OREGON AND CALDTORNIA RAILROAD

349 lature he filed the Articles with the Secretary of State— But not only so, before filing them, he enters into a secret agreement by which one of their number to wit: Gaston, is to subscribe $2,500,000 of the stock and for their special benefit this stock to be unassessable—On the seventeenth day of November, four days before the filing of these Articles which are the Articles under which the West Side Company claim their rights, three of the gentle- men who first signed the articles; that is J. S . Smith, E. N. Cooke, and I. R. Moores, ascertaining that Gaston had deceived them and had not filed the articles as originally intended, formed a new corporation and took the same name and duly filed them on that day, which of course was the first company incorporated under that name. At that date they did not know what had become of the original papers. On the twenty-second day of April, 1867, no stock having been subscribed, or directors elected, in either of the two companies before designated, a third company was formed and papers on that day duly filed. This corporation was composed principally of the men who first signed the original papers. They also assumed the same name. They had then discovered the frauds that had been practiced upon them and this was the reason they formed the new company—leaving out the names that had been obtained to the first papers after the adjourn- ment of the Legislature, and without their knowledge or consent, with the exception of Gov. Woods who was taken in;— The second corporation before referred to was abandoned because it and the Capital Stock was too small. The last Corporation Incorporated April 22, 1867, immed- iately had one-half its stock subscribed and on that day elected the Board of Directors, in May following Gast> on subscribing his $2,500,000 stocks in the first named Company and proceeds to elect Directors himself— Now the two companies present themselves to this Legislature and ask to be designated as the company to take the Grant—The West Side claims that they have rights by virtue of the Acts of the last Legislature, at least equitable rights that ought to be respected. The East Side Company denies this and insists that they both stand before the Legislature in the same situation, neither of them being in existence at the time of the acts of the last Legislature, that neither of them has ever been des- ignated, or if any equity exists in favor of any company, it exists in favor of that Company that is composed of