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cause it is to be a link in some imaginary air-line road, &c,
is unworthy of the memorialist, and of the intelligence of those
to whom that paper is addressed. Can it be patriotic to make
a lateral road of forty-five miles, from Knoxville to Washing-
ton, which necessarily takes from the Washington Branch
Road all the western travel, and unpatriotic to make a branch
road of less than twenty miles from the Baltimore & Potomac
Road to Washington, because it would take off some of this
travel on the Baltimore & Ohio Road to Washington, and to
that extent in like manner lessen this revenue of the State?

If consistency be a jewel, the undersigned proposes to show
that it is not one of the vast possessions of the Memorialist.
Some time since a charter was granted to the Western Mary-
land Railroad Company to construct a railway from Baltimore
city through Baltimore, Carroll and Washington Counties tj
Hagerstown, with the ulterior design of extending it through
Maryland to the coal mines of Alleghany. This improve-
ment was opposed more bitterly by the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad than the same Company now oppose the road under
consideration. Why was this opposition? The eastern ter-
minus of that road was the city of Baltimore; it was to be
built entirely through Maryland; it proposed to carry no trade
or travel to cities outside of the State; it developed the re-
sources of the counties through which it passed; it offered the
city of Baltimore as the only market to which its trade could
come, and when completed to Alleghany, it would give Bal-
timore, not the district cities, another if not a more direct
communication with the mineral wealth of that region. Why
then was it opposed by the Baltimore Road? The ostensible
opposition was that it was not to be made with foreign capi-
tal, but in part by a subscription of the city which was to reap
so rich a harvest from its completion. In reality, the oppo-
sition was, that the Baltimore Road was building a branch of
its road from somewhere near Knoxville to Hagerstown, and
it was not content that two suns should shine in the same
firmament with its overshadowing greatness; or, as said by
some of its enemies, it preferred to carry on its road the rich
products of Frederick and Washington counties, and even the
coal of Allegany, without competition, even at the hazard of
its seeking the District cities as a .market, made, by the late-
ral roads referred to, nearer by some fifty miles than Balti-
more. The Legislature refused to repeal that clause in the
law which authorized the subscription of the city to the stock
of the Western Maryland Road, and it is now in the course of
successful completion to Hagerstown; and it will hereafter be
constructed to the coal fields, most probably by foreign capi-
tal, but, if necessary, by additional aid from the State and
city, as the only means of securing to Baltimore the immense
trade of that region.

Your attention must now be, for a moment, invited to the