tockholders. It is noteworthy that the directors connected
with these construction schemes have been exceedingly
prosperous, while the stockholders of the roads have grown
poor in an inverse ratio. The dividends of the latter have
disappeared. The new mileage, much of which, I apprehend,
has been made on this principle, was about twenty-one
thousand miles, which is greater than the entire mileage of
Great Britain. There should be additions to the Interstate
Law, or a special law regulating the methods of construction
companies, which are probably doing more to demoralize the
railroad system--and doing it very insidiously, too--than
any other factor connected with these great arteries of the
country's prosperity.

"Legislative reform is greatly needed in the matter of
railroad reports, especially for the safety of investors,
and to prevent speculative abuses among railroad officials
and their friends and favorites. There should be statements
issued annually, or perhaps more frequently, upon the truth
of which everybody might rely. These should be sworn
statements, and should bear the signatures of at least three
of the directors. These directors should be required to
call to their aid expert accountants, and should have placed
at their disposal all the books of the company or
corporation and all the other papers necessary to verify the
accuracy of their report. The correctness of the statement,
when issued, would then be a foregone conclusion, and an
investor in London, Paris or Berlin could buy or sell on his
own judgment, an experiment which, under existing
arrangements, might prove very costly. It is proverbial that
a railroad statement now is defective in the most essential
particulars, and, to put it mildly, usually covers a
multitude of sins. According to one plan approved by
railroad companies, the statement published to-day, for
instance, is made to show a surplus of many millions, but
there is nothing said about an open construction account to
which the surplus is debtor. On this favorable showing (with
this _suppressio veri_) the stock goes up and the insiders
quickly unload upon the investment public. The following
statement, which comes out six months later, shows that the
sur