THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS OF THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1881. MANCHESTER: JOHN B. CLARKE, PUBLIC PRINTER. 1881. ди RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. OFFICE BOARD RAILROAD COMMISSIONERS, Concord, June 1, 1881. To the Legislature of the State of New Hampshire. The thirty-seventh annual report of the Railroad Commissioners is herewith submitted for your consideration, for the year ending March 31, 1881, together with the returns to this office from the several railway companies doing business in the State. In the report of 1880, that has been brought to your notice in the absence of any session of the legislature last year, we discussed to considerable extent some of the leading questions connected with the railway problem in this State, and therefore it does not seem necessary to devote much space to any extended notice of those topics at this time. Some of these matters may be briefly reviewed in this report, and we desire especially, in its proper place, to call your attention to the time of making returns, both by the roads and the commission; for, with the change that has been adopted in the meeting of the legislature, from the annual to the biennial plan, it would seem to be an unnecessary trouble and expense to oblige the roads to make returns, and the commissioners to compile and publish a report to that body, except when it was to assemble. Then, with sufficient time to compile a report, the returns of the roads for two years could be brought out and compared, |