Year: 1871

RosEvILLE, March 7th 1871.


Ed. Placer Iierdid-In your paper of last
week, notice an article from Roseville over
the signature of "Old Settler entitled "Land
Grabbings." In this article referred to- your
correspondent sees fit to make certain insulting
and slanderous illusions to the "Supervisor's
store" and of some certain men or things, who
he represents as having heretofore made my store
kind of rendezvous. Now, if l am not mistaken
in my supposition, no one knows better than the
slanderer who instigated the writing of that ar
ticle and whose name Is attached to it, but did
not write it himself for reasons that are very
Dubious to his old schoolmates. That have never
had but one person in my pay, or in my employ
since / have been doing business in this town,
SO much for his "hunky fling Again, if there
is any difference in the character of the class of
men who visit my store, and those who visit one
other building in this place, l would be pleased
to have the plumb line applied, and l do not
apprehend that / would need to fear the result


Now about this Land Grabbing Affair as he
terms it which, by the way, is matter that does
not concern me one single particle any more
than it does you, Mr.. Editor. The locators of
these lands must, of course, conform to the laws
governing such matters that fact "Old Settler"
probably did not know, but it seems to me that
he should have asked some one more wise than
he. If these locators do not conform to the
usual requirements, how much more gentlemanly
and consistent with common sense (yes, and how
much better concealed self-interest) would it
have been for the gentleman who wished
get of this same land for himself or friends,
but was too honest to succeed, to have watched
these pre-emptors and see, or get some one to
sae fo- him, that they acted ,egaly, an if they 81
act, ask You who has right to impugn Their
motives? If they do not so act, how easy it is to
prevent them from obtaining title to these
lands | repeat how much better would this
course have been for any man desiring to act the
gentleman than to fly into the public prints and
BY so do ng display his ignorance, saying moth
ing of slandering disintorcsted person.


Since writing the above, | have received infor-
mato that leaves no doubt in my mind who the
instiSator of that article is, and find also, that
my suppositions were correct. / am also re-
quested to state by one of the present pre-emp-
tors, that he is prepared to make affidavit that
this same person approached him upon the sub
ject of pre-empting some of this land, and made
the remark that "if we could only get it (the
land) we could make thousand or two dollars
out Of Boutwell, e. Co.., the same sheep men re-
ferred to in his letter. Let the gentleman be-
ware how he commences to call names. am
requested to say that he is invited to do 50.
J. d. PRATT.
The above letter reached us on Wednesday
last, being retained by the writer until that time.
The letter to which the above is reply was ad-
mitted into our columns with some hesitation
simply because ii tcontained matter much of which
was Of no general interest outside of theimmedi-
ate neighborhood, but since it did appear it is
but justice that the reply should also appear in
these columns. Both our correspondents must
agree with us that the Land Office and the courts
are the places to discuss the questions at issue,
and not the columns of this or any other paper.
The only point of general interest that We can
detect is that land is becoming valuable in the
vicinity of Rosevile, and is being eagerly sought
after by the wde-awake people of that neghbor-
hood.