To the Honorable the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Directors of the Boston and Providence Rail-road Corporation, do hereby respectfully make their Fifth Annual Report of their acts and doings, receipts and expenditures under their act of incorporation.

The act of the Legislature of the 16th April last, for increasing the capital stock of the corporation to an amount not exceeding five hundred thousand dollars, having been accepted by the stockholders, the directors have caused fifteen hundred shares of one hundred dollars each, being a part of said increased capital, to be apportioned among the stockholders, with the exception of thirty-two shares, arising from fractional parts not subscribed for, but which are ordered to be sold, and the whole amount of the shares so apportioned has been paid in to the treas

urer.

The directors have caused to be erected during the past year a brick building, for the storage of merchandize, at the depot in Boston, a small passenger-house at Seekonk, two additional houses with wells under them, and suitable apparatus for raising and securing a proper supply of water for the engines on the road, with various other works necessary for the completion of the road in a proper

manner.

They have increased the number of locomotive engines to eleven, and made arrangements for procuring such an

additional supply of merchandize and passenger cars, as is necessary to meet the exigencies arising from wear and tear, and the increased wants of the public.

The directors contemplate laying a second track as soon as it can be done with a reasonable regard to economy. They have deferred laying it solely on account of the excessive price of iron.

For the purpose of securing to the public a continued line of steam-boats of the first class, in which the price of passage and freight between New York and the southern termination of the Providence Rail-road at all seasons of the year should be fixed at moderate rates, this company, on the eighteenth of March last, entered into a contract with the proprietors of sundry steam-boats in New York, by which the above objects have been obtained and secured for the term of five years from that date. A copy of this agreement was laid before a committee of the Legislature at the last session.

The directors having varied the original location of the road in sundry places in the county of Bristol, near the southern termination, they have caused a description and plan of the different parts of the road where said variations were made, to be filed with the county commissioners of said county, as by law required.

The directors have declared two dividends of four per cent. each on the amount of the capital stock of $1,650,000,-the former on the eleventh of June last, and the latter on the fourteenth of December last, payable on the twelfth of January, 1837.

The whole amount of receipts of the corporation the last year, viz. from December 31st, 1835, to December 31st, 1836, have been as follows:

From stockholders, by virtue of an as

sessment,

Less 32 fractional shares unsold,

From transportation of passengers and merchandize, including the Dedham

and Taunton branches,

From materials sold,

From rents,

From loan of

Less interest,

150,000

3,200

-146,800 00

243,095 62

1,538 97

870 41

5,000 00

52 50

4,947 50

$397,252 50

The expenditures of the corporation have been as follows:

Expenses of transportation, including salaries

of officers and other incidental charges, Construction, including erection of buildings,

107,512 60