The land-shark
haunted the Land Office, where all the land records were kept, and
hunted "vacancies"--that is, tracts of unappropriated public
domain, generally invisible upon the official maps, but actually
existing "upon the ground." The law entitled any one possessing
certain State scrip to file by virtue of same upon any land not
previously legally appropriated. Most of the scrip was now in the
hands of the land-sharks. Thus, at the cost of a few hundred dollars,
they often secured lands worth as many thousands. Naturally, the
search for "vacancies" was lively.
But often--very often--the land they thus secured, though legally
"unappropriated," would be occupied by happy and contented settlers,
who had laboured for years to build up their homes, only to discover
that their titles were worthless, and to receive peremptory notice to
quit. Thus came about the bitter and not unjustifiable hatred felt by
the toiling settlers toward the shrewd and seldom merciful speculators
who so often turned them forth destitute and homeless from their
fruitless labours. The history of the state teems with their
antagonism. Mr. Land-shark seldom showed his face on "locations" from
which he should have to eject the unfortunate victims of a monstrously
tangled land system, but let his emissaries do the work.
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