I am in receipt of your letter of the eleventh,¹ I appreciate very much the recognition that you have given Davidson county, but you understand what I was so anxious about was to have this recognition properly distributed for the best political effect. Thomasville has not be recognized yet and they are such good Democrats and such loyal friends of yours that I wanted them recognized.

By the way, I wrote to Dr. Fletcher of Asheville and explained to him why they would not receive the convicts at once for the Hickory Nut Gap road, and told him that they might be able to get them earlier if they would use their influence with Gen. Davidson to give them up as soon as he found out positively there was no chance for doing anything for the Transcontinental Railroad. Dr. Fletcher writes me that he has no influence with Gen. Davidson, that the General is very selfish and he is not interested in the state or in his section of the country unless it helps him and that he has no hope of securing convicts until he gets them through the order of yourself and the Council of State. I should like very much to see this work started and am very sorry that it has to be delayed thirty days on account of the Transcontinental proposition.

All the newspapers that I have noticed have approved of the course of the directors of the State Prison except the Charlotte Observer, which said editorially yesterday that the state should stand by its contracts with these railroads, and especially the Statesville Air Line and the Watauga. I replied in a letter yesterday which arrived too late for publication in today's paper. I presume it will appear in tomorrow's Observer. I trust you will see what I have said and that it will be approved by you. We must in some way "bust" up this rotten policy. If we don't do it, it is going to cripple your administration.

I shall request that you make it a strong feature of your message to the special session of the Legislature, in case you call one, to urge them to repeal the whole proposition. Of course, it is impossible for the Directors to do anything much at remedying these faults except we do have the co-operation of yourself and the Council of State.