Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1858 — The Wisconsin Legislature Fraud. [ARTICLE]

The Wisconsin Legislature Fraud.

The Wisconsin papers are ventilating the affairs of the “Milwaukee and Lake Superior Railroad Company,” which has for some years had “a local habitation and a name” in that State, but which has, according to the current phraseology, fallen into temporary difficulties in consequence of the financial revulsion, or “panic.” i Its doings were investigated by a Committee of the late Legislature, who found its assets “a beggarly account of empty boxes,” and the integrity of its managers a good deal below par. Briefly, the Directors named in the act of incorporation organized their Company without paying in any cash, only pretending to pay in five per cent, on their stock, and paying this in checks which had no value and were never cashed; they then proceeded to vote their President SIOO,OOO in full paid stock for his services in getting up the Company and procuring its charter, which sum he in good part divided among his confederate Directors, keeping $42,500 for himself! They then voted each other liberal salaries, and proceeded to employ agents at liberal rates to persuade the farmers along the line of their proposed road to mortgage their farmes in aid of the enterprise, taking the stock or bonds of the Company in exchange for the mortgages. Asa matter of course, these mortgages were sold for whatreVbr they would fetch, in order to pay the salaries aforesaid and various swindling allowances to certain parasites of the managers, so that the result of the business is that the farmers are swindled out of their hard-won homesteads and have no railroad to upon. Only five miles of the. road is comt . pleted and four or five more graded—in .short, the whole concern has “gone up,” leaving, the farmers to deplore their credulity and the managers’ villiany. It seems that the President had even disposed of some of th’«i mortgages tjo pay his personal debts! We have summed up. these facts, without giving any names, to point a moral which thousands will do well to heed. Qn every side, projects of Railroad Extension are pressed upon the attention of the publicspirited, whose property would bo enhanced in value or their..convenience promoted by their realization. And it is manifestly just and right that those who are thus to be benefited by the railroads yet in embryo should share in the risk, the outlay, the probable cost, of their construction. But, before subscribing to the stock or bonds of any. such road—above all, before running in debt and mortgaging his homestead in aid of it—let each curefully consider and answer this question—“Am I sure that this work is in the handsef honeet, capable,responsiblemen!”

If not, hands off! no matter though the route lies right through your dooryard and the prospectus talks of ten or fifteen per cent, income per annum.— New York Tribune.