St. Landry democrat., 1888-02-04
Jan. %. 1888.
Editor ST.. LANDRY DEMOCRAT:

Editor ST.. LANDRY DEMOCRAT:
Those whe had the good fortune to
| peruse those charming letters which ap-
peared in the Picayune last year from
Catherine Cole on her Irish tour
must have been delighted. Those let
tiers awakened profound sympathy
for the distressed Irish But who is
there that will assert that our own land
laws are just as bad9 It seems that
the peculiar hardship of the evictions
in Ireland consisted in the past that
all the improvements on the land from
which the tenants were evicted were
either put there by themselves or their
ancestors and herein was great out
rage; because the labor of years was
cOnfiscated.
But wherein do our laws differ? H.
stead of renting land to tenants we sell
them the land and retain a vendors
privilege. No matter how much the
purchaser may pay or what improve
ments he may put on the land, the
whole is confiscated. If the purchase
price is say, $4,000 and the purchaser
pays 81 500 and puts on the land i'm
provements to the value 81 ,000-under
forced sale the property never brings
more, and frequently less, than the I'M
paid balance In this good old st.
Landry of ours a gentleman pointed
legged owed him $4,000. A certain plan
tation was sold for $4,000. The purcha-
ser during the three years he occupied
the property paid $45, 900, and put $4,000
worth of Improvements ON it. Failing
to make a payment q foreclosure en-
sued. The vendor bought the property
in for $4,000. His $4,000 and labor
were totally lost to the party who first
bought, and he does not acquire other
property on pain of having it seized and
sold to pay the judgment of $4,000. But
this is not all /; the purchaser pays the
cost of his evictment, which is not the
case in Ireland.
The case stated is an extreme one on
" in the magnitude of the amount in
volved. All sales are conditioned upon
ten per cent attorneys fees to pay cost
of collection. The fact that more than
half the farmers in free America are
really rack-renters accounts for the pros
perity of which we read in the papers.
Long ago travellers in India, seeing the
splendor in which the nabobs lived re-
ported that the country was vastly
wealthy but the fact was that it was
the poorest country on the. globe. A
ueSCflpLlOu VI d tduuCl Ullt bdii OCCu-
pies three columns the spectacle of a
woman and three children sleeping in
an empty hogshead, il mentioned, is
dispatched in two lines of small type.
The United States in an accession of
generosity granted some thousands of
square miles of the public domain to
railroad companies. These proceed to
advertise their land for sale on easy
te,.ype. Thousands rushed in to take adj
vantage Of these easy terms. They
found the terms easy enough, but fell
ing trees. building houses and other
small matters incident to life on the
frontier grew monotonous. Seeing
that Uncle SAM. who was once rich
enough to give all his children a farm,
was fast getting rid Of his land ION easy
terms) the search for farms was eager
and incessant. Those who opened up
farms were forced to give up their
holdings, and the railroad companies
sold land and improvements to others.
Those with fresh enegy and farms not
absolutely depleted went to work MAX
ing improvents for-the railroad
companies of course. These fellows are
simply rack-rented farmers.
We are going ahead at rapid rate,
and this is well enough, provided there
are no precipices ahead. The people
are murmuring. 1t is like their impu-
dence, indeed, to be growing when the
hawk takes their fat pullets.
Anyone reading this can look about
him and swear with mental reserya-
tion) that nothing like what is here re-
lated ever took place.
"RUsTIcUs.n