The Portland daily press., 1871-12-19

to be supplemented by another and much
more difficult one in order to be of any avail.
This alone would have profited the company
nothing if the deed made in pursuance ofthe
act had included merely the lands granted,
for both timber and lands within those limits
had been conveyed by the State. The way
they obtained another sort of deed was this:
After the passage of the act of 1868 the Off
GERS of the road, taking advantage Of the alb
sence of Mr.. Burleigh, the Land Agent, de-
manded their deed. Their urgency was ex-
IRENE, and yielding at length to their impor-
tunity the Governor and Council gave a deed
based on schedule prepared and signed by
l. X. Clark, gentleman now, if not then, in
the employ of the road. Among the lands
enumerated in this schedule were the towns
ships set apart for settlement though oil
course the deed contained a clause referring
to the lands excepted in the legislative act'
The whole purpose of the company is thus
made plain. The lands and not the t'moer IN
the excepted townships was reserved Tor the
State. and il is on this pretext that an at
tempt is made to deprive the people of Maine
of the meagre remnant of the public domain,
in the interest of foreign capitalists. Mr..
Clark had no authority to act for
the Land Agent in matter of
so grave Importance, and the latter
officer, had he prepared the schedule, would
not, as he has since avowed, have made it in
such way as to render the present prepos-
ferrous claim of the company possible. The
precipitancy with which the company acted
is calculated to throw still more suspicion on
its good faith. 1t has been stated on the
very best authority that the Secretary of
State, whose duty it was to sign the deed,
acGS not gioen time euen to read 1t, though he
earnestly desired that privilege. 1t should be
added that the managers of the road, have
not concealed their hostility to Mr.. Burleigh
| since the transaction above described while
Mr.. Clark, whose zeal in their behalf was so
conspicuous and so valuable, is now an Off
Ger of the road.
There is another matter that deserves atten-
ton as illustrating the spirit in which.the Eu-
ropean & North American road has accepted
the bounty of the State. That corporation
was charged with single duty by the State
that has given it all its remaining lands and
large sum of money, besides paying off its
membranes. This duty was the encour-
agement of immigration, which was laid upon
it by the act of 1866. How has that sim
pie, reasonable, inexpensive requirement
been met? No attention auhateuer wds paid
to 1t till the Legislature of 1871 made further
neglect Of 1t penal offence. Since that time
the company has issued little circular, pre-
pared by clerk in their Office whom they
have elevated to the dignity of Immigration
agent in tardy and reluctant compliance
with the requirements of the act of 1866.
This and little advertising in a Ban
gor paper is all that has been done to encour-
age immigration by the corporation into
whose Golfers Maine has poured so great a
part of its modest estate! Meanwhile the
people of the State have been at great ex-
pense and trouble to divert the rich stream of
Scandinavian emigration to Aroostook-a
work which the railroad ought promptly and
in good faith to have taken on ITSELF 1t is a
curious circumstance that the State has set
tied its colony on the very lands of which the
road is now trying to dispossess it