Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1867-10-09
srRwARrss noroHEp B1LL.
VIRGINIA CRY, October 8, 1867.

EDITOR News You called Senator
Stewards Mining Bill by the right name
when you said it was q "botched BILL"
When I first received a copy Of it, l read
it over many times, in the endeavor to
comprehend its provisions. But the
more I read it, the more | discovered
that its character was as you have de-
scribsd-a botched bill. do net think
that there is a single sentence in it that
is consistent in itself. When you come
to a legal Interpretation of this law, l
think it proves to be the most confused
tumble of terms that were ever stuffed
into any one statute. To illustrate, /
ask you to read and print the last por-
ton of the second section with the
terms italicized as I have marked them:
at shall and may be lawful for said
claimant or association Of claimants to
file in the local land office q diagram
Of the same, so extended taterauy or
otherui,e, as to conform to the local
laws, customs, and rules of miners, and
to enter such tract and receive a patent
therefor, granting such mine, together
with the right to follow such vein or lode,
with its dips, angles and variations, to
any depth, although it may enter the
land adjoining, which land adjoining shall
be sold subject to this condition"
]. Was ever such a tumble, in a United
States Statute? For the credit Of our
Federal law books I hope and declare
there never was. "Sueh tract" % such
mine,'' "such vein." The section be-
gins with the proposition to meet a
claim for o vein or lode. Nothing is
said about tracts of land. Then comes
" such tract" And the patent for the
"tract" is to grant the" mine and
the " vein " and the dips" etc. cal
though it may enter the land adjoining"
The land adjoining what? The law
does not say. And what is meant by a
vein or lode entering adjoining land?
First you center your tract" then your
lode makes an active " enter" "First,
you 60 and get drunk" as Billy Birch
says when he explains the way to get a
burning focas from the Sun, and then
your decanter follows your dips and
variations and gets drunk too "The
adjoining land" Extended laterally
or otherWi,e." If not /" laterally then
"vertically," more or less? Does it
mean, eff you 60 through-are ex-
tended" in your mining interests-to
the other side Of the globe, the man
who owns the ground in which the shaft
is worked up has got to sell out to you
I" subject to this condition 2" That
might involve a matter of international
diplomacy l reckon that first you 60
and get drunk.
You acquire the right to follow your
ledge, and there and then you have all
the right you need to be specified, be-
yond the usually allotted quantity Of
surface for hosting works and dumping.
If you can follow your lode, that is all
you require. The miner would never
think of entering for a gold or silver
mine a vast tract Of surface, and custom
don't permit him to do it. Of course,
if straight lines were struck down OIL
almost any mine from the limits of the
working surface, they would come in
side of many Of the underground works.
The point is that there is no such thing
as adjoining land" under any legal
construction Of this section. 'Adjoin'
the working surface parallelogram?
Why, you " follow the lode" lawfully,
don't you? What on earth then is it
that is to be sold "adjoining, " ~"subject
to this condition? !" All surface in this
country is subject, by mining rules and
customs, to actual working for minerals,
if it possesses them. And in quartz
mining, to "follow the lode" is all that
is asked beyond working surface. 1t is
impossible for me to conceive what ideas
were adjoining" one another in the
mind Of the author when he wrote this
section, in which such tract" such
NINE" and "such vein" pitch headlong
in every direction after land adjoining.
l think the rule for writing such laws
must be, "First, go and get drunk"
| observe that the late Senator Nc
Dougall, in his brief but caustic speech
on the bill, ironically termed it ingsn-
ious, after virtually acknowledging that
he could not altogether understand it.
Senator McDougall said: 1.-THE idea that
is sought to be accomplished by this
bill l think would meet my full approx
al, I'll were placed in a shape in which ii |
pas at all practicable" And then, after
a terrible piece of compliment satire, he
says the measur might be called ga |
bill to promote litigation, create contro- |
versy and occasion difficulties" He
goes on to say: "No system yet has been
matured for ~disposing of the mineral
lands in fee, except as they are occupied
in present possession under the customs
of the country. Here is a bill provid- |
ing a policy full of machinery very in
genious (sarcasm, but which, like
some of those machines that are intend
ed to secure perpetual motion, will run
but a short time"
The general fact is, probably, Senator
Stewart got the "ides" that no would
make a great nameand fame by passing
a great mining bill, benefiting himself
and the Central Pacific Railroad Com
pany particularly but the subject re-
quires, as McDougall said or intimated,
the most careful treatment; and where
statesmen feared to tread, a very infs-
rior lawyer rushed in with his bill. It
is a botched bill. Yours.
PATENT.
I'm "