Mexico weekly ledger., 1877-12-27
RUGGLES GRANT AS OTHERS

hDGGLES GRANT AS OTHERS
SEE IT.
NIR. EDITOR III Tue VI
last week Il correspondent signing
himself "A Colonist'' publishes a
paper which was partially prepared,
and intended when completed for
articles of association between the
owners of lands in Webb county,
Texas, known as the "Ruggles
lands" The writer then proceeds
(without naming thcm) to crit'cisc
in the scverest manner the actions OF
some persons interested in these
lands; and further alleges that Rug
giles titlG to the whole tract is in liti-
CATION, and tha+ in all probability
only n small portion of ii will be con-
tirmed to him. lie further charges
that the whole country for hundreds
of miles North, South, East, and
West is an almost unbrOkcn forrest oi
cactus, COlonist dcnounccs in I'm.
mitigated terms the parties who have
practised this supposed fraud upon hin
And is equally emphatic in his asser-
tons as to the worthlcssncss of the
land and the title thereto. In sum
ing up the whole matter he says, ''we
urhesitatingly pronounce the whole
thing a lie and Il fraud"
This is very severe language, and
is the deliberate declaration of u man
| who says he is honest and ''gets his
living in the heaven appointed way"
COlonist no doubt believes himself
greatly injured in the trade he made,
and probably has as little doubt in
his mird rs to who were engaged in
tie supposed fraud. 1t seem to me
therefore, that a man with so much
honest bOldncss, and such a nice sense
Of right and wrong, and one who
moreover is the owner of a newspaper
which is always at his service, should
in using the columns OF his own
paper to parade his private grievances
before the public, have had the man
illness to do so under his own proper
signature. He should have exposed
the names of the parties to this fraud,
and the specific acts each is supposed
to be guilty of, in order that the pub
lie might not confound the innocent
with the guilty. Until this is done
the community must remain IN pain
FIJI doubt as to which, or how many
Of her hitherto good citizens have
been guilty OF this great wrong against
ColoList.
Moreover this Is due to the parties
charged with the fraud, in order that
they may, if they can, defend them
selves.
Now Mr.. Colonist come out like a
man, name the designing and I'M
scrurolous fellows" and charge each
one with TIE specific acts of which
he is guilty.
The chief object however of the
present article, is tc no,ice two points
made by Colon;st in which all his CO
tenants are directly interested. They
ale as follows:
/. That the title to the land is
bad.
2. That the land is worthless.
1t is Mr.. Editor for the purpose of
presenting a small portion Of the SUI
perabundant evidence ON these two
points that / ask space in your col
umns.
If the land is worthless and the title
bad then we are all iniared by the
trade, but if the title and the land are
in any degree better than Colonist
represents them, then Colonist is
doing the owners of this land a great
injury by publicly misunderstanding
it, and thus ~depreciating its value,
and is himself guilty of no less a
crime than he is charging upon
others.
Colonist produces no proof to sup
port his charges, they stand upon his
own naked declarations; Colonist
speaks of his Town careful obserya-
tions," but Colonist4 was never ON
that land. His observations were
taken ffar off and the cactus he saw
on it are purely the creatures of his
own morbid Imagination all the Gao