The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-01-16
FORCiBlE DETAINER.
Judge Murphy's Claim Upon the Arnes
Mnnumnnt.

to a peculiarly aggrayating incident
connected with the entry upon the pub
lie domain. now speak of it, not
with the hope of changing the law by
which United States lands may be ac-
quired, but to show the singular irrev-
erence of the average man.
The transcontinental tourist over the
pioneer Union Pacific Railway will re-
member that at Sherman, station in
Wyoming, he found the highest point
on the road, viz: Eight thousand feet
above the top of the sea. Here he no
doubt got off and gathered few red
pebbles to carry home, if he happened
to be that kind of a tourist. Possibly,
however, he bought some Indian brio
a-brac at the little shop on the north
side of the track. You can get Indian
stuff there if you wish to. Many do.
Though tons of this Indian stuff have
been sold there the stock never runs
low. Now and then a dry-goods box is
| unloaded there, billed from Chicago.
The next morning several new toma-
hawks and more genuine Indian moe
casins will appear in the windows of
the bric-a-bracker. Chicago allows no
American city to excel her in the rapid
| advancement she makes toward perfec-
ton in Indian junk and secondhand
| furniture from the homes of the mound
! builders.
To the south of e..sk man, on a point
little higher than the road-bed, now
stands the Ames Monument, a pecu-
liarly modest red granite structure, on
the order of a sawed-otf pyramid. It is
constructed of the red granite quarried
near Sherman, and is certainly the
most depressing masterpiece in the
tombstone department that | ever wit
messed.
1t has the same general tout-ensem-
BILE as the limekiln, but without its
utility. 1t has the depressed and wholly
hopeless air that you notice in chunk
of dark red putty after it has fallen
from the roof of house.
The Ames Monument cost many
thousands of dollars, and yet it is a SOL
emn warning to the growing boys of
America to shun the fate of the million
aire. Many a boy who had intended to
amass wealth and die capitalist will
remember the Ames Monument and
cheerfully die poor.
But this costly pile has lately figured
in the land office at Cheyenne, accord
ing to reports. Mr. Michael H. Muir
ply, better known as Judge Murphy.
some time ago made the startling dis
covery that the Ames Monument stood
l,1 6 -
land which was then open to entry I'M
der what is known as the Desert-land
act, He therefore filed on it,
The first paper necessary is simply q
kind of notice to the general public that
that he has so filed. He then pays a fee
to the Register of the land office and files
certain affidavits of people who have
been over the lands and who swear
that they will not produce crops with
out irrigation and that they are not
mineral lands
He then has several years in which
to dig irrigation bitches, raise crops,
etc, in compliance with the statutes in
such cases made and provided, after
,s-l.ial.. he essas-
that he has so irrigated the aforesaid
lands and produced crops, and then he
may prove up and get title to the land
by paying some more money.
Judge Murphy had gone through
with all the first and preliminary stages
of the matter and had arrived at that
point where all he had to do was to IL
rigate his monument and prove up.
when the Union Pacific Railway learned
of the matter and bought him off.
What man would do with seventy
five thousand dollar stone monument in
q dry climate like that do not know,
and what the Judges object may have
been in securing it is matter that /
have not yet fully settled in my mind.
What could be as utterly useless as
secondhand monument? Why should
a humble justice of the peace aspire to
repose under monument that does
not fit him?
These are questions which naturally
arise in the human mind in considering
this matter To jump graveyard or
file on a cemetery is not so peculiar in
the history OF the West, because such
ground becomes valuable by reason of
rapid real estate movements or startling
SOlO VI SILVER ueNelOp lllellIS, Dub iOr
man in his right mind to wander away
from town up into the bleak mountain,
where the wind will blow a silver dollar
out of his pocket any day in the year,
to file on quarter section of deconA-
posed quartz and crumbling granite is
more than | can understand.
Of course, the wording will say at
once that Judge Murphy filed on the
ground under the Desert-land act in
order to down the Union Pacific Rail
way or the Ames Monument and Lime
Kiln Association for considerable sum
of money, but it hardly seems possible
that any one would solemnly swear to
support the Constitution of the United
-EaasAilss-
of children, and that he intended to
irrigate the top of that eight thousand.
foot farm with real water and that he
hoped to produce crops there in places
where the geological shoulder-blades
of Mother Earth are entirely bare. II
| looks to me more like an old, neglected
case of tombstone kleptomania and /
morbid desire to sleep under a monu
ment that is seven or eight sizes toe
large.-BW Nye, IN Chicago Ne1CS.