Bisbee daily review., 1902-05-25
ACTUAL NUMBER PRINTED TO-DAY. n50.
THE PIMA COUNTY RAILROAD BONDS.

county must pay the bonds issued m aid of a proposed narrow gauge rail road from Tucson to Globe. The amount of bonds and interest which Pima county is now ordered to pay will amount to s300,000. The suit just decided was one brought by the bond holders, through their attorney, Judge w. H. Barnes, to compel the ter ritorial funding commission to issue territorial funding bonds, bearing : per cent interest for these railroad bonds and the order of the court is that the funding bonds shall issue
 All this will be for a road which was never built
 The Citizen gives the following his tory of these railroad bonds, how they were secured, etc: In 1883 the leg islature of Arizona passed an act to promote the construction of a certain railroad to be built from Tucson to Globe according to the route set out in the articles of incorporation. Un- utT iHlS dCl Soo,Ouu ci ' ilud touhNN bonds were to be issued and delivered to the incorporators of the railroad company at once, and thereafter $50 900 of similar bonds of the county were to be issued and delivered as soon as five miles of the railroad were graded and laid with ties and nd ha fn give the county an equal amount of it's bonds. In 1884 some trifiing pre- liminary work was done on the rail road, but alter receiving S50,000 of the county's bonds all work on the road was suspended. It was beleived from the start that there was no iu- tention in good faith to build the road, and the board of supervisors refused to pay any interest on the bonds which had been issued, and no interest has ever been paid. In 1886 some bond brokers from New York came to Tue son and canvassed the situation and made some arrangements with the original incorporators of the company by which they succeeded to the rights of the original promoters. A light grade for ten miles was made and ties and iron laid thereon, and an addi- tlonal s100000 of Pima county bonds was then issued to the bond operators after receiving which all pretense a. further work was discontinued and never resumed.
 Suit was brought on the coupons and was carried to the supreme court of the United States, which tribunal decided in 1894, in the case of Lewis vs. Pima county that the bonds and coupons were invalid because of lack of authority of an indebtedness to build a railroad.
 On June 6, 1896, while N. O. Murphy was delegate to congress from Arizo- na, congress passed the funding act, amending and extending the proyis- ions of it's former funding act of JuDe 70, 1890. The provision of this fund ing act under which the bonds, as the supreme court afterwards aeld, were validated, and as it now holds, must be funded. was that all evidences of indebtedness of the terTiuoTy of AriZO na which had been sold on exchange in good faith and in compliance with the terms of the act of the legislature by which they were authorized, shall be funded"
 N O. Murphy had this extension O. the funding act of Arizona passed in congress to secure the payment of the Yavapai county bonds, which were be ing contested by that county, but in preparing the congressional act so that there should be no escape for the Yavapai county tax payers, he opened in the territory Murphy declared in his last campaign that the funding bill would not include the Pima county ponds for which there was no benefit received. but it seems that whether in tentionally or not, he has saddled 2 fraudulent debt on the county of Pima which had already been declared voIi by the supreme court of the United States.
 This decision ic probably final and the tax payers of Pima county will be called on to pay s15.000 annually