194

LAWS OF MARYLAND.

to pay its ordinary current expenses, but a large annual deficiency

Preamble.

averaging fifty thousand dollars or thereabouts has regularly

accrued; and

WHEREAS, it has been represented to this General Assembly

that a lease for nine-nine years, renewable forever, can be made

upon terms that will insure the building of a thoroughly equipped
railroad along the line of said canal from Cumberland, Maryland,

to Washington city, in the District of Columbia, and which will

provide for the purchase of said repair bonds and coupons thereon,

issued under said act of eighteen hundred and seventy-eight,

chapter fifty-eight, amounting to more than five hundred and

ninety thousand dollars, and of said debt for labor and repairs

amounting to seventy thousand dollars, or thereabouts, and said

Preamble.

judgment for about thirty thousand dollars, and the payment of

twenty-five per cent, of the principal of the said preferred con-

struction bonds, issued under the act of eighteen hundred and

forty-four, chapter two hundred and eighty-one, and the regular

payment to this State of fifteen thousand dollars per annum, re-

deemable at the option of said company upon payment of three

hundred thousand dollars; provided, power shall be conferred by

law upon said Chesapeake and Ohio canal company to execute

such lease; and provided further, that the prior liens of the State

upon said canal and its works shall be waived and released in

favor of such lessee; now therefore,

SECTION 1. Be it enacted ly the General Assembly of Maryland,

That the Chesapeake and Ohio canal company shall have power

to lease for the term of ninety-nine years, renewable forever, to

the Washington and Cumberland railroad company, a corporation

incorporated under article twenty-three, of the Code of Public

General Laws, entitled "Corporations," and whose charter has

been amended at the present session of the General Assembly, its

To lease.

canal and adjacent lands, works, corporate property, water-rights

and franchises of every description upon the terms and condi-

tions following, to wit: the said railroad company shall enter

upon and take possession of said canal and its adjacent land,

works, dams, water-rights wharves and other property imme-

diately upon the execution of said lease, and construct upon the

tow-path or bed of the canal or the lands or banks of said canal

or upon lands adjacent to said canal acquired for the purpose, a

continuous line of railroad between Cumberland and the city of

Washington, District of Columbia, and shall equip and put the

same in running order with one or more tracks for the transporta-

tion of passengers and freight between Cumberland and Williams-

port within one year from the date of said lease, and between

Williamsport and Washington within two years from date of

said lease; in case delay shall occur in the commencement and

prosecution of said work in consequence of legal proceedings in-