Aid to railroads was equally liberal. In its zeal the House on February 23, without the reading of the bill, pushed through all its stages the incorporation of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railroad Company, granted it exemption from taxation for ten years, a right of way three hundred feet in width, and the privilege of all the timber for one mile on each side of the road through the public lands.[127] But of all the railroad bills, by far the most conspicuous was that which extended a helping hand to the New Orleans, Mobile, and Chattanooga Road. It came up in the House February 4 and was pressed to a final vote that very afternoon and its amendments concurred in by the Senate February 14.[128] The bill provided for the guarantee of the company’s bonds by the State under the security of a second mortgage to the amount of $12,500 for each mile within the State west of New Orleans.[129] Parishes along the route of the Vicksburg Railroad were encouraged to aid that road by the purchase of stock or the issue of bonds, in addition to the State guarantee of its second mortgage bonds to the usual amount of $12,500 per mile.[130] Still other roads had found it worth while to besiege the legislature. The great problem of improvement most urgently pressing was not adequately met--the construction of a satisfactory series of levees for the Mississippi River. A State loan of $4,000,000 had been provided for in 1867 for that purpose but the bonds had not been readily disposed of.[131] The Board of Levee Commissioners had made contracts for a large amount of work but the legislature of 1869 found no work accomplished--only the bonds of the State pledged for work authorized to be done--and so was placed under the necessity of authorizing the sale of the bonds.[132] The House made a valiant effort to meet the problem in the passage of a bill to issue bonds to the sum of $5,000,000 to provide means for the construction, repairs, and maintenance of the levees and other works of improvement, but the effort died there.[133]