is, if this discrimination in favor of this particular shipper was made with an 18 instead of a 23 cent rate and the tariff rate was maintained as against their competitors—­the result might be and not improbably would be that their competitors would be driven out of business.  This crime is one which in its nature is deliberate and premeditated.  I think over a fortnight elapsed between the date of Palmer’s letter requesting the reduced rate and the answer of the railroad company deciding to grant it, and then for months afterwards this business was carried on and these claims for rebates submitted month after month and checks in payment of them drawn month after month.  Such a violation of the law, in my opinion, in its essential nature, is a very much more heinous act than the ordinary common, vulgar crimes which come before criminal courts constantly for punishment and which arise from sudden passion or temptation.  This crime in this case was committed by men of education and of large business experience, whose standing in the community was such that they might have been expected to set an example of obedience to law upon the maintenance of which alone in this country the security of their property depends.  It was committed on behalf of a great railroad corporation, which, like other railroad corporations, has received gratuitously from the State large and valuable privileges for the public’s convenience and its own, which performs quasi public functions and which is charged with the highest obligation in the transaction of its business to treat the citizens of this country alike, and not to carry on its business with unjust discriminations between different citizens or different classes of citizens.  This crime in its nature is one usually done with secrecy, and proof of which it is very difficult to obtain.  The interstate commerce act was past in 1887, nearly twenty years ago.  Ever since that time complaints of the granting of rebates by railroads have been common, urgent, and insistent, and although the Congress has repeatedly past legislation endeavoring to put a stop to this evil, the difficulty of obtaining proof upon which to bring prosecution in these cases is so great that this is the first case that has ever been brought in this court, and, as I am formed, this case and one recently brought in Philadelphia are the only cases that have ever been brought in the eastern part of this country.  In fact, but few cases of this kind have ever been brought in this country, East or West.  Now, under these circumstances, I am forced to the conclusion, in a case in which the proof is so clear and the facts are so flagrant, it is the duty of the court to fix a penalty which shall in some degree be commensurate with the gravity of the offense.  As between the two defendants, in my opinion, the principal penalty should be imposed on the corporation.  The traffic manager in this case, presumably, acted without any advantage to himself and without any interest in the transaction, either by the direct authority or in accordance with what he understood to be the policy or the wishes of his employer.