Express  Co.  The  two  companies  still  work  in  common  and  use  the  same  wagons
and  offices  in  many  places.
But  close  as  the  Southern  Express  is  to  its  parent  company,  it  has  a  separate
enough  existence  to  justify  a  separate  account  of  its  money-making  capabilities.
Referring  to  the  original  558  shares  of  stock,  the  secretary  and  treasurer  of  the
Southern  Express  says:  "None  of  the  original  twenty-four  stockholders  are  living
and  there  is  no  existing  record  to  show  how  much  was  realized  from  the  distribution."
This  does  not  help  us  much,  but  in  another  report  to  the  Interstate  Commerce
Commission  the  company  appears  to  know  what  these  records  showed,  for  it  says
"none  of  its  stock  was  ever  issued  for  real  property,  equipment,  acquisition  of  se-
curities, or  for  any  other  purpose  in  the  sense  in  which  the  issuance  of  stock  is
understood  in  connection  with  corporations."  But  we  do  find  that  in  1866  the
number  of  shares  was  increased  to  30,000  and  distributed  to  the  owners  as  a
stock  dividend.  Plainly,  the  civil  war  did  not  impoverish  the  express  carriers.
Then  in  1886  enough  more  new  stock  was  created  to  give  the  owners  five  shares  in
place  of  every  three  which  they  already  held,  so  that  there  are  now  50,000  shares.
