called upon to incorporate these different companies, and to grant lands and money to aid in the different enterprises as they are presented. To give color to this idea, the names of men from most of the states and territories are included among the incorporators, some fifteen or twenty of whom are named as provisional directors who are to hold their places until the first regular meeting of the company, and the election of officers. Congress fixes the time and place of meeting and the notice to be given to the stockholders, and to carry out the idea that it is to be a company in which all can participate, the charter provides that any person can subscribe stock and become a stockholder who desires to do so. In fact though, no petitions have been presented to congress, nor do any considerable number of the persons named as corporators know of the organization, or that their names have been used; nor is it intended that they should know; the fifteen or twenty interested parties who have formed their plan for a raid upon the treasury, are the only ones, besides their particular friends in congress, who are supposed to know anything about it. These fifteen or twenty men who have gotten up the scheme, meet and elect themselves directors, and are then ready for action. Having obtained their charters, and organized under them, the work of robbing the people begins. With their friends, and some of their directors in Congress, they have been able thus far to obtain all they have demanded. There is no authority for the assumption that the chartering of these companies is in obedience to the wish of the people, either expressed or implied. On the contrary, this action of congress has uniformly been in opposition to public opinion, and indeed it has excited popular remonstrance. None but the few who wish to get their hands into the public treasury have asked the interference of congress, or desired the government to aid in these enterprises. So great is their anxiety to aid in the development of the country that substantially the same companies undertake to construct all the roads for which congress will grant sufficient aid. All these railroad schemes which have received the special attention of congress were planned by a set of unscrupulous men, who combined to plunder the treasury. The system of aiding in the construction of railroads by grants of land was inaugurated in 1850, by grants to the Illinois Central, and did not develop itself fully until 1862, when the plan of obtaining charters from congress, connected with grants of land and subsidies, was systematically adopted. Since the latter date, the practice has increased with fearful rapidity, and within the last four or five years it has assumed such immense proportions as to threaten the entire subversion of the government.