240 A. L. Bishop — The State Works of Pennsylvania. 



accounts and those of the auditor general of the state for the year 

 1856.* The latter reported the expenses of all the public works 

 as follows : — 



Expenses $1,943,890.82 



Damages paid 52,281.21 



Old debts paid 130,512.09 



Total $2,126,690.12 



The canal commissioners retui-nc<i the total expenses at 1,076,685.14 



Difference between the two statements $1,050,004.98 



During the same year, the expenses of the main line alone, 

 excluding the amount charged to construction account, were, accord- 

 ing to the auditor general, $1,212,536.80. The canal commissioners 

 reported them to have been $840,377.03, a difference of $372,159.77. 

 Again, the canal board represented that, in 1856, the net profits 

 of the main line were $382,596.42. If, howeverj, we take into con- 

 sideration all the ordinary disbursements including those referred 

 to on page 239, the net profits are reduced to $10,436.75. But in 

 order to leave as a balance even this amount, it is necessary to omit 

 the following expenses connected with the main line in 1856 : — 

 $268,396.76 for a new track for the Philadelphia and Columbia rail- 

 road; $181,496.74 on the ISTew Portage railroad; and the interest on 

 $16,472,634.15, which was the cost of the main line to this date. 



The results shown in 1856 by the canal commissioners in their 

 system of accounting were, doubtless, no more misleading than 

 they were in any other year that might have been chosen. Conse- 

 quently it seems but fair to say that the continued practice of this 

 method of accounting, which so effectively concealed the unsound 

 financial conditions of the public works, lays the various boards of 

 canal commissioners open to adverse criticism of no mild nature. 



It would extend this chapter much beyond its appropriate 

 iDounds to detail all of the ways in which unscrupulous employees 

 on the public works betrayed the trusts of their offices. However, 

 a summary of abuses other than those already mentioned, some of 

 which seem to have been perpetrated time and time again, will 

 suffice to show that no possible chance to defraud the public seems 

 to have been overlooked. Positive proof was obtained to substan- 



See Letters on the Sale of tlie Main Line, pp. 10 12. 



