Show Railroad Earnings Continue Large j I is not at all surprising that reports of 1 cutting of rates in the west of troubles between the railroads and of freight carried car-ried at starvation rates have but little effect in the east when we see the weekly returns of the earnings coming in at such a rate Day after day there is an unbroken line of increase and when tie returns of the net earnings come in later we find that the gain is proportionately as large in the net profits The Chronicle returns which arc universally used for the purpose of comparison both on account their completeness com-pleteness and the accuracy with which they are compiled are fuller for the month of May than for any previous month since the compilation was undertaken I covers a large number of roads says the Wall Street Actcti more mileage and the largest increase ever before reported by a single railroad in one month The figures are for 100 lines of svstoms oncratincr S5S10 miles or more than half tho total mileage of tho country When it is remembered that this statement does not take in the Pennsylvania Pennsyl-vania the Union Pacific or the Chicago Burlington Quincy which report their gross as well as net earnings later in the month it will be seen that the returns are every month growing more and more accurate accu-rate fuller and more satisfactory In a single year there has been an increase of 10 per cent in the mileaco reporting and 20 per cent in the number of companies The extraordinary gain is on the Atchison which shows an improvement of 332470 Naturally we hasten to say that this return re-turn includes the St Louis San Francisco Fran-cisco system but without that the increase would bo the largest ever reported with the single exception of the Pennsylvania and perhaps the Union Pacific There are oilier roads with a heavy gain the Northern North-ern Pacific coming next and then the New York Central A round dozen of them gain over 10000 for the month and the percentage per-centage of gain runs in some cases as high as SO per cent Taking the average of the whole the gain is 13S per cent the largest ever known for a single month Out of the whole number only twentyfive show doss and that a very trifling one The most Important i Im-portant feature of this is the fact that the old crops will not be out of the way until the new is offered for transportation and the first week in June shows a similar gain Were it not for an exceptional decline on the Mexican Central which last year carried car-ried a lot of construction material the improvement im-provement would be fully as larqe |