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Show THE'LAW AND RAILROADS. The perplexities of railroad managers, man-agers, bewildered, so they say, by the intricacies of the law that concerns switching charges and other convenient con-venient disguises for rebates, move the Chicago Tribune to an imperfect sympathy. Those practices, which once the rattled captains of industry," indus-try," now floundering in a legal bog, classed as a virtue, have now, when submitted to the magical touchstone of laV, become scarcely distinguishable distinguish-able from sin, and they complain that the new gospel under which they must live is obscure and confused as dispensed dis-pensed by the courts. This Is the tale: The Alton and two of its officers were fined for refunding a dollar a car for the use of switching tracks belonging belong-ing to a shipper. The circuit court of appeals affirmed the verdict by a divided divid-ed vote. In the supreme court one justice did not sit. The others Btood four to four. Under the rule that was an affirmation of tho decision of the lower court. As the case stands the fine , will have to be paid, although a majority of the supreme court judges have not held that the act for which th fine was imposed is a crime. The court has not really laid down the law, and until it shall do so carriers and shippers can not tell "where they are at." ! .. |