CHAPTER CLXXIX.

An Act amendatory to and supplementary of an Act entitled "An Act to organize and incorporate the East Line and Red River Railroad Company," approved March 22d, 1871, and to aid in the construction of said Railroad.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas, That section two (2) of an act entitled "An act to organize and incorporate the East Line and Red River Railroad Company, approved March 22d, 1871, be and the same is hereby amended so as hereafter to read as follows, viz.: Said company is here by authorized to construct, own and maintain a line of railway, with either a single or double track, of the gauge of four feet and eight and one-half inches, as well as a telegraph line, from the city of Jefferson, in Marion county, to the town of Greenville, in Hunt county, via Mt. Pleasant, in Titus county, and Sulphur Springs, in Hopkins county ; thence, in a westerly or northwesterly direction, to the western limits of the State; and shall establish freight and passenger depots within one-half mile of the principal business portions of each of said cities and towns; provided, the said towns and cities to or through which said railroad is required to pass, shall cause the right of way to be granted to said company free of cost to the same, and shall donate to the said company the necessary and suitable grounds for said depots, switches, sidings and turnouts, as may be required for said purposes, not to exceed thirteen acres ; and provided further, if the said route of said road shall run within five miles of any county site other than those herein named, then said road shall be constructed through such county site; provided, said county site shall cause to be granted the right of way, free from any cost, to said company, from the point of divergence towards such county site to the point at which it shall regain its main route, and donate grounds for depots, &c., as above provided in the towns herein named ; provided further, that nothing in this act shall be so construed as to require the people of Hopkins county to pay the money subsidy heretofore voted to the said East Line and Red River Railroad by the people of said county.

Sec. 2. " That section eight (8) of the above recited act is hereby so amended as to hereafter read as follows, viz.: That said company shall have completed and put in running order at least twenty miles of its said road within eighteen months from the passage of this act, and shall complete the main trunk of said road between Jefferson and Greenville, in four years from said date, and shall complete the western division in five years thereafter; provided, that work on said road may be commenced and prosecuted from any one or more points at the same time.

Sec. 3. That the State reserves the right to regulate, by general law, the rates to be charged for freight and passengers, as well as the management and control of said railroad, its officers and employees ; provided, the same is done in such manner as not to discriminate against said road in favor of competing lines of railroads in this State.

Sec. 4. That, as supplementary to said act, it ift further enacted, that the said charter shall remain in force for the period of sixty years from the date of the completion of said railroad ; and the said company shall be entitled to receive sixteen sections of land, containing six hundred and forty acres each, for each and every mile of railroad completed ; and whenever the Governor shall be informed that a section of ten miles of said road shall have been completed, he shall at once appoint some competent person to inspect the same. The person so appointed to inspect the same shall, without delay, make an examination of said railroad, and report whether or not the said ten miles thereof has been completed in accordance with the terms of its charter; and if said report shall be in the affirmative, the Governor shall immediately notify the Commissioner of the General Land Office, whose duty it shall be to immediately issue and deliver to said company sixteen certificates for land, of six hundred and forty acres each, for each and every mile of road completed, and so on for every additional ten miles thereof as the same may be completed, which said certificates may be located, surveyed and patented, according to the general railroad law, on the principle of alternate sections ; provided, that each section of ten miles shall be inspected in like manner as provided in this section for the first ten miles; provided further, that said company shall not have the right to rent, sell, lease, or consolidate with any parallel or competing railroad in this State; provided further, that the State shall in no wise be liable for any deficiency in vacant public domain.

Sec. 5. That the lands acquired by said railroad company under this act shall by it be alienated as follows: one-fourth part thereof in eight years; one-fourth part thereof in twelve years; one-fourth part thereof in sixteen years; one-fourth part thereof in twenty years, after the passage of this act, or within said periods; and the same shall not be sold or conveyed by said company to any railroad or other incorporated company, except so far as may be necessary for its proper uses and the conducting its business; nor to any person, or firm, or company, in trust for said railroad company; or to any firm or company of which any officer or stockholder of said railroad company is a member; and a failure to comply with, or a violation of the provisions of this section shall work a forfeiture of all the benefits of this act.

Sec. 6. That this act be in force from and after its passage.

Passed May 17th, 1873.

[note.—The foregoing act was presented to the Governor of Texas for his approval on the seventeenth of May, A. D. 1873, and was not signed by him, or returned to the house in which it originated, with his objections thereto, within the time prescribed by the Constitution, and thereupon became a law without his signature.—James P. NeWcomb, Secretary of State.]