594 FEDEEAL EEPOETEK. �ville, with the exception of an interval of two years, during ■which the Adams Express Company withdrew from this line. The agreement between the Adams Express Company and the Louisville, New Albany & Chicago Eailroad Company, the predeeessor of the defendant, and which, as stated in the supplemental bill, was subsequently recognized and adopted by the defendant, under which the Adams Express Company was carried by the defendant and its predeeessor during this period, was, from time to time, modified as to rates of charges but the general plan or mode of conducting the business remained the same. According to that plan or mode, as, appears by afiSdavits read at the hearing, the express Com- pany was accorded a certain space in the baggage car of the defendant's passenger trains for its express matter and mes- sengers, for which it paid an agreed sum in gross where the express freight did not exceed a speoified weight, and an ad- ditional charge per hundred pounds where the express matter exceeded that specified weight. The express oompany, by means of its stationed employes, and its horses and wagons, and other conveniences and appliances connected with its offices, collected the express parcels to be transported by it from ail persons desiring to ship property through its instru- mentality, and delivered them aboard the defendant's bag- gage car, where they were taken into personal charge by a messenger of the express company, and retained by him in his Personal charge, during their transit by rail, until their arrivai at the place of destination, when they were delivered to the proper agent of the express company at that point for distribution and delivery to the respective consignees. Par- cels containing money or other articles of great value were packed and carried in iron safes. Parcels containing ordinary merchandise of less value were usually packed and carried in chests and trunks, while articles of greater weight or bulk, or articles of comparatively small value, that did not require so great care, were not thus packed, but deposited upon the floor of that part of the car assigned to the express messenger. �During the same period another express company, the American, was carrying on a like business, in a similar man - ����
