to a railroad, from carrying passengers. As to this, the remonstrants venture no opinion, except to say, that passengers are now carried, at all hours, as rapidly and safely as they are anywhere else in the world . . . . To this, the remonstrants would add, that the use of a railroad, for passengers only, has been tested by experience, nowhere, hitherto; and that it remains to be known, whether this is a mode which will command general confidence and approbation, and that, therefore, no facts are now before the public, which furnish the conclusion, that the grant of a railroad is a public exigency even for such a purpose. The Remonstrants would also add, that so far as they know and believe, "there never can be a sufficient inducement to extend a railroad front Lowell westwardly and northwestwardly, to the Connecticut, so as to make it the great avenue to and from the interior, but that its termination must be at Lowell" (italics our own), "and, consequently that it is to be a substitute for the modes of transportation now in use between that place and Boston, and cannot deserve patronage from the supposition that it is to be more extensively useful . . . . .
The Remonstrants, therefore, respectfully submit : First, that there be no such exigency as will warrant the granting of the prayer for a railroad to and from Lowell.
Secondly, that, if that prayer be granted, provision should be made as a condition for granting it, that the Remonstrants shall be indemnified for the losses which will be thereby occasioned to them.
This may seem the wilful blindness of self-interest; but the utterances of the press and the legislative debates of the period are similar in tone. In relation to another railroad, the "Boston Transcript" of Sept. I, 1830, remarks: "It is not astonishing that so much reluctance exists against plunging into doubtful speculations. . . . . The public itself is divided as to the practicability of the Rail Road. If they expect the assistance of capitalists, they must stand ready to guarantee the percentum per annum; without this, all hopes of Rail Roads are visionary and chimerical." In a report of legislative proceedings published in the "Boston Courier," of Jan. 25, 1830, Mr. Cogswell, of Ipswich, remarked: "Railways, Mr. Speaker, may do well enough in old countries, but will never be the thing for so young a country as this. When you can make the rivers run back, it will be time enough to make a railway." Notwithstanding the pathetic remonstrances and strange vaticinations of the canal proprietors, the Legislature incorporated the road and refused compensation to the canal. Even while the railroad was in process of construction, the canal directors do not seem to have realized the full gravity of the situation. They continued the policy of replacing wood with stone, and made every effort to perfect the service in all its details; as late as 1836 the agent recommended improvements. The amount of tonnage continued to increase—the very sleepers used in the construction of the railway were boated, it is said, to points convenient for the workmen.
In 1832 the canal declared a dividend of $22 per share; from 1834 to 1837, inclusive, a yearly dividend of $30.
The disastrous competition of the Lowell Railroad was now beginning to be felt. In 1835 the Lowell goods conveyed by canal paid tonnage dues of $11,975.51; in 1836 the income from this source had dwindled to
