180 Mohawk “and Hudson Railroad Receipts.

Thispconipany is at last earning an income onthe extravagant disburse.
ments for its cost, which exceeds $70,000 per mile, over a sand plain, being
three times what this road would now cost, as stationary power can be dis-
pensed with—-contemplated by the company. It was an errperimental rail-
road. This with others, by which our citizens have suffered, has given
them prejudices against railways.

This road now requires the combination of three powers, (over the short
distance of 15 7-8, miles) to wit: horse, stationary and locornotive——yet_,
singular to relate, a report from the Canal Board of 1835, gravely impos.
ed on the public, the assertion (on the compmison they mantle of railway:
with ¢=a.na,ls),that th.e actual cost of transporting a ton’ of goods, per mile,
on a railway, was three and a half cents; and in proof, instanced the Mo-
hawk and Hudson railway, without telling us-that it costs more to operate
on this short road, than it does-on the Utica and Schenectady railroad, of
nearly five times its length where steam power alone is used.

The errors of this report have retarded railroads in this State, and rais-
ed prejudices against them,‘ that we trust will be done away with by the
present Canal Board. This report carried the Black river and Gennes-‘
see canals, where railroads whould even now be built, if the public inter-
est had been consulted. ,

When we have facts daily presented to us, of the enormous loads drawn
by the locomotive engines since its improvement, it is high time for the
present legislature to call on the Canal Board, and their new engineers, to
institute inquiries. into the relative merits of mi/wag/s and camals, to do
away with the impressions produced by past legislation. These errors de-
rived from the reports of Charles F. Mercer, Esq., in Congress, and those
presented to the public by our State engineers. Both parties adopted the
arguments and errors of the English Canal engineers, opposed to rail-
ways, on the c.ommen‘cement of railr-oads—then supposed (in error) to in-
jure and interfere with the canal investments, when the reverse has proved
-to be the fact, as the price of English stocks show.

We notice that the Camden and Arnboy railroad carried over their road
the last week 5000 barrels of flour, at 25 cents per barrel, from Philadel-
phia to this city, and are now contracting for lirge quantities at this rate.
We haveno doubt, and assert, that with suitable arrangemr-‘tits, they could
carry freight to profit at 15 cents’ per barrel. From Wheeling on the
Ohio, they are now sending flour via Pittsburg, over the Allegheny. by
railways, at $1 75 per barrel. With facts of this kind, and the refusal, so
fat‘. to Dermit railways to carry freight on the lines of railroads parallel to
to the Erie canal, [during the whale g/ea,r,] it is no object to go to the ex-
Pense for the ‘V1-m=’1‘« Subject to pay to the State -treasury, the same tolls as
If ca.I'riecl_ onthe Erie canal, it is time for us to ask, if the present legisla-
ture can Justify themselves to their constituents, by expending $40,000,000
°“ the f"“l3_T8'9m€Dt of the Erie canal, while they refuse all aid to private
finterprize in constructing-Qrailtvays. They reverse~—the order of the day
-as been, to make enterprize tributary, to pay the interest on a work, that
is be/band. I./ievmtelligence of the age.

Cur friends of the west, and on the line ofthe Erie Qanal, will agree with
‘*5, "1 “"3 Poslilon. if they will eipimine the question with candor. Let en-
gineers who are not wedded to canals examine the subject, and we venture
=to‘a.ssert. they will give it as their opinion, that a line of railway from Dun-
kirk and Buffalo ‘O the Hl1dS0n. Will supercede the necessity of any 8%‘
largement of the Erie canal for the present century. That, if clearedout

to four feet, with double locks to Montezuma, it will be all the public will