by John Marshall Harlan

“ It was an engagement to pay out of a specially designated fund, accompanied by express authority to its custodian to apply a specific part thereof to a definite object, in the accomplishment of which all the parties to the arrangement were directly interested. To construe the act otherwise will not only do violence to plain words, requiring no construction, but convict the legislature of a deliberate design to entrap the county of St. Louis into incurring an enormous debt primarily for the benefit of the State, which controlled the earnings of the property for its own benefit. ”

“ We next inquire whether any different belief was indulged by the county court. Did its members intend the loan to be made without securing the county in some effectual mode? These questions must, in view of all the circumstances, be answered in the negative. We have seen that, when the original application was made to the county court, one of the justices submitted a proposition requiring the company to secure the loan by a mortgage upon the rolling-stock, the State to that extent surrendering its mortgage or lien. ”

“ It declared that such office should 'continue until the bonds issued for the completion of the road, and the State bonds loaned to said railroad company, with interest thereon, are fully paid out of the earnings, or exchanged for the first-mortgage bonds of said road,' as thereinafter provided. The fund commissioner became entitled, and it was made his duty, to take possession of the $1,500,000 of bonds authorized to be issued, negotiate the same, and their proceeds, together with the gross earnings of the road, from whatever source, to control and apply as directed in the act. ”