In 1872 the control of Erie was taken from Gould through a vigorous campaign managed by General Daniel E. Sickles, and an “eminently respectable” board of directors was elected. Temporary relief was obtained from the use of $6,000,000, available from an issue of bonds previously approved,[93] and dividends, first on the preferred and then on both preferred and common stock were declared. Unfortunately the dividends were not earned; and this fact, which was suspected from the previous record of the company and the marvel of its so early restoration to a dividend basis, was shown in the statements of ex-Auditor S. H. Dunan, who resigned in March, 1874, alleging that the accounts had been falsified to suit the company’s purposes, and that he was unwilling any longer to be a party thereto.[94] Investigations conducted by representatives of English bondholders showed that in the three years ending in September, 1875, the profits of the road had been $1,008,775 instead of $5,352,673 as stated in the company’s accounts; and the severity of this finding was scarcely mitigated by the conclusion that in the opinion of the committee the dividends on the preferred stock at least were justified by the books.[95] At the same time the report of Captain Tyler, another English representative, laid emphasis on the necessity for a change of gauge, a double track, improvements in gradient, fresh extensions and connections, and other similar matters. The real position of the company at the time was shown but too well by the frequency of strikes upon its road. Thus in February, 1874, a strike of freight brakemen on the Susquehanna division broke out, caused principally by an order to discharge one of the brakemen from each freight crew, leaving only three on a train; and at the same time there was a strike of the switchmen on some of the divisions owing to a decrease in pay. In March occurred a serious strike among the employees of the road in Buffalo, mainly on account of irregularity and delay in payment of wages, and, finally, in April, there was trouble both in the Susquehanna shops and in the Jersey City freight yard over this same cause. The indications afforded by these troubles were borne out by the figures of the annual reports. The gross earnings of 1874 were $1,413,708 less than those of 1873, while the decrease in operating expenses was so slight as to reduce net earnings by nearly the same amount. If, now, there is deducted from the net earnings of the years 1871–3, inclusive, the sum which the London accountants declared to have been improperly reported as profits, there results an average of $4,175,699 net; or less than the net earnings for either 1864, 1865, or 1866, although the average charges for the years mentioned exceeded the average of the earlier period by $1,769,060 each year. These figures exclude the influence of the panic of 1873, which, as has been seen, caused a still further falling off in the earnings of the company. It