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Show . TO TAKE THE FREIGHT OFF THE DINNER TABLE From "it is the war," to "it is the freight." That has been the recent change in the stereotyped, blanket answer to the protest of the harras-ed harras-ed consumer, as food1 prices stay up. And the railroads are cutting wages, wa-ges, and putting up a very good imitation im-itation of going to the bow-wows. Wonder if there isn't some good comomn sense buried in the following, follow-ing, from a hard-headed manufacturer, manufactur-er, who knows what he's talking about? The writer is Lacy Y. Williams. He wrote is follows in a recent number of the Railway Age-Gazette: "My deductions from my experi-" experi-" ence as a manufacturer of packages, and as a shipper of various types of packages, is that the barrel is the strongest, most portable, most sanitary sani-tary container; that it has the great est range of use, and that it is the cheapest of all packages, without exception, when weight and contents are considered. "Take the transportation question alone, One man will unload a carload car-load of 200 barrels of sugar, weighing weigh-ing an average of 360 pounds each, in less than an hour, and not injure a barrel in the slightest way. "On the other hand, no rectangular-container has ever been produced that could be handled at all with this weight by one, or even two men. A barrel can be rolled any distance. It carries its running gear with it. "The contents of a barrel are protected pro-tected from damage from leaky car roofs and from rain during lond: and unloading, or when on platforms, plat-forms, which would be fatal to the contents of a fiber container. 1 "Shipping the barrels home empty is not necessary, for the reason that they can be used' for any kind of product pro-duct when empty, and always find an. eager market, returning full. "The classification on goods that are shipped in barrels should be lower low-er than on goods shipped in rectangular rectan-gular containers for three reasons. "First There are fewer damage claims. "Second A freight crew will handle han-dle ten times the tonnage in barrels that it will in rectangular eontain-i eontain-i ers. I "Third Cars can be unloaded in one-tenth the time and under weath-I weath-I er conditions that, with other con- 1 tainers might prevent the release of the car. |