chartered in 1878, and the Mexican National in 1880. The first charter under the modern movement dates from October, 1867; and since then the Mexican Government has issued charters for over 20,000 miles of road, with subsidies probably to the amount of $200,000,000. Many of these, with their subsidies, have lapsed, of course. The Government is now held for about 15,000 miles of road, and subsidies of $90,000,000.
The enterprises on a great scale are all American, and the chief ones among them may be estimated roughly as follows:
Miles.
Mexican Central (Boston Company)............................... 2,000
Mexican National (Palmer-Sullivan)............................... 2,000
Sonora (Boston Company)............................................. 500
Mexican Southern (General Grant, President)............... 1,000
Oriental (De Gress and Jay Gould)............................... 1,200
Topolobambo (Senator Windom, President)................... 1,200
International (Frisbie and Huntington)........................... 1,400
Pacific Coast (Frisbie)................................................ 3,000
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Total....................................................................... 12,300
To these may be added the Sinaloa and Durango, from the city of Culiacan to the port of Altata, in Sinaloa; the
Tehuantepec railway, and Captain Eads's ship railway across the same isthmus, to take the place of a ship canal.
The privilege to build an American railway across Tehuantepec, it may be remembered, was secured (at the same time with the lower belt of Arizona) by the Gadsden treaty of 1853, supplementary to that of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The road was supposed to be needed for the
consolidation of relations with our then newly acquired territory of California. The Pacific railroad filled its place, however, and the project, taken up and dropped from time to time, has since had but a lingering existence.
Captain Eads proposes to transport bodily ships of
