COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY. XI

debtor, not an "imaginary creditor," sacredly dedicated to
its payment. Her bondholders know, her people know,

everybody knows that her Internal Improvement properties
will more than pay it, at any time that it is demandable,

and that they cannot be used for any other purpose. And
this is the real and true reason, I take it, why her loan-taxes
have been so lightly imposed upon her people, that, to-day,
they do not keep down the interest on her debt--and vet, what

State maintains a higher credit?

Of the State's internal improvement properties, there are
three classes : The first is of value and productive of revenue

and consists of stocks and bonds of the Baltimore and Ohio.
Railroad Company, and stocks of its Washington Branch,'
and of the Annapolis Bank, and of the Annapolis Water

Company (the last of which has latey become productive),
and of a mortgage from the Northern Central Railway Com-
pany amounting, in all, as I have stated above, to $3461,-
085.70. The second class is of value that is indefinite, and
is unproductive, and the most of it has been unproductive
for many years. It consists of bonds and mortgages of the

Susquehanna and Tide-water Canals, bonds of the Columbia
and Port Deposit Railroad Company, stocks of the Chesa-
peake and Delaware Canal Company, and of the Bohemia
Bridge Company, and of the Baltimore and Fredericktown
and of the Baltimore and Yorktown Turnpike Companies,
and of the Baltimore and Potomac, and the Annapolis and
Elk Ridge Railroad Companies, and of the stocks and bonds
of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company ; amounting in
all to the par value of |$8,645, 005.40. The third class is
not only unproductive but is regarded as valueless, and con-
sists of stocks of the following railroad companies, to wit:
Baltimore and Drum. Point, Dorchester and Deleware,
Easton Shore, Kent and Queen Anne's, Kent County, Miry-
land and Delaware, Philadelphia and Baltimore Central,
Southern Maryland, Worcester and Somerset, Worcester,
Wicomico and Pocomoke, amounting in all to the par value

of $390,827.00. There is also another class that is not only

utterly worthless, but of which the only evidence that I can
find, consists of such entries in the Comptroller's Books as :