24 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



any form, we cannot help but compare that number with one 

 hundred and sixty-two Acts directly or indirectly concerning 

 railways and railway corporations ; thirty-seven Acts for banks 

 and banking institutions ; nine Acts incorporating manufactur- 

 ing companies — each one of which might as well have organized 

 under the general law ; nine Acts incorporating insurance com- 

 panies ; and seventeen Acts of appropriations for an expenditure 

 of $3,773,000 ; and the loan of five millions of the State bonds 

 to a single railroad, a portion only of the line of which was in 

 our limits, the stock of which is not worth a shilling on the dol- 

 lar in market. 



I do not mean to be understood that the legislature of 1869 

 was worse or better than former legislatures — it was quite as 

 good as any other. I am commenting on the system of legisla- 

 tion which fosters every other interest at the expense of the ag- 

 ricultural interest and at the expense of labor in every depart- 

 ment of industry, if in no other way, because taxes at last come 

 with the heaviest burden upon land and the products and stock 

 of the farm, for they cannot be concealed. Capital may be 

 locked up in insurance companies, covered up under mortgages, 

 hidden in bonds, absorbed in a thousand ways of surpluses and 

 bonuses and extra dividends which do never reach the assessor's 

 eye, and in manners which may salve the conscience of its owners ; 

 but the farm, the ox, the horse, the cow, the pig, and the sheep, 

 are alwiays open to the tax-gatherer. 



For what purpose, as a rule — and that, too, hardly without 

 exception — does any one desire a special Act of legislation in his 

 favor ? Is it not that he may give some advantage to himself, 

 some power, some right, something over and beyond what his 

 neighbor has ? No set of men ask for an Act of incorporation, 

 whether to manufacture, for a railroad, for a telegraph, for a 

 bridge, for a bank, for a trust company, for a deposit company, 

 or for a savings bank even, out of pure and unmixed benevo- 

 lence and philanthropy, but with the expectation to make there- 

 by more money than they can get by any simple, honest toil. 

 And whenever one man is given an advantage of his neighbor by 

 the law, then an injustice and wrong is done to that neighbor. 

 And whenever capital combines itself, it is for the purpose of 

 assuring and strengthening itself and increasing itself more than 

 can be done without such combination. And whenever capital 



