New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1868-11-30
ERIE.

Opr early and steadfaSt devotion to the Erie
Railroad when it was as yet but an unsatisiied
aspiration-the many columns we wrote i'll its
behalf and the little money we gladly contrib
uted to help build it-Qittle enough for the
road, but quite q sum for us)-impel us to an
utterance provoked by the decline Of its for
tunes We shall take the utmost care to tell
truth that the public should know, without sub
iecting ourselves to indictment for libel or I'M
prisonment for contempt OF court
The real cost of the Erie Road was about
$50 OOOOOO whereof the State freely gave
So. OOO. 900. Add S1O,OOO,OOO outlay for branches
honestly constructed or purchased for the good
Of the concern and not especially of its drec-
tors and then suppose the S3OOO,OOO given by
the State to have been used up in contingent
cies. and the Road and appendices should
stand this day as having cost its stockholders
$GOOOO,OOO.
Its gross income, after the deduction oil
stcalngs, is officially reported at about $l5OOOOOO
per annum for several years back. Say that
sixty per cent. of the gross earnings are abb
sorbed in repairs and running expenses, and
There remain for the stockholders SG,0OO,OW
per annum, or ten per cent on the net cost.
why is it, then. that the stockholders have
had 10 dividends for years, and that the stock Is
now selling at 40, which is probably more than
{ is WORTH
Certainly not for want Of business as the
gross receipts annually establish. We stopped
over one day last Winter at Mddletown, close
beside the Erie track; and we judged that n
train passed that station every fifteen minutes
not less than eighty, at all events, within the
twenty-four hours. Coal, Lumber, Milk, Petro-
lcum, Cattle, Swine, and almost every descriD-
ton of Produce, filed car after car of these
trains till some of them stretched full quarter
of n mile; while Merchandise, Manufactures
Metals, Machinery, &c, chokcd those
that passed inland. This, to be sure, was on
the Eastern or seaboard division; but we spent
a night last December at Great Valley, Catta-
raugus County. and listened to the complaints
of a lumber man of that locality, who SAID he
had been all Summer begging for cars to take
his plank, boards, &c, eastward to market
and could never get half enough lie loaded
whole trains, and paid whatever freight the
Directors saw fit to charge; yet his produce
remained for months on his hands, when it was
wanted Mt this City and he wanted the pay for
it, but the ears could not be had.
Why is it that Eric-built for FAR less than
it would cost to-day-aftcr paying It's stock
holders no dividends for years, is now selling
at 4O7
The answer is simply and surely this-Nl-
lainy in high places. The Road has been
plundercd on this hand and on that-by drec-
tors, by employees, by lawyers, 10y judges, and
10y legislators, till its stock may not be worth
- IA
villains have prcyed upon it; proiane villains
have drained it, likelihood: judicial villains have
broken it, bones and sucked the marrow; in
short. the dcyourcrs of widows houses have
had their will of it, with the result that we
now see and dcplOre.
Is it not possible that some of these villains
shall now be brought to justice and made to
disgorgel Admit that the stockholders are
robbed beyond recovery, does not the honor OF
our State iucxombly demand it