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Southern Pacific Company.
Mills Building, 23 Broad St.

New York, December 24th, 1895

Mrs. Jane L. Stanford,

Fifth Avenue Hotel,

N.Y. City.

Dear Mrs. Stanford:--

Your letter of December 23rd is received. The option given by
Messrs. Roberts & Hooper for the purchase, by the Pacific Improvement
Co., of a controlling interest in the capital stock of the Sacramento
Transportation Co., has expired, and was not availed of. Mr. Huntington
showed it to me some ten days before it ran out, and I then expressed
to him the view that we could not avail of it. This seemed to be his
opinion also, and I understand he took the option only for the purpose of
enabling the associates, through the Pacific Improvement Co., to consider
the subject of the damaging competition on the Sacramento River, and do
something to improve the situation there, should it be thought best to do
so. There is no doubt, I think, that some steps should be taken in this
direction before long, but for the reasons you state, and in conse-
quence of the large demands for money which must be used in other direc-
tions, no purchase of this kind seems practicable or advisable, at the
present time. We did not assent to the purchase, and, as already stated,
nothing was done in respect to it.

Very respectfully yours,

Thoms H. Hubbard.