| From the New Orleans Daily Crescent |
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| April 9, 1861 |
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| Southern Pacific Railroad Company |
| The length of main and side
tracks from Louisiana to El Paso, through Texas, is 900 miles. |
| Texas donates to the
shareholders of this company 16 sections, off 640 acres each, for each
mile of road -- in all 14,400 sections -- equal to 9,216,000 acres. |
| These are good wheat and
cotton producing lands. |
| The Illinois Central Railroad
Company has sold about 1,000,000 acres of wheat lands, at over
$15,000,000 -- making the average price per acre more than $15. The
wheat and cotton lands of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company will
bring, it is believed, the average price of the Illinois Central
Railroad lands. It is stated by the last named Company that its lands
will more than reimburse the company the cost of its road and outfit.
They received only 6 sections, or 3840 acres to the mile. |
| If we put the lands of the
Southern Pacific Railroad Company at $15 per acre, the product will be
$138,240,000. |
| The estimated cost of the
Southern Pacific Railroad and equipments, through Texas, $22,000,000. |
| As the road will be worth what
it has cost, the value of the lands may be assumed as the value of the
property of the company, when the road is completed. The company
propose to build its road, with a capital to be paid in by its
shareholders of $3,500,000, in addition to its lands. |
| Of this amount about
$2,200,000 have already been paid in, and shares have been issued. The
company now owns about $1,300,000 of its capital stock; and wants to
sell $500,000 of it for the purpose of paying its liabilities for
labor, materials, right of way, duties and freights on iron, accruing
since the reorganization of the company, in September, 1859; the
liabilities amounting to about $120,000 in all; and to complete and
equip the fifty miles of road now under contract. It is estimated by
the President that with a sale of $500,000 of the capital stock and
the Texas loan, the company can complete and equip fully seventy-five
miles of road; and that with the net receipts of the operations of
these seventy-five miles and the bonds, the entire road can be built
through Texas. It is expected that New Orleans will take $100,000 of
the stock now offered. |
| The present shareholders have
the exclusive privilege of taking the stock at $5 the share; because
they have submitted to a reduction one-half of their shares originally
held. This is believed to be a boon justly deserved by them. Persons
not now shareholders are permitted to become such by paying $10 per
share, one-fifth cash, and the remainder in equal payments, in two,
four and six months. |
| To each class of subscribers,
the investment is unequaled, as the following facts will show: |
| An investment made now, by the
present shareholder, of $5 in the purchase of one new share, produces
to him, when the road is completed, $197. And the investment, by the
man who now becomes a shareholder, of $10 for one share of this stock,
produces for him the same amount of $197. |
| To the one subscriber the
profit is 3800 per cent., and to the other 1800 per cent. I shall keep
books open, for both classes of subscribers, at No. 84 Common street,
for one week. |
| R. V. Richardson, Agent |
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