1876.] OF THE SENATE, 429

Thus presenting all the financial transactions of the State
of Maryland with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Compa-
ny, it is shown that a clear aggregate net gain to the State,
embracing every transaction connected with the Company, as
per the summary annexed amounts to the vast sum of $8,-
577,316.88.

And thus it is conclusively shown that instead of the Balti-
more and Ohio Railroad having proven a burden and a loss
to the tax-payers of the State, it has directly contributed to
their relief $8,577,316.88.

The managers of the Baltimore and Ohio Company having
labored always with comprehensive views, embracing the
general good of our people, point with pride to results which
they believe to be unparalleled financially by any internal im-
provement connected with any of our sisterhood of States, or
with any Government in Europe. They have labored with
unswerving fidelity to build up the interest and advance the
honor, dignity and power of the State of Maryland, and the
prosperity and progress of its chief commercial city, as the
fate of cities and of States under modern systems of railway
improvements depends upon combining such organizations,
as will throw through the control and power of unit-lines,
into their borders the business of other great centres, and re-
gions of trade and production, the Baltimore and Ohio Com-
pany has continuously pursued these vital objects, and its com-
binations now reach, under direct and closely co-operative
management, the most important centres of business in the
south, in the southwest, in the west, and the northwest.

It has in Maryland, but 137 8-10 miles of its main stem, and
including the Washington Branch, the Metropolitan Branch,
and the Washington county Branch, (which is a leased line,)
the Frederick Branch, and its smaller extensions, it has but
245 miles in Maryland, whilst in the District of Columbia, in
Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois, it has 1,250 miles of important lines, the operating
of which is most essential to the continued prosperity and
progress of the City of Baltimore. Its surplus earnings, in-
stead of being divided among the Stockholders, have been in-
vested in connecting lines largely for the benefit of the State,
and our chief commercial city. Certainly the usefulness ;
the effectiveness: and the vast results of this system are re-
cognised as of immense importance to our commonwealth,
and the opulence and population of the State have been thus
enormously increased. It has made investments in Ocean
Steamships, for the purpose of organizing a system of ocean
transportation without which no modern city can be great.
It has gone into these investments when it was impossible to