Jere Haralson, colored, Mr. Hardy's colleague from Dallas, was a shrewd negro, but at that time a cheap commodity. Later he appraised himself more highly. Ben Turner, a negro (successor to the carpetbag congressman), continued for some time after regeneration to represent the Dallas district in Congress, and Jere spent much time with him in Washington, engaged in profitable political work. But at the Montgomery distribution only fifty dollars was apportioned to him. He ingenuously explained that he accepted it as a loan. When the state, some years later, attempted to make Mr. Hardy disgorge the $35,000 (bonds) and imprisoned him, he escaped on the plea that it was imprisonment for debt. Ex-Governor Patton published a statement in which he said that, when in Boston, parties to the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad complained to him because legislation in Alabama had cost the company $200,000. J. P. Stowe, a Montgomery county representative, asserted, and the assertion was published, that John Hardy took away the night the legislature adjourned not less than $150,000, but not all of it was his--he had much of it for distribution. Construction of the Alabama and Chattanooga (now the Great Southern) Railroad, extending from Meridian to Chattanooga, referred to in the report quoted from, was under direction of D. N. Stanton. He was a skilled and unscrupulous lobbyist and get-rich-quick builder. There was testimony to the effect that the only money used in construction work was that which was derived from state indorsement. The indorsement for bridges was $60.00 per lineal foot of structure. In the hill country, beginning in Tuscaloosa county, the line of road described a serpentine trail among the hills. Mere increase of mileage presented no great disadvantage to Stanton, but tunneling, cutting and filling were difficulties studiously avoided. Consequently, when the road passed into other hands and reorganization was effected, changes necessary in straightening left the landscape with marks of peculiar interest to civil engineers. Travelers by that road may observe from car windows at many points abandoned roadbeds to right and left, winding among the low places and avoiding hills which were so formidable to Stanton, reminding the observer of meandering brooks seeking lower levels. Lines of least resistance were most attractive to Stanton, regardless of circuitousness. While government was thus growing in costliness, the resources of the people who had to foot the bills were diminishing. State Treasurer Grant's statement showed that the average cost of state government in Alabama for 1859 and 1860 was $813,000; for 1868, 1869, 1870, $1,514,000; and the increase, he said, was partly due to increase of bonded debt, but mainly to ignorant and corrupt legislation. The report of the superintendent of census showed: