In 1868 the earnings of the railroads of Massachusetts averaged $15,400 a mile, and were equal to 38 per cent. of the total reported cost of all the lines of the State. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy earned $15,386 per mile in 1867, and paid a 15 per cent. dividend. Its stocks were quoted 100 per cent. above par. In 1867 the Lake Shore Railroad earned more than 50 per cent., and the Terre Haute and Indianapolis even as much as 57.2 per cent. of the amount of its cost. Previous to the war the inflation of railroad securities was, as a rule, confined to the stock. Where roads were bonded for more than the cost of construction it was, with but very few exceptions, done to make their capital to correspond with their earning capacity, or rather to divert public attention from the fact that the rates in force had outlived their reasonableness. It was reserved to the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific companies to bond their roads from the beginning to an amount equal to twice their actual cost, or, in other words, to virtually receive them as a present from the Federal Government, bond them for all they were worth, and, in addition, issue stock to an amount largely in excess of the cost of construction, and then try to earn interest and dividends on the whole amount of securities issued. The history of these companies forms so interesting and instructive a chapter in the railroad annals of America that a short synopsis of it may not seem out of place here. The charter of the Union Pacific Railroad Company was granted by Congress on the first day of July, 1862. Shortly after the beginning of the War of the Rebellion it was made to appear to the country that a transcontinental road was a national necessity; that without it we could not hope to retain long the Pacific Coast. It was also very plausibly argued that the political benefits to be derived by the country from the construction of such a road, as well as its great length and extraordinary cost, made it the duty of the nation to aid liberally its enterprising and patriotic promoters in the prosecution of their gigantic task. In those stirring times few people were inclined to question the motives of those who advocated what appeared to be patriotic measures, or to be penurious in the expenditure of public funds when the public weal seemed to demand such expenditure.