BY THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES,

Read and ordered to be printed.

REPORT

OF THE

February 16th, 1843.

Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Raod Company,

In obedience to an Order of 28th January, 1843.

To the President and Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company:

The committee chosen at the last meeting of the board, in consequence of an order passed by the House of Delegates of Maryland, on the twenty-eighth day of January last, present the following report:

The order of the House of Delegates is in the following words: "Ordered, That the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company be requested to inform this House, how long Louis McLane, Esq. has been President of that corporation, and what amount of compensation he has received for salary, extra allowance, or in any other manner, so as to shew the aggregate sum received by the said Louis McLane, Esq. from said company, and the space of time in which he performed the services, for which such compensation was paid; and whether the amount of officers' salaries have been increased or diminished since the present President of the Company came into office, and to what extent, and whether the number of officers have been increased or diminished, and to what extent."

The resolution under which your committee has acted, clearly defines their duties, and is as follows:

"Resolved, That the order of the House of Delegates, passed the 28th January 1843, and now communicated to the board, be referred to a committee of three directors, to be chosen by ballot; and that they be instructed to inquire into what extent the several communications heretofore made from the Executive officers of the company, in obedience to previous orders of the Senate or House of Delegates, contain the information called for by the present order, and to report to the board a statement comprising a suitable answer thereto."

Your committee have examined the minutes of the board heretofore, and it appears to them thereform, that the information now sought by the above order, has on three several occasions before this, been transmitted to the House of Delegates, in pursuance of orders from that body; first, in answer to an order passed on the twentieth day of January 1840, again on the twenty-third day of February in the year 1842, in reply to an order of 19th February in the same year, and lastly on the twenty-fourth day of January last, and during the present session, when the order of the House of Delegates passed on the sixteenth day of that month was fully answered in detail. The answers to the first and third of the orders here mentioned, were furnished by the president; the se

cond, the president being at that time ill and unable to transact business, was furnished by the secretary. The present order differs from the foregoing, in requiring the information to be furnished by the board. The committee have examined the answers to the three orders first above mentioned, and find them to contain all the information necessary to a satisfactory reply to the first branch of the present order, and also in minute, detail the facts which are needed to answer the second branch thereof; and the committee recommend, that copies of the several foregoing answers, along with the reports of the officers of the company referred to in them, be transmitted to the House of Delegates.

The committee will add, that the salary of the president of the company is $6,000, per annum; was fixed at that sum before the present president was elected, which he has received regularly from the first day of July 1837. The extra allowance made to him was $8,000, on the occasion of his going to Europe at the solicitation of the board, to endeavour to make available for the prosecution of the work westward, the bonds of the State of Maryland, which under the act of 1836, chap. 386, had been delivered to the company in payment of the State's subscription.

The committee have annexed in the appendix, the minutes of the board relating to the appointment of the president, and also the proceedings in relation to the extra compensation allowed to the president for his visit to Europe, on the business of the company, and the correspondence with him, including the letter addressed to him by the committee appointed for that purpose, which has not heretofore been presented to the Legislature.

The second branch of the recent order of the House of Delegates inquires, "whether the amount of officers' salaries has been increased or diminished since the present president of the company came into the office; and to what extent, and whether the number of officers has been increased or diminished, and to what

extent.

In reply thereto, the committee present a report and tabular statement furnished by the superintendent of machinery and repairs, shewing the number of officers employed at various times in the construction and management of the road, with their respective salaries from the years 1836 to 1843 inclusive, and which embraces, as the committee believe, all the information required by this branch of the order.

JAMES HARWOOD, Chairman.
JAMES CARROLL,

SAMUEL I. DONALDSON.

Baltimore, February 14th, 1843.

The committee offer the following:

Resolved, That the report and the accompanying documents be transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, as an answer to the order passed by that body on the 28th January 1843. I certify the foregoing to be a true copy, J. J. ATKINSON, Secretary of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road Co.