The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1878-07-13
A Gigantic Fraud.

"A Aouu VI StoI tIuS udtuIcs duu
doubtless one of the most stupenduous
| in its purposes and results of any pre-
viously perpetrated in this State, has re-
Gently been discovered, amounting to
nothing less than the counterfeiting of
the great seal of the State of California
andits application to prodigious schemes
of thievery. The main object to which
this daring villainy has been designed
has been the wholesale seizure Of the
public lands under the guise of legal
sanction, and on a scale compared with
which the brief period of desert land
grabbing was a mere spasm of petty
larceny. 1t is known that information
of the fraud has been in possession of
the State authorities for some weeks
past, but the reason that it has been
withheld from the public is not explain
ed, unless it may be attributed to the
cause of justice in facilitating the fer
reting out of the guilty parties. For
what period and to what extent this
fraudulent instrument has been in use,
outside investigation has not de-
termined, but it is quite certain that
many thousands, mayhap millions, of
acres of land, including some of the
best improved and valuable in the State,
are held under fictitious titles, devolv-
ing upon the employment of this coun-
terfeit. 1t is further intimated that
men of prominence and hitherto esteem
ed integrity are concerned in this fraud
and that its preparation will in due
time solve the mystery of many an east
ly accumulated fortune in various
quarters. From the extent to which
fictitious titles to land are held under
this counterfeit seal in all parts of the
State it is evident that hundr eds have
been directly or indirectly con cerned in
the villainy, while the victims may be es.
timated by thousands. 1t seems no less
assured that public officials in some
quarters have been implicated in the
business and shared in the guilty profits.
The manner in which the counterfeit
seal has been employed appears to have
been varied. Thousands of school
land warrants have been forged
and sold on its authenticity.
An immense amount of land
has been taken in the same manner of
forged or illegal Indian scrip and SOL
diers' warrants. Special swindles on a
gigantic scale have been accomplished
by taking up large tracts of lands and
parceling them out to settlers, involv-
ing in some instances a clear steal of a
million or more. And the audacity of
the villany has even extended to the
manufacturing of fictitious titles, by
which many settler has been robbed
outright of his good improved home
stead, or made to pay roundly for the
dispersion of the cloud on his title. BY
the peculiar nature of the fraud in its
application to the courts, the unfortu-
nate farmer, whose title is disputed by
the remorseless thieves, is placed at
fatal disadvantage. The worthless
deeds, based upon the counterfeit seal,
are put upon record in the several coun-
ties, and in case of suits affecting title
the records, and not the patents, are
produced in court. Many a lawyer has
thus lost his case from the records
alone, whereas, if he could have
reached the original itself and
have been advised of the
existence of the counterfeit seal, he
might have reached favorable result.
In what manner the employment of this
counterfeit seal was disclosed is not
stated, but it is impossible that, from
the points developed in continuous land
litigation in the State for some years
past, the practice of some gigantic sys-
tenn of fraud should have been unsus-
pected. An impression of the counter
felt seal received at the Chronicle office
shows that the work has been skillfully
executed, but there are variations from
the genuine which are easily described,
and by which the counterfeit may be
readily detected. There is variation
in the head of the bear in the counter
felt amounting to manifest dispropor-
ton. The ship in the distance in the
genuine yields to the pressure of the
breeze, while in the counterfeit it stands
erect and becalmed. The pick in the
hands of the. miner is sharply cut in
the original, while in the counter
left it bears more the resemblance of a
calker's hammer. The front end of the
rocker in the genuine partially conceals
the leg of the miner, while in the coun-
terfeit it barely reaches him. There are
like variations in the drapery of the fe-
male figure, the outlines of the hills,
etc., that might also serve to detect the
counterfeit from the genuine. 1t is APP
palling to contemplate the amount of
litigation that may attend a thorough
sitting of the frauds that have attended
the use of the counterfeit seal; the hard
ship that will befall the thousands of
holders of fictitious land titles, and the
infamous downfall of not a few of the
high in the State. Aproper dispensation
of justice in the matter would largely in
crease the colony of San Quentin, the
counterfeiting of the seal in itself being
made a felony punishable by not less
than five nor more than fourteen years
imprisonment. Already the finger of
suspicion has been pointed in various
directions, and startling events may be
looked for speedily, if some unwhole-
some influence does not impede the
progress of investigation The fact of
this enormous crime, with the wide
spread and prodigious wrongs attend
ing it, having gained publicity, the peo-
pie will look anxiOusly for the immedi-
ate and energetic action on the part of
the State authorities for the correction
of the evil and the punishment of the
guilty.-SGn Francisco Chronicle.
MANY of the old naturalists entertain
ed the notion that geese were produced
from trees. 1t was supposed that on
the banks of the river in the Orcades,
a tree grew that produced live geese like
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