The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-01-04
sEABoARD & ROANOKE ROAD, so MILES.
PETERSBURG ROAD, 90 MILES.

do 3rd do 80 do
do 4th do % do
And beside, the 9Th classification of the
one is wanting in the other and makes still
more extraordinary the exacton of the Pc
tersburg Road.
Let US make another comparison:
The Norfolk and Petersburg Road is
eighty-one miles in length, and on bale of
cotton Of 500 pounds weight it charges so
cents. The Petersburg Road, sixty-two
miles long, charges on bale of the same
size, 81 SO, by way of proving that it loves
low rates Such is the manner in which
the Ragland administration endears itself
to the people along its line, to its North
Carolina patrons and to the citizens of Pc
tersburg. Thus does it charge each and all
Of them more for serving them than is
charged by any other railroad company.
But another aspect of the question pre-
senting a comparison different in terms,
but perhaps equally damaging to the Rag
land administration in the eyes of the lovers
of fair play, and in the eyes of the people
of Petersburg
The Petersburg Railroad hauls cotton,
say from Tarboro', for New York dealer
at l43 cents per 100 pounds, or 653 cents
per bale, while it charges Mr.. r. A. Martin
or Mr.. Arlington, or Mr.. McIlwaine for the
same cotton 27s cents per 100 pounds, or
$l.24; and more than this, this same Rag
land administration, which claims to be
native to Petersburg, is party to an
arrangement with the New York Steam
ship Line by which cotton going to a
New York dealer is taken at City
Point for sl.30, while if a Petersburg
merchant has it to ship, he must pay Sl.50.
What more outlet than this does the
Petersburg Road desire and what more
straight shoot by which low rates and
quick despatch is offered to all freights ex-
cept that bought by and destined to Pc
tersburg?
These facts will hardly be denied. If
they are denied we call upon the Peters,
burg Road to throw open to q responsible
Citizens Committee the books of its
freights books formerly open to the pub
lie, but now kept from the common gaze
with care justified by what they could
show.
Good Heavens And this is the corpora
ton that asks unlimited power over us and
our fortunes. Such are its acts now that
it is in the gristle of youth-what it will be
in the bone of that monstrous manhood it
proposes, let the public judge. If such be
the green tree, it needs no prophet to say
what it will be in the dry.
Their advent into power was the signal
for raising the rates upon the traffic seek
ing Petersburg, the daily supplies of the
poor no less than the merchandise of the
rich. Their next act was, in so far as
rates can do it, to prohibit Southern pro.
ducts from using this market. And now
they ask the Legislature to reward them
by giving them the power to deprive two
Virginia cities Of the tide that flows to their
doors, and in time even to dry up the
streams that work the mills and factories
of Petersburg, Richmond and Manchester
for it would take but few years of such
management in their future as is foreshad.
owed by their past, in order not only tc
close the great cotton-houses which line
Sycamore street, but to empty Ettricks and
Matoaca and Petersburg itself of the me
chanics who form the very soul of oul
body polite.