The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-09

greatest, as we'll as the most distinctively
American, of American cities.
GREAT AND LITTLE CORPORATIONS.
From the NJ Y. World.
When MIR. Lemuel Gulliver took his after
noon nap he found himself on waking tied
hand and foot, and although each filament
was very tiny they sufficed to bind him to the
ground. or at least compelled him to struggle
10 get free. Such just now seems to be,
though in varying forms, the awakening of
PENNSYLVANIA and Virginia-the one vigor-
GUS, well-fed, plethoric giant, gorged with
shoddy; the other an invalid, with blood en-
feebled and vigor terribly abated. Governor
Geary starts from his slumbers with an ac-
tual shrek. 1t seems that in those years of
placid enjoyment which, since the day
when, made bankrupt by a great cor
poration which she nursed, tshe re-
fused to pay her interest, have rolled
over Pennsylvania, there has been growing
up within her borders a crop of bodies poll
tic which, with specious promises to the
State of taxes on dividends, and to the citizen
of development of resources and facility of
transit, have step by step been appropriat-
ing to themselves vast and dangerous
powers. This rank and poisonous growth
has of course been stimulated by the hot COM
post which protection has heaped about its
roots, until at last the combined powers of
production and corporate privilege overbear
political independence, and the State finds
itself helpless at their feet. This, according
to the fact as we'll as Governor Geary frantic
utterances, is exactly the state of things
at this moment In Eastern Pennsyl-
vania; and the very sensible though comically
lawyer-like letter of his Attorney General
reveals the legislative and judicial contri-
vances by which, year after year, this has
come to pass. When the Legislature limits
the tolls the companies get up little conve-
nient litigation, and the judiciary, in its
simplicity, decides that "toll" does not
mean ''freight;" and so when the time
comes, as now, that producing and transit
corporations find it to their advantage to
combine to crush the industrial interest pro-
per, their powers to do SO are found to be
illimitable, and the Governor and the Legisla-
ture are helpless. This is one of the corpora
tion crises which threaten Pennsylvania Its
sources are the companies operating in the
eastern part of the Common wealth, and
mainly those leading to and from the anthra-
cite regions watered by the Schuylkill and the
Lehigh. Their power of mischief is not di-
minished by the concession that they are in
the main solvent corporations-the capital in
one instance chiefly owned abroad.
But the stertorous slumber of Pennsylvania
betrays heavier nightmare than this. There
is a corporation which, unlike the Reading
and the Lehigh,,entitles, "bestrides no narrow
world, " but stands over the citizens of once
free commonwealth literally
sIlke colossus; and they petty men,
Walk under its huge legs, and peep about
To find themselves dishonorabe graves"
Such is that giant corporation as to which
we have more than once uttered words of
warning, and as to which Pennsylvania dares
not speak. We have said why we are re-
motely interested, and shall not repeat it..
If tho T,anicafura ha itc ,no1itioo ybot
it may. If it needs statutory help, it issues
an order and is at once obeyed. If it does
not suit its convenience to have these amen
datory statutes published in the body of the
public laws, they are hidden in an appendix
1t has the absolute control of Senators at
Washington; and we have at this moment the
indecent spectacle of bill pressed through
Congress at the bidding of this corporation
to build q bridge across the great river at
Cincinnati which the whole Ohio delegation
tell us will be fatal to the interests of paviga-
ton. Thus conscious of power and thus un-
checked, it too, like the pigmy coal compa-
nies, takes the tone of defiance, aud this too
in a way which gives the action an interest of
very wide scope indeed. No one will deny
that the maintenance of the public faith of
| Pennsylvania-its bonds scattered every
where-is matter of general interest. Thus
is it affected.
We are not of those who believe in the
magic of sinking funds or indeed in sinking
| funds at all. Bad as is Mr.. Boutwell's policy,
| it is better than the mockery of a fund to be
made available by and by, and in the mean
time TO be subject to all manner of risks; but
all will agree that if there be sinking fund
it ought not to be sported with. Years ago
| Pennsylvania created sinking fund, which
now, as near as we understand it, amounts to
about 50, 900, and was supposed to be
| invested in safe and available securi-
| ties. Governor Geary, SO believing, re-
commended its realization and a proper
tionate debt liquidation. But 10! when it
comes to be examined (and this we derive
| from the report of committee of the Legis-
lature) it turns out, if not a mere myth
which we are far from asserting-yet most
unavailable and insecure dependence. 'Bri-
areus" has made ''ducks and brakes" of it,
| The Pennsylvania Railroad Company years
| ago bought the public works of PENNSYLVANIA.
and paid for them in its own or other first
mortgage bonds, In the lapse of time it
suited them to make different arrangement,
and the rescript was issued, and an act in
March, 1861, passed, by which the bonds
were merged into some sort of contract by
which the principal debt was turned into
a collateral; and now, when. the Governor
wants to sell, he finds his stocks on
hand unmarketable, and the actual debtor to
the State-the purchaser for nothing of the
public works-master of the position. Now,
we are by no means prepared to say that
Governor Geary's policy of sale is the wisest
but it is very far beyond our finite compre
hension that il should be frustrated by the
discovery of the utter unavailability of hi
assets, and this through the agency and secre
manipulatiens of creature of the law, WheI
Mr.. Attorney General Brewster comes to ex