also, but it was the established rate."[347] Two roads participated in this charge of $10 for hauling a car two miles. One of these was the New York and New England road, whose haul was a mile and a half, and its charge $6. "Who was president of the New York and New England road?" The dismantled witness's experience had made him timid. "I do not know." "Do you not know," he was asked, "that one of the oil trustees is president?" "Yes, sir."[348] The same railroad is the principal New England link in the lines of circumvallation which the combination in coal, hard and soft, American and Nova Scotian, is drawing about the homes and industries of the country. His company sold their tank-cars to the oil combination, as "we no longer had any use for them."[349] "I was thirty-two years in the oil business," the veteran said, mournfully, as he left the stand. "It was the business of my life."[350] To return to Van Syckel. After his warning to the inventor that he could get no cars and make no money, even if his new idea proved a success, the representative of the combination invited Van Syckel to put himself in its hands. "He said they would furnish the money to test the invention and pay me all it was worth. I felt a little startled at the rebates, and I knew it before, but I did not know it was so bad as he had figured it out. I then asked him who of his company would agree to furnish me money to test the patent and to pay all it was worth. He asked me who I wanted to agree with. I then asked him if a man" (naming him) "that I had had more or less dealings with" (one of the trustees) "would agree to what he had said. He said he had no doubt he would. He said, 'We will go and see him, and go at his expense.' He said he would take the works off my hands at cost, and would satisfy my partner to stop building them if I would go to New York, and I think it was the next day when we went to New York."