Some time afterward Lakin related a blood-curdling story of pursuit from Tuscaloosa by a band of Ku Klux and his almost miraculous escape from the horrible death to which the band had condemned him. This story provoked the publication of a counter charge,--that while Lakin was preaching somewhere in New York State he ill requited the hospitality of an entertainer by dishonoring the household. And this man's ultimate aspiration was to represent Alabama in the United States Senate! One of the most scandalous chapters in the history of the Republican regime relates to railroad subsidies. The Lindsay administration favored encouragement to the building of railroads, as means for development of natural resources, and in 1867 the legislature passed, and the governor approved, an act which authorized the state to indorse bonds of new railroads to the extent of $12,000 per mile, with an additional endorsement for bridges; but indorsement was safeguarded carefully, and no wrongs were committed in connection with the execution of the law until the Radicals assumed control. Then there began a riot of bribery and corruption. November 10, 1871, I. F. Grant, state treasurer, submitted to the congressional commission investigating affairs in the southern states a statement from which the following extracts are made: "Bonded debt of the state January 11, 1861, $3,445,000. "The state is and was bound to pay in perpetuity for annual interest on the school fund the sum of $134,367.80. "Interest unpaid during the war, accrued up to and including January 1, 1867, was then funded and new bonds issued for the sum of $621,000, which made the total bonded debt on January 1, 1867 $4,066,000 "The war debt, amounting to $12,094,731.95 was repudiated. "Eight per cent. bonds sold in 1867-68 659,100 "Eight per cent. bonds sold in 1869-70 657,700 "Total bonded debt January 1, 1871 $5,382,800 "Cause of increase, sale of bonds to carry on the government. "There is a prospective liability for an indefinite amount growing out of the passage of an act, approved February 19, 1867, and amended August, 1868, whereby the state is required to indorse railroad bonds to the amount of $12,000 per mile, which act was further amended in March, 1870, so as to increase the indorsement to $16,000 per mile. "The same legislature in March, 1870, made a loan to the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad Company of $2,000,000 in Alabama 8% bonds, over and above the indorsement of $16,000 per mile for the entire length of the road, thereby adding to the direct and collateral liability of the state for this one road the sum of $6,700,000. In addition to this, the Republican governor, W. H. Smith, issued to the road bonds to the amount of $500,000 above what the road could ever by any possibility claim under the law.