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1876.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 1581
not be required at any time to pay any more per share on its
subscription than any other stockholder.
The Company could not assess the State on its subscrip-
tion any greater instalments per share than the assessment
per share on the other stockholders. The assessment must
be equal. And yet it appears from the testimony, that
the State has paid 100 per cent, in money, whilst the private
stockholders, if any there be, have paid little, if any thing, and
never claimed to have paid more than 50 per centum. From
all the evidence the Committee could find in the office of the
Comptroller and State Treasurer, it appears that on the 3rd
day of February, 1873, the County Commissioners of St,
Mary's county passed a resolution, by which the Treasurer
of the State was recommended "to pay over to the Southern
Maryland Railread Company, the first and second instalments
new due on last share of the capital stock of said Company,
heretofore subscribed by the said Treasurer in the name and
behalf of the State of Maryland, as recommended by this
Board by its order of the 3rd day of January, 1873, the
amount of said instalments being fifty per centum on each
share as subscribed as aforesaid."
On the 5th day of February, 1873, two days after the pas-
sage of this resolution, the same was filed with the State
Treasurer, together with an affidavit of the 5th of February,
1873, sworn to by Samuel S. Smoot, President, Hamilton G.
Fant, Treasurer, to the effect "that fifty per centum on each
share of the capital stock of the said Sounthern Maryland
Railroad Company, has been duly paid to the Treasurer of said
Company in two separate instalments."
These instalments are stated by Smoot, in his testimony,
to have been the instalment of two per cent. ($20,000) re-
quired to be paid at the time of the original subscription in
1868, and an additional instalment of forty-eight per cent,
which Smoot and Fant claim to have paid by a bogus certifi-
cate of deposit, of which we will speak hereafter.
The above resolution of the County Commissioners, and
the affidavit were filed with the State Treasurer on the
5th day of February, 1873, together with a letter from Smoot
to the State Treasurer in which the latter was requested as
follows: "should these papers be sufficient, please have a
warrant issued tor she amount, and if the Treasury is not in
funds, please write me an official letter stating the money
will be paid to the Treasurer of said Company when in
funds."
Smoot says, in bis testimony, that the State Treasurer did
not regard this affidavit as sufficient, and accordingly we find
another affidavit dated the following day, (Feb. 6th, 1873,)
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