9

of the Baltimore and Potomac Road, is utterly unfounded.
Nor is it true that the receipts for the years mentioned would
form a just basis of the probable receipts by the State for the
futnre, if no other road to Washington should be construc-
ted.

The undersigned submits that the receipts of the State for
the per capita tax on the Washington Branch Road, for the
five years preceding the charter of the Potomac Company,
would better show the amount of revenue which the Legisla-
ture of 1853, could suppose would be lesseened by the charter
then passed; and he further suggests, that the receipts from
those sources from 1853 to the commencement of the war,
would more fairly form the basis for the future estimated earn-
ings of the Washington Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad. You will find that the amount paid into the trea-
sury, for the five years preceding the year 1853, was $267.,
476, or the average of $53,495 per annum, instead of the gross
sum of $1,531,763, and the annual sum of over $300,000 per
annum for the years selected by the Baltimore Company.—
And the undersigned submits, that the receipts prior to the
charter of his Company could alone have been considered by
the Legislature of 1853, in considering the propriety of
granting that franchise. The undersigned insists that the
revenue derived prior to the war is the proper data from which
to estimate the future probable receipts, and he shows that
the average annual receipts from the Washington Branch
Road, from 1853 to 1861 inclusive, was $69,271, instead of
over three hundred thousand dollars, the amount received for
the years selected by the Memoralist; and he submits, that
this is the basis from which to reason of the future receipts
by the State, and not the basis furnished by receipts during
the war, which as stated by the Baltimore & Ohio Company,
although not designed, were well calculated to mislead your
honorable bodies. But you are respectfully asked to consider
whether the sum of $69,271, the average receipts for the nine
years prior to the war, can be safely estimated as the future
revenue from this source ? In the prosecution of this inquiry,
you must look to the sources which have hitherto and now
supply the passengers to the Washington Branch Road; and
it is clear that the increase or diminution of future revenue
will depend upon the number of passengers which may here-
after be supplied to that Road. Independent of the local
travel, it may be assumed that the passengers on this Branch
Road are supplied first by the Philadelphia, Wilmington &
Baltimore Railway, which brings to it all the eastern travel
which is seeking the national Capital; next the Main Stem
of the Baltimore & Ohio Road, which brings to this branch,
at the Relay House, passengers for Washington from the
north-western States; and next the Northern Central Road,
which, in connection with the Pennsylvania line of road,
2