COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY. ix

and accruing demands upon the -Treasury. Accordingly
the Act of 1878, Ch. 238 was passed, authorizing a Loan
not to exceed five hundred thousand dollars to relieve
the Treasury from losses accruing from certain sources of
revenue, and reciting these losses to have been occasioned
"by the failure of the Susquehanna and Tide Water Canal
Companies to pay the interest on the mortgage due the State,
and by the failure of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Com-
pany to pay any portion of the amount due the State from
the one-fifth of the receipts from passengers on its Washing-
ton Branch, and also from its failure to pay the accustomed
dividends on the stock of the State in the said Washington
Branch."

This law, as required by the Constitution, followed the
usual practice and provided for a special tax of one and one-
half cents on every hundred dollars of the taxable property
of the State and dedicated this tax to the payment of
the principal and interest of the Loan. It was approved
by your Excellency and took effect on the first day of April
1878. The Treasury was then empty, I might say worse tbao
empty. It had borrowed from one of its special funds the
money which was then needed for the special purpose to
which it had been dedicated. Before even the certificates of
debt or bonds could be printed this money was required and
a temporary loan of $125,000.00 had to be negotiated for
immediate relief. It was readily effected through the kind-
ness and promptness of the State's Agency on the second day
of April 1878, to be returned on the first day of July follow-
ing, with the legal rate of interest. It could not with con-
venience be returned until the twenty-sixth day of September
following, and was accepted then by the lenders. This trans-
action will be found set forth under the head of "Treasury
Relief Loan" in "Statements A and B," of the Appendix,
Certificates of indebtedness were given and returned as set
forth in these statements.

There were also bonds to the amount of $250,000.00 issued
and sold during the fiscal year, under the Treasury Relief
Loan Act of 1878, with six per centum interest coupon's