Construction was resumed with the season of 1859 by contractors willing and able to take bonds in pay, but by midsummer this plan ceased to work. One firm in July was obliged to put up $30,000 to raise $8000 in cash. Railroad building ceased, and Minnesota sat in ashes. The surprise and exasperation of the people can easily be imagined. The companies had not followed the course expected of them to complete and put in operation successive ten-mile stretches, but preferred to push the grading for many such stretches and postpone track-laying and other work of completion. This aroused a suspicion that they did not intend to complete any sections, but to secure their $10,000 per mile, a sum far in excess of the actual cost, and quit. This suspicion was intensified by rumors that the grading had been confined to discontinuous earthwork alone, on the level prairie where it could be cheaply done. These rumors had but slight foundation, but they were accepted as true and to this day there are those who believe them. When the legislature of 1860 met (there was no session in 1859), Governor Sibley in his retiring message informed that body that the four companies had graded 239.36 miles, and had received 2275 one thousand-dollar special state bonds in exchange for an equal amount of company bonds. The legislature of 1858 has enough to answer for in proposing to the people the consummate folly of offering to sell bonds which they never meant to pay. Of the final act of their session (August 12) it cannot be charitably recorded that it was one of mere folly. As the end of their labors drew nigh in the dog days, it became known that there would be a residue of some $10,000 of money appropriated by Congress for territorial expenses. It seemed a pity not to keep that money in Minnesota. After a variety of proposals consuming much time had failed to receive concurrence, the two houses agreed to a compromise by which $6000 was appropriated for stationery and $3500 for postage, the members to share equally. Governor Sibley was obliged to give his official sanction to this division, because it was impossible in the last hour of the session to veto the general appropriation bill in which these items had place, but he took occasion to say that he gave a most reluctant consent to the grab.