Morning journal and courier., 1882-03-22

Business Proceeding With Conmendable
 PrOmptness-The Goodwin Inyestfga-
 tion--Condition of the Proposed ParaI- GIei Mathematician Matters of Interest.
 HARTToRD March 21, 1882.
 Special correspondence of the JOURNAL AND COURIER.
 The first day of this weeks session brought a respectable number of members of both houses to the Capitol and business proceeded with commendable promptness. Particular " ill the House was shown an unusual dlspo- sition not to waste time on minor matters by long and useless debates.
 This afternoon the attraction as usual was in the Railroad Commissioners room, where the Committee on Railroads were in session, and listened patiently to the evidence pre- Sented in the charges made by MT. Goodwin,
 of East Hartford, that the Consolidated rail road had not made correct returns of their receipts and expenditures to the Railroad Commissioners for the year 1881. President Watrous who was present, continued his tes- | timony from where he left off on Thursday afternoon, which came before the evidence of Second Vice President Clark. MT. Wat rous continued at 2:4O o'clock. In his open ! ing evidence he referred to the purchase of
 the Canal railroad stock and the sale of bonds
 of the Harlem River and Portchester rail
 road, by which the company was enabled to
 purchase controlling interest in the N. H. | & N railroad. Concerning the net earnings l of railroad, Mir. Watrous said it was impos-
 sible to tell what they were. Everything
 connected with railroad was depreciating 1 every year. Again, steel rails were wearing out, the average of their service being about l ten years Now the net earnings cannot be computed accurately with all this wear and l tear machinery, rolling stock, etc. You l take the passenger cars our road, which 1 we will say at the beginning of the year were 1 worth one million of dollars. Are they worth as much at the end of the year? Plainly l they are not. Before you talk about net l earnings you should have everything as good now as it was year ago. In order to do this you must expend an amount sufficient to 1 keep up the machinery and rolling stock in shape. Now this $500, 900, so much talked about, should go to make rolling stock as good at the end of the year 1881 as it was at 1 the beginning of that year. think we could spend more money within the next twelve
 months advantageously than we can hope to | make in the next five years
 l MT. Watrous was cross questioned at con- | siderable length by MT. Case, but new facts were brought to light. There seemed I to be no complaint that the company or it's directors had in any way been dishonest to
 the stockholders, but they had not, as al- | Jo 4l,oc 4o In
 ticut commissioners that they had to the | Massachusetts commissioners, so far as items of expenditure were concerned, and hence their returns could not be or were not correct This was explained by MT. Wat
 rous, who stated that the States of Connec- l ticut, New York and Massachusetts all re-
 quired different reports, and items given in l one report were not required in another Af- | ter Mir. Watrous had concluded, Second Vice President Clark again took the stand and
 continued his evidence in 8 clear and exhaus- ! tive manner, giving facts and figures which l went to show that there had been no inten- tion on the part of the Consolidated road to conceal their earnings or the disposition of 1 them. The hearing will be continued to- l HOrrO", anu IL lS tuOuBuG tue arguments
 will be commenced on Wednesday. Possibly, however, there may be an agreement to sub
 init the case without argument The final disposition of the Parallel" road scheme is | still 8 matter of doubt. MT. Cooley, of
 Hartford, presented the minority report in
 the House to-day, which was tabled for cal
 endar and printing. The majority report | will probably follow at early day, and af-
 ter the reports appear on the calendar as in
 readiness, day will be set for arguments. It is possible that the minority report will be adopted in the House, but present indica- I tions are that the majority report will be
 adopted in the Senate, and by disagreeing vote the 'tscheme' will fail as at present pro- posed. There will no doubt be some changes
 made in the general railroad law that will
 enable interested parties to build railroads anywhere in the State that they may choose 1 under certain restrictions.
 l Following is Q summary of the busi ess
 transacted in Senate and House to-day.
 | Senate.