Year: 1872

understand their subject. Our ncighbor, to
get out of close corner on the Drummond
order question, gives us a long article which
! means everything and "essays" nothing.
IF there is clear idea in the article ii is that
the miners should lose their claims unless
! they apply for patents within the first 80
days after the plats are filed, which is i'm
/ possible in many cases. The law for the
sale of mining claims does not require an
application to purchase within a specified
time or at all, but simply gives them the
privilege to DO SO if they choose, after they
have done 81 COO worth of work in the de-
velopment of the mine. This the miner
knows, and consequently he rests easy, but
in the meantime his claim is, by crime,
declared agricultural, the Government officials
give him no official notice of the fact or of
the filing of the plat, and in 80 days his
claim, if on an odd section, goes TO the r..
r. company. That these lands in the rich
mineral townships were all returned as agri-
cultural, was not known to the people re-
siding in them and would not have been
known until after the 90 days had expired
and the odd sections had passed to the r..
X. company, our neighbor must admit; and
he must also admit that but for Drum
mond's order all the miners and town people
| Il - r Ill
possessed. Then why bubble about an or
der that did save the homes and possessions
of large class of our citizens, many Of
them supporters of the Stripes and HERALD
We admit that if every man knew the law ,
and knew that his mine and town lot were
returned as agricultural, he could have saved
it by mineral aflidayts, filed at heavy ex-
pense in Sacramento, within 90 days, but to
have known that, he must have known more
than our neighbor or ourself--an unreasona-
bic expectation. No, the design was to
swinde these miners and town people, and
but for Drummond's order ii lcould hare
succeeded. The qucercst thing we find in
this muddle article of the Stripes is this


"And if the railroaders are deprived by the
| Drunlmond order of unoccupied odd sections i'll
Che foothills, to which they would otherwise be
entitled. they will be permitted to select other
and perhaps more desirable-lands elsewhere,
in lieu of those Of which they thus deprived.


Our neghbor must have been reading
school land law grants, and got that tangled
in his brain with the Il. X. grant. The r..
r. grant authorizes no lieu land selections,
gives no right TO select land instead of those
occupied or mineral; and why our neighhor
should get this stuff in we cannot imagine,
unless on the principle of any port IN a
Storm" or downright innocence of what he
is writing about. The whole question re-
solves itself into this: Perjury and crime
was committed in the return of these valua-
Die mines as agricultural lands by the United
States surveyors. They had no interest in
doing this unless paid for it. Whoever paid for
the crime and fraud on the Government and
miners, desired to profit by it and get the
mines and property of the settler. The
scoundrelly scheme would have been sue
cessful but for Drummond's order, which we
sustain until the character of all these lands
are definitely determined by competent au-
thority. Unlike our neighbor, we are not
tired of this subject, though we are defend
ing the act Of one of Grants officials, and
never will tire of it while any portion of our
community arc suffering or likely to suffer
wrong or robbery.


LEvEE CUTTERS. Much Indignation and
ink has been spent on the men that cut the