Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1878-01-05
COMMUNICATED.
SUMMIT POINT, jeff. Co., w. Va.
Dec. "a, 1877.

Shenandoah Valley Railroad, / send it
to you tor publication. While writing
l will state some facts relative to Mar
row Gauge Railroads over Broad Gauge.
The Royal Land Company narrow
gauge railroad, runs from Orange Court
House to Fredericksburg, 20 miles long,
through sparsely settled country. 1t
is run at % per cent. of its gross re-
ceipts, and pays $1,000 clear profit per
month.
Narrow gauge roads are showing
their proftableness wherever built. In
stead of the working expenses being 60
per cent upon gross receipts, they are
only 25 to 80. Nearly all the roads
now projected are narrow gauge.
The cost of harrow gauge is but
little over one-half of the broad gauge.
Its working expenses just one-half, its
capacity fully the same, and its profits
proportionably greater.
The Shenandoah Valley Railroad
Company has sunk SCI, 800 of our Coun-
ty bonds, for which we never will re-
ceive an iota of benefit. But if the
County can get rid of the present com
pany she can build narrow gauge
road with the County subscription, un-
expended, from the Potomac river to
Berryville, and the County of Clarke
will continue the road to Front Royal.
The present S. V. r. r. Company is
fictitious-it has no legal existence.
For the last two years the Board OF Di-
rectors have been Illegally elected, and
their charter has been forfeited. The
present company is so helplessly insolv-
ent, and so tettered by mortgages, that
capitalists will not touch it. If we rid
ourselves of the present do,nothing cor
poration, then we can build the road
not before Respectfully,
ROBERT w. BAYLOR.
If Congress is seriously intent upon 60
ing into subsidy business for the use,
good and behoof of Scott, Cook, Hunting
ton, Wright 81 Co. (NOrthern, Southern
and Texas Railroads) ''linited," which
rransposed means for the enrichment OF
the railroad magnatcs exclusively, why
should not aid be granted 'unlimited''
for the States of Maryl;sl, West Virgin
ia, Virginia, West North Carolina, East
Tennessee and Northern Georgia, Ala
bama and Mississippi: TO draw a line
from New y ork through Memphis, Tenn,
to the Eastern end of the Texas Pacific
in Louisiana, and you will find the line
crossing the Potomac river ut Shepherds
town, West Virginia, following the great
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia through
the Southeastern counties of West Vir-
nin nj In tp 'Hnv,rnl1 n MI thn SnIt II wv = nrn
counties of Virginia, along the valleys of
the Clinch and Powell rivers, through
kentucky and East Tennessee, near De-
catur, Alabama, and crossing the MisSis-
sippi at the mouth of the Arkansas river,
striking the Texas Pacific near Shreve-
port Louisiana. This line would traverse
one of the richest mineral regions in the
world-cOai, iron ore, copper, zinc, lead,
gypsum, etc, and develop one of the fin
| est timber countrics-the oak, hickory,
walnut, locust, cherry, and white woods,
and of the blue grass country, where the
cattle from "thousand hills" would be
opened to the Eastern markets. Capital
would flow into those portions of the
States mentioned above, and all these vast
stores of wealth would be speedily devel-
oped, which are now inaccessible. Nor
can individual capital open this grand air
!
, Hudson at the Narrows, above New York,
which is now TO be done Boston, New
York and Philadelphia would reap richly
from the accomplishment of the object.
The line OF road would be built with pri-
vate capital-thcrc is already nearly COM
pleted from Boston TO the Potomac, and
up the Valley of Virginia nearly to the
james river-and by the aid of the Gencr-
al Government in some proper way, and
properly and safely guarded, that the
benefits should and could not inure Who'll
ly TO the schemings Of one man, or a set
/ few, but to the citizens OF all those pOr-
tons Of the States named. This great
work could be accomplished, aud great
good would be the results growing there
from.
The Representative in Congress from
those States should see to this, that some
good might come out of it TO their people
and State.
If subsidies are to be granted at all to
any works, or aid given to any set of men,
under the guise of helping the labor and
setting busy the idle wheels of traffic,
start the forge, the furnace, the rolling
mill, the machine shop and foundry that
all may puff, whirr and rattle with busy
din again from vale and valley and re-
echo the glad sound from hill and noun
tain top, from Maine to the great Father
of Waters, and help people that have
felt, and can still show, the marks of the
desolations of war more (;,long this pro-
posed line) than any other portion or peo-
pie of the land. Let aid be extended to
this line, and this people. They have no
money 10 send a powerful lobby to swarm
the halls Of Congress around, to keep up
palatial hostelries, stocked with wines
and cigars, nor to give costly feeds to
reach votes through Congressional stom-
achs that cannot be reached through more
solid and convincing arguments, but the
people, through the press Of the land,
may speak to their servants and tell them
that the opening of this line of road would
do more to bring peace and prosperity to
the land, and set more labor to work and
bring far create" aid at once to the people
than score of Pacific Railroads, travers-
ing the wilds and deserts for thousands
of miles away, There is time enough for
the Pacific Rail- Oal after the present rail
road kings shall be dead and remembered
only for their duplicity, seltiShness and
greed.
1t is now an acknowledged fact that
! CONSUMPTION CAN BE CURED. 1t has been
cured ina very great number of cases
(some of them apparently desperate ones)
by Schenck's Pulmonic Syrup alone, and
in others by the same medicine in connec-
tioh with Schenck's Sea Weed Tonic aad
Mandrake Pills, one or boSh, according to
I the requirements ofthe case.
The old supposition that Consumption
is incurable," for many years deferred
Physicians from attempting to find a
remedy for that disease, and patients af-