operate the Wisconsin Central for 65 per cent, and the acquisition was to arouse the hostility of all the other roads between Chicago and St. Paul. We shall see that the lease was presently given up and that the attempt to make Chicago the eastern terminus was for the time abandoned. The year 1891 was a good one, but during the following twelve months the situation changed for the worse. Most noteworthy was an increase in fixed charges of over $2,000,000, due in part to an increase in the funded indebtedness, but more largely to an increase in rentals paid. This increase brought charges above total net income, and shows how serious the position of the company had become. In fact, the company’s repeated issues of bonds had failed so completely to put it in a stable position that in but three of the nine years from 1884 to 1892 was a surplus greater than $500,000 above fixed payments secured, while the operations of two of these same years resulted in a deficit. The first admission by directors that the road was in difficulty consisted in the passing of the preferred stock dividend for March 31, 1892. That this action did not deprive the holders of all return was due to the previous conversion of the consols formerly reserved into a trust for ten years on which to draw whenever the road should be unable to pay the usual dividends. The directors therefore added to their declaration of suspension a resolution that the “time, manner, and method of the distribution of so many of the $3,347,000 of consolidated bonds set aside for the benefit of the preferred stockholders as may be necessary to supply the deficiency, if any, in this or any subsequent fiscal year, between the amount of net earnings and 4 per cent on the preferred stock, be submitted to preferred stockholders at the annual meeting in October next.”[585] Not unnaturally stockholders were alarmed. At the annual meeting in October an investigating committee was appointed,[586] and proceeded to a careful examination of the property accompanied by certain officers of the road. The committee was not friendly to the management. Its preliminary report announced that the physical condition of the system was good, but its later criticism of the company’s financial condition was severe. In the words of the London _Standard_ “there has been no such scathing arraignment of Directors since the exposures of the Erie Railway.” The committee stated that the bad condition of the property was due to the reckless financial methods of the directors. It alleged that officers had held dual positions, and had subordinated the interests of the Northern Pacific Company to those of the Wisconsin Central, relieving themselves at the expense of the former road. It commented upon the unprofitable character of certain of the other branches. The floating debt, it maintained, had been financed by Mr. Villard personally at double the current rates of interest, and it recommended litigation