Morning journal and courier., 1881-09-23

language in condemning the Rugby colony in
 Tennessee to inevitable failure. Never, says
 the writer, has philanthropy so defeated it's
 object. "Common-sense America jeers
 grim1y at the philanthropy of buying land at
 $2 (when $1 is said to have been an outside
 price) and retailing it at $20, and
 refuses point-blank to believe in it.
 Few men indeed but Mr. Hughes
 could come unscathed out of such a
 proceeding. Philanthropy they say is phi. lanthropy. and speculation is speculation
 one is respected, but the other is tolerated ;.
 but combination of the two, as no one can
 blame them for regarding the Rugby enter
 prise, is quite another matter. English resi-
 dents in America are perhaps more familiar
 with what big Etonians and Cantabs' can and cannot do when they return to the land
 than the philanthropic and genial gentlemen in question and when it was announced that the old poor land story was going to
 be enacted at the expense of the South. un- der far greater disadvantages than it had ever been before, and on a scale of unassisted
 fgreenhornisn' such as had never before been known, the hearts of all well-wishers Of the South sank within them That Rugby can be otherwise than hopeless failure has never for a moment been doubted by that class
 who, of all others, are perhaps best capable
 of judging namely, the English settlers of the South. It is not necessary to have wis
 tied that Utopia and inspected it's soil to pro- nounce with tolerable certainty upon its fu-
 ture. The lands have been notorious for their
 poverty through all time, which, it is need less to add, is the reason of their being vir- gin. Those very points that to the inex- perienced eye seem hopeful in the commis- sioner's report on the soil of Rugby and it's cropping are the familiar stereotyped phrases in the South for describing worthless land.'
 If the story fold of one Wagner, Mary land rascal, is true, there ought to be change in the laws of Maryland. Wagner,
 who had been regarded as eccentric, end per
 haps insane, attracted some little attention in the fall of 1879 by bringing hundreds of suits for damages before country magis
 trate, against men of property in Baltimore and elsewhere With none of them had he ever had any dealings His proceedings were supposed to be the harmless freaks of lu- natic, and caused only amusement to the persons concerned, who, knowing there could be no possible cause of action, took no measures to defend the suits. and judgment was rendered on default in each. The amounts claimed varied from fiftyI to one hundred dollars, the latter sum being the limit of a justice's jurisdiction in Mary land. From time to time during the autumn other suits were brought and judgment obtained, some thousands in all, several persons being made defendants in as many as one hundred suits each, and the aggregate amount of the judgments reaching several hundred thousand dollars. A year was suffered to pass without further proceedings, and then, the time having elapsed within which, under the law of Mary land, the proceedings could be reviewed, Wagner undertook to collect his judgments The defendants were startled to find that they had no remedy, having by neglect lost their only opportunity to hold the plaintiff to his proofs or to defend themselves. From the estate of one defendant, who had died since the judgments $6.2OO were collected on nearly one hundred judgments, and in all two thousand suits are said to have been set tied, the defendants paying from fifty to seventy five dollars in each case.