10

brings to Baltimore a. large number of persons who go to
Washington on this Branch Road. What may be the relative
number of passengers supplied by each of these roads, the
undersigned has no means of ascertaining, but he will assume
in this inquiry that the two roads last named furnish together
as many passengers for Washington as the road first named.
And he intests that it will fellow as a necessary sequitur that
any legislation which would withdraw the supply of passengers
furnished by all these roads would take from the Washing-
ington Branch Road the ability to supply any revenue to the
State; and that legislation which would take from the
Washington Branch the trarel now supplied by either of these
roads, would cause a pro tanto diminution of revenue. The
undersigned does not concur in the theory of the memorial,
that all legislation is to be considered hostile to the interest
of the State which may lessen the revenue to be derived from
the Washington Branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad ;
but will adopt that theory in the investigation of the ques-
tion of revenue which he now pursuing. Has there been any
recent legislation which will deprive the Washington Branch
Road of the travel it now enjoys, and through what influences
has such legislation been obtained ? Has it been through the
"new-born zeal" of foreign capitalists ? Has such legis-
lation been inaugurated to bring the trade of a large section of
the United States in more immediate proximity to the city of
Baltimore ? Will it tend to bring trade to or take it away
from Baltimore ? The undersigned submits that the provis-
sions of the Act of 1865, ch. 70, will give the reply to each
and all of these questions. That act gives (not to foreigners,)
but to the Baltimore & Ohio Bailroad Company, the power
to construct a railway from the Main Stem of their road at
or near Knoxville, in Frederick County, to the City of Wash-
ington. What will be the effect of this road upon the travel on
the Washington Branch Road? The Legislature will at once
see that it furnishes a shorter line by some fifty miles for all
passengers who may travel to Washington from the west on
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and consequently that it will
take from the Washington Branch Road every passenger brought
to it by the Baltimore & Ohio Road, unless yon shall be asked
to believe that western passengers to Washington will travel
the additional fifty miles, and incur the added expense, for
the purpose of contributing to the State revenue. In the es-
timate of future revenue, you are therefore to deduct from the
average income for the niae years preceding the war, ($69,
271,) to the entire amount BOW and then received from the pas-
sengers for Washington brought by the Baltimore & Ohio
Railroad.

But this is not the only loss to that revenue caused by this
manifestation of "new-bora zeal" by the Memorialist. Your
honorable bodies are aware of the competition now existing