So much for the letter. If there is anyone who, after reading it, is still of the opinion that the people should pay the tribute demanded twenty years from now, there is nothing more that I can say to him—except to give a few statistics by way of further elucidation, showing him how many more millions of dollars there will be to enter their claim. There will be, for instance, the four hundred and fifty million dollars of the Astor family—all invested in New York City real estate, and at the rate of growth of the city, certainly destined to be a billion dollars in twenty years from date. There is the half billion dollars of Mr. Rockefeller, increasing by a most conservative estimate at the rate of ten per cent. per year, and therefore destined to be over four billions at that time. And then there are the railroads of the country. We are now being prepared for a decision to be some day delivered by the Supreme Court, to the effect that any rate regulation which interferes with dividends is confiscation, and therefore unconstitutional. And yet we know that railroad capitalisation is simply a function of earning-power; that what the financiers have uniformly done was to charge all the traffic would bear, and then water their stock until the rate of dividends came down to the market average. The capitalisation of the railroads of the country, fixed upon this basis, is thirteen billion dollars, whereas their actual cost was only six or seven billions. To give one or two samples of this process, the Western Maryland Railroad was bought up by the Goulds, and watered from nine millions up to fifty-one millions. The Central Railroad of Georgia, which cost less than seven millions, has now been watered up to fifty-five millions. Assuming that the watering were to stop to-day, and that the railroads simply re-invested their dividends at the present rate of six per cent., in twenty years we should be paying interest upon over forty billion dollars.