SMALLER CREDIT MOBILIER ASSOCIATIONS. 479 



dred and sixty miles. The total reported cost of the road 

 was $28,496,899, or $52,384 per mile. The official figures 

 show that the Illinois portion of this road cost less than 

 $30,000 per mile, and the Iowa division still less. In round 

 numbers, if one estimate the road, including the Rock Is 

 land bridge, at $30,000 per mile, it will give $15,320,000, 

 the difference between which sum and the reported cost of 

 the road will represent the watered stock, $13,176,896. 

 Add to this the value of the lands granted to the Iowa por 

 tion of the road, 550,000 acres, and the country and munic 

 ipal aid, said to have been $500,000 more, and it would 

 seem to have been a very pretty little speculation indeed. 



This is a specimen of the way in which the people have 

 been swindled time and again. If public indignation should 

 ever reach that point where it should insist upon a thorough 

 searching out such abuses as these, and a restitution should 

 be ordered, the proceeds would pay the national debt. And 

 why not ? It would be the people of the United States who 

 would even then pay the debt ; for the money was fleeced 

 from them though it must be acknowledged they were, in 

 some cases, willing lambs to these wool gatherers. 



The Springfield, Clinton & Gilman (Illinois) Railroad, 

 which the courts have recently placed in the hands of a re 

 ceiver, is said also to have been dallying with this Delilah 

 of watered stock. The Indiana, Bloomington & Western 

 road is just now, as we write, being investigated. Indeed, 

 if the examination ever be made searching, the roads that 

 have not &quot; covered back &quot; will pretty certainly be found the 

 exceptions, and not the rule. 



The object in all this is to enable a few individuals of 

 New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc., (but principally Wall 

 Street, New York, for here the whole horde have their head 

 quarters) to amass colossal fortunes. If Mr. Brown, or Jones, 



