senator rode into the high dignity of a Senatorial seat. The canal was in every way a financial failure and paid nothing to the holders of its debentures. There are today thousands of dollars of unpaid wages, due for labor and material supplied. It has cost the state of Maryland millions of dollars, none of which are likely to ever find their way back to the state coffers. Conducted upon an economical and businesslike basis, it should have been a source of revenue.
The disastrous floods of 1889 caused such damage to the waterway that a large sum was required to restore it. The state refused further financial aid and, in consequence, the canal lay abandoned. The Democratic politicians of the state, many of whom were interested in the West Virginia Central Railway, made an effort, through an act passed in Maryland legislature, to sell the valuable property and its franchises to that rail road for a nominal price; in fact were on the point of disposing, for about two hundred thousand dollars, of a property worth millions. After the passage of the act and its signature by the
