The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-09 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

RAILROADS IN NEVADA —VIRGINIA AND TRUCKEE
RAILROAD.—Mr. E. L. Mason, of the surveying

party engaged upon the Virginia, Washoe,and
Truckee Railroad, has been iu this city and reports
that the lines for the grade have been run from
American Flat to Empire City. Between Empire
City and the summit at American Flat the grade
will he 116 feet to the mile. Grading will be
commenced in about four weeks.— Virginia Enter-
prise.

From the Report of the Auditor-Graneral of the
State of Pennsylvania, for the year 1867, wo learn
that more than two-thirds of the total tonnage of

railroads of the State last year consisted of mine-
ral productions, as follows :-Anthracite coal,
15,482,140 ; bituminous coal, 4,931,387 ; petro-
leum, 831,621; pig iron, 628,779; railroad iron,
358,959 ; other iron or castings, 819,227 a ; iron
and other ores, 1,501.5611 ; lime anl limestone,
736,654+. Total, 24,821,3171.
The board of directors of the Boston and Albany
Railroad have fixed the annual salary of the pre-
sident at $10,003 ; that of the vice-president at
$5,000; superintendent, $5,000; assistant-super-
intendent, $5,000; c3unsel, $5,000; treasurer,
$l,OOO ; two assistants, $1,200 each ; clerk of
board of directors, $2,700.
RAILWAYS OF THE DOMINION.-There are twenty
railways in the Dominion in operation, with 2,530
miles of main track exclusive of switches, of which
sixteen are in Quebec and Ontario, with 2,189
miles of track ; of the remaining four, 196. miles
are in New Brunswick, and 145 miles in Nova
Scotia. The total cost of construction and equip-
ment of these railways was $158.750,099, or an
average cost per mile of $62,765 68. The Grand
Trunk has been the most costly in its construc-
tion•=namely, $74,683 40 per mile; after which
the Great Western, costing $70,310 47 ; the
Welland, costing $61,913 72 ; and the Northern,
costing $56,411 25 per mile. The Halifax, Truro
and Windsor, European and North American, Lon-
don and Port Stanley, Truro and Picton, Ottawa
and Prescott ; Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton,
Cobourg, Peterboro', and Marmora, New Bruns-
wick and Can Ida, and Brockville and Ottawa, cost
in the order they st•in 1, from $16,722 down to
$30,600 miles. The least costly in construction and
equipment are the Carillon and Greenville, and St.
Lawrence and Industry, the former costing $7,746,
and the latter SLSOB per mile. The rolling stock
consists of 480 locomotives, 304 first-class, and 380
second-class cars, 4,110 freight, and 2,380 platform
About 2,900,000 passengers are carried
annually. The Great Western is, in proportion to
its mileage, best supplied with passenger cars and
carries most passengers per annum. The receipts
from passengers per mile per annum are $1,772 65,
and from freight $2,522 96, making total receipts
$1,558 24, against $2,930 75 working expenditure.
This would give as the nett earnings per annum
about $4,000,000, or 21- per cent. per annum on the
cost of construction. Besides the railways in
operation there are in New Brunswick 175 miles,
and in Nova Scotia 85 miles under construction.
A PROFITABLE RAILWAY.-•The following table
shows the receipts, expenses, and net earnings of
the Central Railway of New Jersey, from the be-
ginning of the annual reports to the Legislature to
the present time :-
Receipts. Expenses. Net Earnings.
1853 $349,018 -$197,629 $151,389 43 per cent.
1854 378.145 197,319 180,795 48
1855 393,729 208,856 184,873 47
1856 553,479 258,308 295,171 53
1857 682,315 • 310,502 341,812 51
1858 816,934 845,614 591,320 58
1859 971,702 385,716 585,986 61
1860 1,185,838 475,457 710,391 60
1861 1,201,895 522,452 679,413 57
1862 1,397,586 623,245 774,341 56
1863 1,911,976 814,732 1 127,231 58
1864 2,537,185 1,231,554 1,305,631 51
1865 3,036,390 1,748,434 1,287,956 43
1866 3,581,244 1,963,976 1,617,268 45
867 3,320,397 1,878,022 1,472,376 44

cars.

Total $22,39G,853 $11,191,816 $11,203,997 50 per cent.
The operation of clearing out the central shaft of

the Hoosac Tunnel wilt commence immediately. It
is to be done by bailing with two buckets holding
each eight barrels. It is estimated that it will take
twenty days to reach the bottom, where the thirteen
dead lie.

THE NEW YORK CITY CENTRAL UNDERGROUND
RAILROAD COMPANY.—On the 17th of April of the
present year an act was passed " to incorporate the
New York City Central Underground Railway
Company, and to authorise the said company to
construct and operate a certain underground rail-
I way in the city of New York." By the terms of
this act 41 gentlemen are created a body corporate
and politic by the name of " The New York City
Central Underground Railway Company." This
company is to continue for 100 years, to be located in
the city of New York, and the capital stock, it is
provided, shall be $10,000,000, divided into 100,000
shares of $lOO each. The law provides also that the
business and offices of this corporation are to ho
managed by a board of 13 directors, who shall be
elected annually by the stockholders ; the first elec-
tion to take place in the city of New York within
three months after the passage of the act. In ac-
cordance with this provision the stockholders held
an election at 58, Broadway, between 12 and 1
o'clock, on June 18, when the following named
gentlemen were elected :—William B. Ogden, John
I. Blair, William E. Dodge, Lewis B. Brown, Geo.
Griswold, J. Boorman Johnston, Clarence S. Brown,
William B. Duncan, Andrew H. Green, Edward
Dodge, George W. Dl•Lean, Henry Smith, and 11.
F. Vail.

In Pittsburgh, a mortgage for $10,000,000, on

. -
the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Ralroad,
to J. Edgar Thomson, of Philadelphia, and George
W. At‘Cook, of Stubenville, has been recorded i❑
the Register's office. The mortgage is given to
the parties as trustees to secure the bonds of the

company.
THE SournEng ILLINOIS RAILROADS.—The St.
Louis Democrat, Gth June, gives the following items
respecting these roads :—The Bileville Railroad
Company have been negotiating with the Illinois
Central Railroad Company for a lease of their road,
the latter company -propp.9ing to give the former
$llO,OOO per annum for a lease of their ro Id, but
they ask $125,000. To overlap this Illinois Cen-
tral Railroad Company's project, the Chicago and

St. Louis Compatiy have gono to work to try and
secure the Belleville Road. If they get it they pro-
pose to extend the road from Belleville to D❑
Quoin, on the line of the Illinois Central, and from
thence to a point opposite Paducah, Kentucky, and
at that point bridge the Ohio River, so as to con-
nect with the Mississippi Central Railroad.

" THE IGNORANT AND DEPRAVED."

The Rock, which may be described as the
fervid, and to do it no more justice, as the able
and consistent representative in England of the
black and ungainly Protestantisin of Ireland, in
commenting on a xecent article in the WEST-
MINSTER GAZETTE, On the gradual transfer of
political power from middle class Liberalism
into the hands of the peoples of Europe, arrives
at the conclusion, which it calls a gratifying
one, that Rome has no hope of retaining " her
hold on the middle class," and " is casting in
her lot with the ignorant and depraved." But
we had always thought that it was not a re-
proach, but a note of the Church of God, to
preach the Gospel to the poor, to the masses
of the people, to those whom the Rock de
scribes as " ignorant and depraved," and that
it was characteristic of the hireling to confine
his attention to that small " middle class,"
which the Rock describes joyously as posses-
sing " the largest material resources." It is,
we believe, true, as we said in the article alluded
to by the Rock, that there is a movement going
on throughout Europe, against Liberalism,
against, that is to say, a class which legislates
exclusively in its own selfish interests, and op-
pressively as regards the rights and interests
of the vast majority of the people. What direc-
tion this democratic movement may take,
will depend mainly upon the influence which
Christianity -in:*Efirope, which the • Catholic
Church can bring to bear upon the masses
of the people. It is true that the corrupting
influence of Liberalism has been long at
work opposing Christian education and under-
mining religious faith, that the active agency'
of Communism is at hand, ready to pervert
the minds of the working classes, oppressed
and galled at the treatment which they receive
at the hands of the well-to-do classes, whom the
Rock patronises and flatters ; of the owners of
capital, the masters of the labour market. If
in this terrible struggle between an anti-Chris-
tian. Liberalism and a Christian Democracy,
sore beset by Communism and Infidelity,
the Catholic Church casts in her lot, not with
a class " whose intellectual and material re-
sources " are not on the side of Christianity,
but with the people's, who is there to reproach
her ? The Rock, moreover, in rejoicing that
the middle and well-to-do class in Europe, and
the intellectual class, as represented, we sup-
pose, in Germany by Strauss, in France by
Renan and the SiOcle in England by Jowett
and the Pall Mall Gazette, are escaping alto-
gether from the control of the Catholic Church,
and in relegating to her charge those whom
it call's " the ignorant and depraved," can
scarcely be aware what numerical proportion
the despised masses bear to the well-to-do and
intellectual classes. Happening to have at
hand some statistics prepared for another pur-
pose, as to the relative proportion in Prussia
between the well-to-do classes and the rest of
the population, we will quote them here for
the especial enlightenment of the Rock. In
Prussia, before the recent annexation of terri-
tory, the population was 16,869,786, and of
this population only 44,407 persons (heads
of families) possess an annual in come of £l5O
and upwards. Now, taking each of these
heads of "fanillies to represent a family of five
persons, it appears that there are 222,055
souls, or only 1.31 per cent. of the whole
population which can be described as well
to do. Applying these returns, subject of
course to various modifications, to England
and other countries, the result would show
how small a number of souls is comprised in
the affluent middle class, whom the Rock re-
gards with such exclusive interest, compared
with the vast majority of souls whom it de-
scribes as " ignorant and depraved." Such a
description would suit the condition of the
working classes, the outcasts and the slaves of
Pagan times, and perhaps may, to our national
disgrace, be applied to the state of practical
heathenism into Which the labouring popu-
lation of England has sunk under three hun-
dred year of Protestantism ; but it is not
true as applied to the Catholic populations
of Europe. The masses of the people in France,
in Austria, in Italy, in Spain, in Catholic
Germany, in Belgium, and in, Ireland are
not " ignorant and depraved," but are far
better instructed in the Christian religion, and
far more virtuous than the middle class, in
which selfish worldliness and anti-Christian
Liberalism have taken so deep a hold.
The Rock, in describing the vast majority
of souls in England as "ignorant and de-
praved," has unwittingly brought a most fatal
accusation against Protestantism. Out of its
own mouth it is condemned.—Westminster
Gazette.