2d Session.

No. 82.

CLAIMS OF WORKINGMEN AGAINST THE LATE BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS.

CLAIMS OF WORKINGMEN

WHO WORKED UNDER THE

BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Showing amount claimed by each workman, amount paid to each, and amount still due to each.

FEBRUARY 15, 1877.-Referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia and ordered to be printed.

List of names of workingmen who worked on public improvements under board of public works, District of Columbia, showing amount paid each man, amount claimed, and amount

still due to each.

List of names of workingmen who worked on public improvements, &c.—Continued.

List of names of workingmen who worked on public improvements, &c.—Continued.

I have the honor to submit the above to the honorable Committee on the District of Columbia of the House of Representatives of the United States. The committee will easily see how little of the amount originally claimed has been paid by the board of public works to its own workmen. I hope and earnestly request the committee will make ample provision for each claimant whose names appear on these lists as unpaid. I have the honor to be, with great respect,

JOHN POPE HODNETT,

Counsel for Workingmen of the District of Columbia.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 15th day of February, A. D.

1875.
[SEAL.]

F. W. JONES,

Notary Public.

FEBRUARY 16, 1875.-Referred to the Committee on Railways and Canals and ordered to be printed.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled :

As the question of narrow gauge has been introduced to your notice, I beg leave to submit the following brief document, and respectfully ask for it your consideration:

In a memorial presented for your consideration on December 15, 1874, (H. R. Mis. Doc. No. 14,) the following propositions are given as deserving special notice:

1st. The productions and commerce of any given belt of country must limit the cost of the highway proposed to be built.

This is certainly the most absurd assertion that has ever been made by the advocates of the narrow-gauge system.

The greater part of our country would never have been productive nor possessed of any commerce if we had adhered to this thoughtless suggestion.

The production and commerce of the section to which a road is built may limit to some extent the cost of the highway; but that, even, is doubtful, for our internal improvements have made their own commerce generally, and such works as the Panama and Pacific Railroad, the Erie and Suez Canals, and all our best-paying coal-roads negative this assertion.

2d. Narrow-gauge roads possess the facility of limitation in cost, and also of development, to any needed extent. This always preserves a due proportion between the investment and the business.

. Of this it is enough to say that it is equally applicable to roads of the standard gauge. We are now successfully operating roads of that gauge with grades in places as high as 211 feet to the mile, and with curves of 69 feet radius. But the assertion is not true; narrowgauge roads cannot be limited in cost to any extent. Where they have been successful, it has been due to the high price they have obtained for their work. The principal one in our sister Dominion of Canada is now under contract for conversion into standard gauge, at great cost and