Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/66

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��The Middlesex Canal.

��to a railroad, frojii car ryutg passengers. As to this, the remonstrants venture no opinion, except to say, that passengers are now carried, at all hours, as rapidly and safely as they are anywhere else in the world To this, the remon- strants would add, that the use of a railroad, for passengers only, has been tested by experience, nowhere, hitherto ; and that it remains to be known, whether this is a mode which will command general confidence and approbation, and that, therefore, no facts are now before the public, which furnish the conclusion, that the grant of a railroad is a public exigency even for such a purpose. The Remon- strants would also add, that so far as they know and believe, there never can be a sufficient indiiccme7it to extend a railroad front Lowell westwardly and northivest- wardly, to the Connecticut, so as to make it the great avejiue to and from the in- terior, but that its terjni7tation must be at LoweW'' (italics our own), "and, con- sequently that it is to be a substitute for the modes of transportation now in use between that place and Boston, and cannot deserve patronage from the suppo- sition that it is to be 7nore extensively tisefid

The Remonstrants, therefore, respect- fully submit : First, that there be no such exigency as will warrant the granting of the prayer for a railroad to and from Lo- well.

Secondly, that, if that prayer be granted, provision should be made as a condition for granting it, that the Remon- strants shall be indemnified for the losses which will be thereby occasioned to them.

This may seem the wifful blindness of self-interest ; but the utterances of the press and the legislative debates of the period are similar in tone. In relation to another railroad, the " Bos- ton Transcript" of Sept. I, 1830, re- marks: "It is not astonishing that so much reluctance exists against plunging into doubtful speculations.

��. The public itself is di- vided as to the practicability of the Rail Road. If they expect the assist- ance of capitalists, they must stand ready to guarantee the percentuiti per anmt7n ; without this, all hopes of Rail Roads are visionary and chi- ' merical." In a report of legislative proceedings published in the '" Boston Courier," of Jan. 25, 1830, Mr. Cogs- vvell, of Ipswich, remarked : " Rail- ways, Mr. Speaker, may do well enough in old countries, but will never be the thing for so young a country as this. When you can make the rivers run back, it will be time enough to make a railway." Notwithstanding the pathetic remon- strances and strange vaticinations of the canal proprietors, the Legislature incorporated the road and refused compensation to the canal. Even while the railroad was in process of construction, the canal directors do not seem to have realized the full gravity of the situation. They con- tinued the policy of replacing wood with stone, and made every effort to perfect the service in all its details ; as late as 1836 the agent recom- mended improvements. The amount of tonnage continued to increase — the very sleepers used in the con- struction of the railwa}' were boated, it is said, to points convenient for the workmen.

In 1832 the canal declared a divi- dend of $22 per share ; from 1834 to 1837, inclusive, a yearly dividend of $30.

The disastrous competition of the Lowell Railroad was now beginning to be felt. In 1835 the Lowell goods conveyed by canal paid tonnage dues of $11,975.51; in 1836 the income from this source had dwindled to

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