We have shown that the railroads of the country are in the hands of unscrupulous men, whose sole interest in transportation is the money it can extort from the public. This must be so from the manner in which roads are built and controlled. Formerly railroads were paid for from the proceeds of paid-up capital. The men who became stockholders were interested in making good and cheap roads, and in operating them honestly and economically. These men were free from the scandal of watering stock, issuing and selling bonds to an unlimited amount, and were not partners in the iniquitous Wall street speculations which have become the bane of the country. In Appleton's Railroad and Steamboat Companion, published in 1849, we find a statement of the cost of railroads then constructed. The roads then constructed were supplied with rails that cost less than those now in use, but the road-beds in most cases, in the eastern states, cost much more than those constructed at more recent periods. Some of them were lines of solid masonry, supporting lateral or string timbers, throughout the entire length, and the rails were placed upon these timbers. Others were constructed upon the plan now in use, costing less than half the cost of the others. The roads in the eastern states, built upon the plan first named, cost as follows: In Massachusetts and the other New England states, $24,000 per mile. In New York, $26,000. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, $40,000. In Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, where the roads were built upon the modern plan, $11,000. Of course, the small cost in these last named states is attributable in part, to the nature of the country through which they pass. The facilities for building railroads at the present time more than counterbalance the additional cost of iron, and no good reason can be shown why the actual cost of roads at this time should exceed that of the more substantially constructed roads built thirty or forty years ago. But at the present time the building of railroads from the proceeds of paid-up stock is not generally practiced. A different rule prevails. The general rule now is to get grants of land, government, state, and local subsidies, in amounts sufficient to organize a company and commence the work of construction, then to issue and sell bonds, secured by mortgage upon the roads to be constructed, and from the proceeds construct the roads. Then stock certificates representing paid-up capital are issued, when in fact, all that has been paid is the local subscriptions obtained by managers from persons located along the lines of roads. The roads having been built on borrowed capital, the stock represents nothing but an opportunity for dishonest speculation. A "railroad" now means, to a large majority of those who are engaged in projecting and creating it, nothing but a fraudulent device for extorting money from the public under cover of developing the country and rendering great public benefit to the nation.