The justification for the munificent grants and lavish taxation of the people in aid of railroads has been, that these roads afford the necessary facilities for transportation of freight, promote speedy communication throughout the country, provide ready markets for the products of husbandry, increase the value of property in their vicinity, and assist in improving and developing the new portions of our country. While some, or all, of these objects may have been in a degree promoted, the little good thus accomplished has been more than counterbalanced by the evils uniformly attending this species of aid to railroads. What are the evils incident to the general incorporation acts, and local taxation in favor of railroads? _First._ They take from the individual the natural and constitutional right of owning and controlling his own property, and license the agents of a county, city, or town, to incumber his property with a debt, without his consent and against his protest. _Second._ The policy engenders a rivalry between different localities, causing reckless extravagance and the creation of an immense indebtedness by public corporations. This indebtedness not unfrequently retards the settlement of the locality expected to be benefited, and depreciates instead of enhancing the value of property, for the constant and compulsory drain of the resources of the place in payment of the debt thus created can leave nothing but barrenness behind, the rule being, with but few exceptions, that non-residents hold the evidences of the indebtedness, and as a consequence, payment must be made to distant creditors. If one thinks that this is overdrawing the picture, let him examine the condition of those counties and cities that years ago loaned their credit to railroad companies, or subscribed to their capital stock. Localities less favorably situated, with fewer natural advantages, fewer miles of railroad, and with less productive countries tributary to their growth, have far outstripped their bonded neighbors in wealth, improvements, and the increased value of their property. Persons who are seeking locations dread and shun these bond-_cursed_ localities, and seek homes elsewhere. New counties far outstrip these old ones in improvement and wealth; new towns and cities spring up and destroy the business of these old bond-ridden ones, and the latter, instead of receiving the anticipated and promised increase of wealth, show a paralyzed industry and depreciated property. Localities that fifteen or twenty years ago gave promise of a prosperous future, are less wealthy, less prosperous, and in some instances less populous than when they subscribed stock, and issued bonds to railroads. For years to come, the wealth and industry of these places must suffer from the incubus of enormous taxes levied for the payment of bonds issued under the mistaken idea that great benefit was to result from the indebtedness.