Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-07-28
Desirable Defeat Of Fraudulent Land
rifles in California.

Titles in CALIFORNIA;
San Francisco, at the last accounts, was re-
joicing over O recent decision of the Su-
preme Court of that State, disposing of
another fraudulent land title. The case is
given as. follows;
The Supreme Court at Sacramento has re-
versed its own decision Of 1857, and pro-
nounced the Peter Smith title invalid. Now
Peter Smith was an innocent, crack-brained
doctor, who lived here in ls4S and 1859.
When the contract for taking care of the
sick of the city was to be awarded, Peter got
It. Hosts of people were sick in those days,
and extravagant prices charged. So, no
wonder, when he brought in his bill, IL was
a rouser. The city did not dispute Il, how
ever, but paid in scrip, and, when that was
redeemable, refused to cash it. Our people
had to wait, why not Doctor Smith, And
If he did not choose to wait, how could he
help himself? The spectators got hold of
the scrip, and when the city still refused to
come down, the Sheriff came down instead,
and some $4,000 acres Of land, the city's prop
erty, was sold till the judgments that had
been obtained were all satisfied.
The city authorities protested and so did
many citizens, that the sale amounted to
nottingham the property was not liable to
execution. But j. the Spectators took the
risks and loaded their desks with Peter
Smith titles to acres on acres of land. Never
mind the incessant wranglings at law ever
since about the matter. One day last week,
but full fortnight after the substance of the
decision was known, out came Adhesion from
the Supreme Court with card of opinion
attached. 1t was written by Judge Baldwin
and concurred in by Chief Justice Field.
| Judge Cope dissented on the ground that it
| was well for Il court to stand by its own de-
cisions, but admitted that if the question was
never before in the Court he should have
| arrived at the same opinion with his asso-
| ciates At all events he considers himself
| bound by the present determination of the
| Court. The Courts decision then was, that
San Francisco, at the date of the conquest,
was a pueblo, with a pueblos titles to lands
within its limits, which were held in trust
| for the public use, and were not under either
| the old or new government the subject Of
seizure or sale by execution.
This settles the fact that the title OBJ
tanned by the Sheriff's sales under the
Peter Smith judgments were worth no more
than so much waste paper. If the decision
had stopped there, the city would have been
suddenly rich again; but it proceeds to affirm
the validity of the Van Ness Ordinance, un-
der which the city gave away to actual
squatters many acres of the very land that
the Peter Smith title claimed. So that,
though the city gains no great deal, the
| squatters gam lnhnltely by the action OF the
| Supreme Court. The lawyers say that the
Court can not, in after years, go back of this
decision and they tell us why. If it can ant
should, then wo unto us We are in a deeper
and muster muddle than ever. If not,
new era has dawned upon us. The thre,
great ghosts that haunted every homestead
Limantour, Santillan and Peter Smith-al
permanently laid, and nothing is lett but @
few such scaly, and obviously fraudulent
claims as the Sherreback, which scarcely
frightens any body now.