HOW RAILROAD CORPORATIONS CORRUP? PUBLIC MORALS. 459 



people have recently been in a turmoil, occasioned by the 

 attempt of* that railway corporation to take virtual posses 

 sion of the State. The result was the passage of a law, in 

 the winter of 1872-3, through whose operations the people 

 hope no longer to belong to the &quot; State of Camden and Am- 

 boy;&quot; this corporation insisting upon its &quot;vested right&quot; to 

 levy toll on all commodities transported through the State 

 by rail. 



State Seal of New York. 



Other States are almost as truly the property of these 

 magnates, who rule New York and Pennsylvania, as the 

 cars which carry the various products of the country, or the 

 locomotives which haul them. The Erie railroad spent a 

 million and a half of dollars in neutralizing the ballot in the 

 State of New York, through the eminent services of such 

 &quot; statesmen &quot; as William M. Tweed, who is now receiving a 

 portion of his just deserts at that compulsory resort of de 

 generate ruffians, Blackwell s Island. 



But the Erie Eailway having come to grief in the battle 

 for supremacy, its rival, the New York Central, now virtu 

 ally owns the Empire State. The New York Central means 



