REPORT OF THE COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY. ix

and Treasurer, the amount of interest due to the State by the
Susquehanna Canal Company, and by the Tide-Water Canal
Company, to January 1st, 1888, under their respective bonds
and mortgages, made to the State, or for its benefit—to compro-
mise such indebtedness—to extend the time of payment thereof
—and to reduce the rate of interest thereon, after January 1st,
1888.

This indebtedness had been long pending, with little prospect
of its adjustment. A favorable opportunity occurring for nego-
tiation, it was thought best, by all the Executive Officers of the
State, that the powers given by the Act referred to should be
exercised in the following manner, namely, that the arrears of
interest due to the State by the said Companies to January 1st,
1888, on their respective bonds and mortgages, should bo settled
by their payment into the State Treasury of the sum of $127,-
500; that the period for the payment of the debt due by those
Canal Companies, and secured by mortgages upon their prop-
erty, should be extended for a period of fifty years from January
1st, 1888. and that the rate of interest payable on said bonds and
mortgages after January 1st, 1888, should be reduced to two per
centum per annum. Those terms were agreed to on the part of
the State and the two Canal Companies. The sum of $127,500
was paid into the State Treasury, and also the reduced interest
for the year ending on January 1st, 1889, and the transaction
completed.

Under the same authority settlement has been secured through
counsel of the claims of the Maryland Coal Company, the Con-
solidation Coal Company and other small claims, all of which
appear in this report.

COLUMBIA AND PORT DEPOSIT RAILROAD COMPANY.

The Attorney-General has examined the papers connected
with the foreclosure proceedings in the Court of Common Pleas,
No. 2, in the city of Philadelphia, instituted by the Pennsylvania
Eailroad Company against the Columbia and Port Deposit Rail-
road Company and George B. Roberts, Surviving Trustee.

The suit was brought to the June Term, 1889, for the sale of
the property of the defendant Company under a mortgage made
1st February, 1868, by the defendant Company to Trustees, for
the purpose of securing the payment of $2,500,000 of Bonds
($1,000 each), with interest at 7 per cent, per annum. Certain
changes in the trusteeship from time to time took place, but at

2 A