the conditions and agreements under which they were issued, and that the complaint was not justified, either in law or equity.[331] But he held that the East Tennessee had no power under its charter to lease its road as it had done; that the combination of the East Tennessee and the Richmond & Danville was forbidden by the law of Tennessee against the consolidation of competing lines; and that similar prohibitions in the laws and constitution of Georgia were so stringent as to imperil the East Tennessee’s charter in case the lease should be carried through.[332] This effectually checked the lease. After Chancellor Gibson’s first opinion the East Tennessee election had been held and the arrangement with the Richmond & Danville approved.[333] After his second the lease was cancelled, and the management of the East Tennessee restored to its own officers.[334] The Richmond Terminal was still left in control of the property. It was forced, however, to secure a majority of all the East Tennessee stock outstanding if it wished to make its control permanent, and it was prevented from using the power temporarily given a section of the stock to bring about a ninety-nine-year arrangement distasteful to the majority. Master of the Richmond & Danville, the East Tennessee, and their allied lines, the Richmond Terminal now took one step further; it acquired the Central Railroad & Banking Company of Georgia. The importance of this was very great. The Central Company owned the most considerable of the lines in Georgia and Eastern Alabama. It stretched from Savannah and Port Royal on the Atlantic coast to Spartanburg, South Carolina, on the north; to Atlanta, Birmingham, and Montgomery on the west; and to Albany, Georgia, and to Columbia on the south. Its system had been formed by a consolidation in 1872 of the Central Railroad from Savannah to Macon with the Macon & Western from Macon to Atlanta,[335] and was compact, ably managed, and profitable. Previous to June, 1847, the Central Railroad Company had paid seven dividends aggregating 10.68 per cent. From June, 1847, to June, 1889, the Central Railroad and the Central Railroad & Banking Company which succeeded it, had paid seventy-five dividends aggregating 337.5 per cent,[336] besides stock dividends of 8 per cent in 1854 and 12 per cent in 1861, and a dividend of 40 per cent in certificates of indebtedness in 1881. It was paying 8 per cent in 1888 when the Richmond & Danville was paying 5, and the East Tennessee was congratulating itself on the 5 per cent which it was able to turn over to its first preferred stock.[337]