The herald., 1896-10-19

on behalf of the company to survey the
tract Unfortunately, after he got his
inap all done, which looks and scales
just like the Lecouvreur and hancock
maps, lie found out that his chairman
had dropped several pins. SO he con-
| cluded TO leave off all the figures and di-
mensions. This made the map look very
innocent to the council, and the compa-
ny tried hard to get the city to adopt 1t
as the official map. but for some reason
it was rejected. The Canal and Reser-
voir company was water company and
it knew very well that its successors
needed good example set SO they wait
ed a little while and took the map and
had 1t recorded and somebody--the sur
veyor denies that he did it-placed upon
this map a set of figures that is all out
OF proportion to the scale. This never
bothered the city any, or any one else,
for that matter. The city decided by it
as well as by the Hancock map, and
when tired of playing with that would
deed by the Lecouvreur map, but the
company was wise in its generation.
The fight with the city proceeded and
resulted in a compromise, the city TAX
ing back part of the land and joining
with the company in making deeds. The
members of this company took deeds
from the city according to the Hancock
map and Went into possession under the
five acre lots at once grew to forty-five
acre lots, thereby making a clear profit
of ten acres in every forty-five.
A pretty good speculation for the fell
low on the inside! OF course the fellows
knowing this little discrepancy took ad-
vantage of it and got the forty five acres
every time. But the city council in
blissful ignorance-yes, even, apparant-
ly, at the present time-continued to
recognize the Hancock map and every
one else followed suit. OF course when
the thirty-flve acre lots were swelled
into forty-flve acre lots the streets on
the Hancock map went a-glimmering.
1t left less streets and more land for the
people. About fifteen miles of these
Hancock streets are now used as pri-
vate property. The streets were eighty
two and one-half feet wide and where,
may it be asked, would a fifty-foot lot
be? If the decision lately rendered by
Judge Van Dyke in the Mooney case is
absolutely valid in law. good many
holders Of lots in these streets had bet
ter get move on them and get their
lots insured. & At present if man buys
lot by the Hancock survey and goes
into possession by the Moore survey,
and fences according to the Lecouvreur
survey, and is pushed around by the
present city engineer every new moon,
and pays taxes by his title papeiE he
may well ask, who owns the land,
anyway"
THE LATEST SURVEY.
There is another curious feature of the
case. The government has made two
surveys of the exterior boundaries of
the city and they differed several hun
dred feet in their location, but such lit
tie discrepancies never bothered the city
council. They sent out Lecouvreur and
he made another survey and, surveyor
like, he claimed all his predecessors were
wrong and he, only, right. The city
lately, as precautionary measure,
wanted to find out where the city exact
ly was, so they sentAout a, ,lot of a Anincom-
poops who proceeded to reorganize
things in great shape. They tied onto
everything, from a lost monkey wrench
to dead sheep, assumed every snubbing
post to be recognized corner, and low
ers' hieroglyphics on sandstone were
magnified into ancient landmarks left
by Hancock forty years ago. When the
return of the field party was sent in, the
office was turned into a lunatic asylum.
They figured and calculated till their
heads swan, and would have been flgur-
ing yet if election hadn't come along
and they lost their job. The notes were
sized up by plane trigonometry, men,
suration and theosophy, spherical trig-
onofnetry, gravitation and logarithms
and yet they never could bring the thing
out twice alike.
The final result attained forms part
of another phase of the story of land
manipulatons in the city, and is simply
another link in the long chain of imbe
cile administration by the city council
and the engineers Office.