278 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 20,

now seek to attain that end indirectly, by a perversion of the
true intent and meaning of the charter of the Baltimore and
Potomac road, and their real object is thus, to secure a rival
road connecting Baltimore with Washington, and further-
more, that they do not intend, in good faith, to construct the
the main stem of said road to the Potomac river.

That the amount paid into the State Treasury by the
Washington branch alone on account of stock dividends,
and for one-fifth of the gross revenue from passengers be-
tween Baltimore and Washington, for the past five years
will be found to have amounted to upwards of three hundred
thousand dollars per annum, and that this is an interest
which at such a time as this, or at any time, is too important
to be surrendered or even put in jeopardy, the more especial-
ly, when it would enure chiefly to the advantage of such in-
terests and such influences as would be likely to control the
management of another Washington road.

After a full, careful, and as your Committee believe, an
impartial investigation of this subject, they have arrived at
very different conclusions from those indicated in the memo-
rial of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company.

The assumption that the construction of a lateral branch to
Washington was not intended by the original corporators of
the Potomac road, nor contemplated by the Legislature when
it granted the charter, cannot we believe, be sustained by
any evidence adduced upon this point, on the contrary, the
testimony of many members of the General Assembly at that
time, of the member who introduced the original Act of all
the surviving Corporators, so far as we have been able to as-
certain, is unanimous that the construction of a lateral branch
road to connect the main stem with the city of Washington
was always intended, and further, that the privilege to con-
struct such a branch as embodied in the charter, was consid-
ered one of the most important, and indeed from the very
nature and extent of the contemplated connections of the
main stem, an indispensible part of the franchise.

The charter confers the right to build lateral branches
from any point not exceeding twenty miles in length, might
not any other corporation or companj, supposing their inter-
ests to be injuriously effected by this right, with equal pro-
priety argue against the construction of lateral branches in
any other direction ?

We believe that the Legislature was fully informed of this
inteation of the corporators to construct a lateral branch to
Washington, from the written testimony in our possession, of
the gentleman who proposed the bill, and also of many other
members of that Legislature, and from the fact also that the