National Opinion

MR. EDITOR:—In your issue of June 1st there was a communication inquiring whether the R. R. Co. have a right to change their freight tariff from day to day, and add to articles taken for transportation more than double their real weight, even after they are received on board and marked on their way bills with an understanding with the shipper that they shall go through as marked. Now, as no one sees fit to answer these inquiries, and the C. & P. R. R. have claimed and exercised this right in many cases, and continue the practice, is it not legitimate and proper for the people to inquire if they have it, and of whom they obtained it? If it is answered from the Legislature, who can help it—reflecting how different the managers are now from what they were when on their knees begging the Legislature to grant them the boon of a charter. The Legislature sanctioned the right to take private property for a public good, and by this right they could go through any man's land, oust him from his domicile and destroy his long cherished hopes of peace and quiet.

And how do they construe this right? If any of their friends want a piece of land and can not obtain it by fair purchase, some one of the servants of the R. R. go before a court and certify that they want it for R. R. purposes, and a committee is appointed who can wrench it from him, however much he may desire to keep it; and the next day it is passed over to some private corporation or individual. This appears more glaring when the owner offered to give them enough of the land to build a good depot and a yard around it. This the C. & P. R. R. have done within ten miles of Bradford. This is their construction of their right to take private property.

One other thing we have to complain of is that this road, ever since they obtained a charter, have desperately fought any other road being chartered near them, and made the legislation of the State more expensive. We acknowledge that our Legislature has done some foolish things that were not very beneficial to their constituents, such as voting money into their own pockets for labor done and performed before the act was passed.