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madness had very much method in it, and that method was the protection of the local and through revenue of the passenger department of the E. T., V. & G. Ry. To get at the point, let me ask what did the E. T., V. & G. surrender when it entered the Southern Passen ger Association ? What did it concede in its amiable and self-sacrificing wish for harmony ? Was it the question of its admission into the Union Depot at Atlanta? Well, hardly so, for it had never been in there, and after the most energetic passenger rate war ever known in the South it had proven to railroad men as well as the general public of Amer ica that it was unable to force admit tance into that depot. Was it the abandonment of its prac tice of capturing from its competitors a portion of their local business and the withdrawal of the policy of annoy ing them in this respect ? Well, hardly so, again ; and I will re mark that this course had been pur sued just a little too long for its own interest; in other words, the man agement of the Western & Atlantic Railroad Co. and of the other railrmd companies in this section, who had submitted for months to this piracy by the E. T., V. <fe G. on their business, while they were vainly endeavoring to secure the adoption by the E. T., V & G, of just such a practice as main tained among them of dealing in a courteous and proper manner toward each other, ami of protecting the trusts which were placed in their hands, had at last in self defense adopted toward it the policy of reprisal, and had met depredation upon local territory by depredation upon local territory, and had demonstrated that the E. T., V. & G. could be, and would be worse hurt by a continuance of this policy than they. The piracy of the E. T., V. & G. on Marietta, Adairsville, etc. business of the W. & A. R. R. had been met by the establishment of a cut rate tick et office at Knoxville, which, within the space of about two nfonths, cap tured about seven hundred tickets from the E. T., V. & G. and forced that company to accept cut rates on proba bly twice as many more, to prevent them going via the W. & A.; and had brought such demoralization into East Tennessee, the stronghold of the E. T., V. & G., as had never before been known in its history. These tickets the W. & A. had se cured by paying the local rate of the E. T., V. & G. to Chattanooga and thence ticketing over its line, and thus cutting the E. T., V., & G. out of their long haul to Jesup or Bruns wick; to Meridian and to Memphis, re spectivelv ; whereas, the piracy of the E. T., V. & G. on W. & A. stations had been merely a source of annoyance to the W. & A., and had brought the latter company almost no loss of rev enue; because, for instance, if a pas senger from Marietta was going to Florida, the W. & A. got just as much revenue on that ticket from Ma rietta to Atlanta if the passenger went over the E. T., V. & G. from At lanta as it got if he went over the Cen tral R. R. from Atlanta, ami if a pas senger went from Marietta to an Ar kansas point, the W. & A got just as much money from Marietta to Chatta nooga for his ticket if he went from Chattanooga over the Memphis & Charleston Railroad, as it would have gotten, if the passenger had gone by way of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway to the Arkansas point. . There were some few instances, ot course, where the E. T., V. & G. in duced passengers to come from Mari- etta to Atlanta instead of going from Marietta to Chattanooga, or induced them to go from Marietta to Dalton in stead of to Chattanooga, and thus de prived the W. & A. of its long haul; but these instances were comparative ly rare and the loss of revenue sustained by the W. & A. cut a very inconsid erable figure. Therefore, the E. T., V. &G. scarce ly hurt the W. & A. at all in its pira cy upon the W. & A.’s local business; but did hurt the friendly connections of the W. & A.; whereas, the W. & A. mwe than made those connections whole on the business which it cap tured from the E. T., V. & G.; be cause, when it secured a passenger from an E. T., V. & G. station south of Atlanta it did not give the traffic hack to the E. T., V. & G. at Chat tanooga, but to a friendly connection at that point; and so, on passengers coming south, the W. & A. did not ticket them over the E. T., V. & G. from Atlanta, but over the Central R. R. or other lines friendly to the W. & A. Therefore, the E. T., V. & G., by securing this abandonment of piracy by the W. & A. in consideration of giv ing it up itself found a large balance in its favor in the revenue department of its traffic ; consequently, it is hard to see where the E. T., V. & G., “for the sake of harmony,” conceded anything to the other side in this con troversy by which concession it did not secure for itself very much more re muneration than was secured by the other lines for their concession. Now what did the Western At lantic concede ? It gave up absolutely the right to sell tickets at equal rates with the E. T., V. <fe G. from Chattanooga to any eastern points ; and of course, the busi ness from Chattanooga, a city of thirty odd thousand people, and all the pas senger traffic basing thereon, amount to a very large source of revenue. It also gave up the right to sell tickets from Dalton via Atlanta to the east, which was in itself no mean concession. It also surrendered the privilege, which had formerly brought it considerable revenue, of selling tickets from At lanta to numerous points in the valley ot the Mississippi; and, after the style of the E. T., V. & G. of bringing for ward the plea of its forbearance in se curing business from local territory of the W. & A., we might, as a further instance of concession by the W. & A., merely repeat again the instance just above referred to of its giving up the privilege of securing passengers from Knoxville and other East Tennessee points to southern and southwestern points. The E. T., V. & G., therefore, se cured for its passenger department greater protection by several times than the W. & A. possibly secured, and its abandonment of its practice of demoralizing passenger rates secured the abandonment of the same policy by the W. & A. and the other rail road companies in the southeast, who had been forced in retaliation to adopt the same policy against the E. T., V. & G., which retaliation had wrought such disastrous results to the revenue of that company. If there is any “protection,” there fore, which has been secured by the organization of tins Association, the E. T.° V. & G. becomes the greatest re cipient of all. The Western & Atlantic merely claims in regard to this Asso ciation, as it has claimed in regard to all other agreements respecting the proper conduct of the passenger traffic, whether within or without an Associa tion, that if any measure is adopted for the protection of any one member, then, by very necessity, it must be THE KENNESAW GAZETTE. adopted for the protection of all the members, and that no one member should be humored like a spoilt child, or deferred to like a highwayman with a club. The idea which the E. T., V. & G. has endeavored to fasten upon the pub-- lie mind, that it was entitled to privi leges at one point which other roads would not be allowed at other points, bears the stamp of absurdity upon its face. The E. T., V. & G.’s claim that it is not treated like the other roads are —that it has bee# “boycot ted” by all the rest, etc., has always seemed to me to have quite a flavor of the ludicrous in it. If a Chiuese wall has been built around it, as it asserts, by the other lines, it was in reprisal for its policy of first building such a wall and keeping all the rest of the world out of its king dom. If every man has raised h s hand against it, as it asserts, it was be cause it first, like Esau, raised its hand against every other man. Its taking off* sale all tickets reading over the W. & A. has its parallel in its policy of refusing to give bills of lading for freight shipments to go from its line over the W. & A. It has called loudly for recognition in the interchange of traffic, and yet, when the business has been forwarded over the W. & A. to junction with the E. T., V. & G. and thence over the E. T., V. & G., the latter, instead of accepting the business and having a fair divide, has from inspection of the way-bills seen who were the shippers and who the consignees, and immedi ately set to wora vigorously to induce these not to send their business over the W. A A. at all, but to give it to the E. T., V. & G. for their long haul. Os course, with this state of affairs in existence, and that it is has been prov en by letters written by the E. T., V. & G. officials which have been put in to the hands of W. & A. officials, the W. A A. has had but one course left it, which was to deliver the business only to its friendly connections where it hmi the control of the routing, and in cases where it did not control the rout ing, to send its agents to the shippers and for its own protection to ask their permission to deliver the business, to connections friendly to the W. A A. so as not to be subject to the continual possibility of having its business ex posed to the E. T., V. A G., and giv ing the latter daily opportunity of un dermining it and endeavoring to break it down. I will not dwell further upon this subject at present, inasmuch as I think that the instances which I have brought forward prove that it is manifest that the W. A A. and its allies have not only been justified in the manner in which they have conducted their busi ness, but have been absolutely forced by the E. T., V. A Cr. for their own pro tection to adopt that course and main tain it. I will only remark in conclusion, that it seems that the W. A A. ami those on its side in this controversy have po sibly made a mistake in considering that the claims of the E. T., V. A G. were too nonsensical for them to take time to make contrary argument against, and that they should possibly have adopted from the beginning the policy of showing up their absurdity. If it be the policy of the E. T._ V. A G. to take ground in favor of sense less claims and agitate in favor of them until the mind of the public is educat ed up to the belief that that company was in the right by very reason of the fact that no attempt was made to re fute its claims, then it were better that the W. A A. and its allies should take it up and press matters as vigorously with the public as has the E. T., V. A G. pressed its side of the argument, if I may dignify their claims by the word, “arguni nt,” because there are cases where the public mind has been educated and lead into certain convic tions by reason of the agitation in fa vor of only one side of the question, no matter whether that side had the - intrinsic right in its favor or not. Therefore, it is proper that as long as the E. T., V. AG. persists in its I course of attempting to educate the mind of the public into the way of ; thinking that it has been badly treated, the other side should be equally as per sistent and energetic in showing the public that the E. T., V. A G. lives in a house which is made almost alto gether of glass, and that the country is very rocky in the immediate vicini ty of that house. Thanking you for the valuable space allowed me in your columns, I am, Yours very truly, i “The Happy Hunting’Grounds.” These are located along the line of, or near the Western A Atlantic Rail road. We do not mean the tradition al Indian sort; but those which are eagerly sought for by Atlanta sports men. The Western A Atlantic does not send its patrons to the “happy hunting grounds” of the Indians; but carries them safely to those which are pleasant to the folks who are now liv ing. The Atlanta Evening Capitol says: Hunting is a favorite sport just now with many Atlantians. Many of them own fine dogs, and are keen sports men, and there is nothing they enjoy more than a day’s sport in the fields ami woods. They have various and varying degrees of success, but they do not seem to lose their enjoyment of it. The best hunting grounds that are accessible to Atlanta gentlemen who are fond of this sport lie along the line iofthe Western A Atlantic Railroad ami the Marietta A North Georgia Railroad. The advantage is further more in favor of the Western A At lantic, from the fact that the hours of its schedules are more suitable to At lanta gentlemen than those of any oth er road leading out of the city. They can go out in the morning and come back to dinner or to early sup per, or they can go out after dinner and come back to supper. They can, if they desire, go up the Marietta A North Georgia Railroad, leaving At lanta in the morning, and are back at night, spending a portion of the day within the first fifty miles of the M. A N. G. R. R., after leaving Marietta. Or, if they are willing to take two days then can spend them to fine ad vantage on the upper end of the M. A N. G. R. R. The AV estern A Atlantic at present is certainly the “hunter’s line.” To local points on its line, the W. A A. gives reduced rates which are called “hunter’s rates.” These, of course, vary to the different stations from At lanta. They also apply from Chatta nooga, and citizens of that place who are fond of hunting have the same ad vantages as are granted to those in At lanta. The Rome R. R., we are informed also joins the Western A Atlantic in its liberality to lovers of this sport, and 9