While I know that ignorance is no excuse in the sight of the law, I will have to plead ignorance in regard to the law governing putting convicts on the Elkin and Alleghany Railroad. My attention has been called by the Hon. Edmund B. Norvell of Murphy to the fact that the law says: "fifty, nor more than a hundred."

I have just consulted the Attorney General, and he had advised me to write to you and say that I will not credit you with more than a hundred convicts on the Elkin and Alleghany Railroad hereafter.