New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1847-03-26
Land Agency Law-Cosis.

Land Agency Law-Cosis.
| In publishing, some time since tne eiiPna''
and vituperative denial Of certain Land Agents Oil
the Holland Purchase of the general charges pre-
ferred by Old Genesee' of legal rapaeity and ex'
tortion in the management Of the Agency oil New
York Trust Company, so far as may affect them
selves and they assert that the statement as maui
is applicable to none other) we stated that the &c,
cusations were to be considered rebutted until
snecifcally sustained. This is done IN an article
which we publish to-day, and to which we invite
the attention Of our readers. Some OF the adlec'
tves If the writer we could wish had been omitted
since the facts are sufficiently clear and expressive
TO render epithets supertuous There Is no inpu'
tation of Illegal exactions in the premises the
charge being simply that, by the unusual and ex'
cessve MULTIPLICATION Of suits and costs the poorer
settlers on lands mortgaged TO this Trust Company
have been uniustly though legally stripped OF
their hard earnings and enormous sums thereby
realized by the Companys Lawyer Agents VINO
have almost necessarily full discretion in the pre-
misses The writer may of course be mistaken or
not strictly accurate in some of his details and his
estimates are to be taken as estimates only Dut
ue know him we'll and are morally sure that his
statements are conscientiously made and on the
best attainabe evidence.
Although it is right and desirable per Sc that facts
such as he has developed shall be laid before the
public, that the wrongs they develop may be ex-
posed to general apprehension, yet the chief per
manent value of such expostions results from the
light they reflect on the general subject OF Land
speculation and the original, inevitable wrong oil
selling or granting the unoccuped soil OF any
country or community to any persons whatever but
on the condition of actual and personal settlement
thereupon In this instance, the stepmother State
which originally sold the soil OF Western New
York obtained some paltry ten or twelve cents an
acre, which has already cost the settlers nearly
half as many dollars, and when they will finish pay
ing no man can foresee. Interest and costs prob
ably absorb more than the specified price tor the
costs, it would appear, are as much or as little as
the Agents choose to make them. Law, like other
games, generally enriches the protested gamester,
but almost certainly impoverishes those who play
against him. willingly or because they cannot ePt
Will not the People think of these things VIII
they not consider that the Public Lands OF the Union
are this day exposed without restraint TO the
scourge Of Monopoly and Speculation There is
not single barrier against the immediate covering
of the entire Public Domain with just such sys'
tenn as that under which large portions of Western
New.York now groan. Whenever selfinterest
shall be supposed to warrant it, millions on
millions of acres may be bought up at the mini
mum price, held up for large advance, sold out on
mortgage or leased in perpetuity, so as to repro
duce and widely difuse the very evils from which
New-York has so severely suffered, and still SUI
fers Mag be, did we say At this moment mil
lions of acres, grasped by gigantic companies Of
spectators in 1856, are so held and managed in
various States What has been legally done can
not be undone. whether by the State or the Nation
But shall Wisdom cry forever in vain Shall Eek
perience teach us nothing How easy to enact
that no quarter section Of the Public ands shall be
disposed of by the Nation except to an actual set
tier Of that quarter section and expressly on con
dition that its owners evermore sh all possess No
other land at the same time with this How long
must this be urged before the People will think and
act
OF course we do not question the night OF any
who have legally acquired lands under bad sys
! tenn as the Trust Company in this case have done
The stockholders Of that Institution having parted
, with their money, entitled to the stipulated
consideration. That abuses should exist is not 81
much their fault as their misfortune. We are hap
py, too in being able to state that the Directors
the Company have resolved to examine into tn
manner in which their Agents have performed thei
j. duties and that DOW D. Williamson Esq is nov
|. in the Genesee country making personal calls upo
4 10 q or in hia
: ing all grievances.