No reference is made to the employees. No more faithful, competent
and efficient force of men exists in the clerical portions of any
government, but there is--or was, for their day is now over--a class of
land speculators commonly called land sharks, unscrupulous and greedy,
who have left their trail in every department of this office, in the
shape of titles destroyed, patents cancelled, homes demolished and torn
away, forged transfers and lying affidavits.
Before the modern tiles were laid upon the floors, there were deep
hollows in the limestone slabs, worn by the countless feet that daily
trod uneasily through its echoing corridors, pressing from file room
to business room, from commissioner's sanctum to record books and back
again.
The honest but ignorant settler, bent on saving the little plot of
land he called home, elbowed the wary land shark who was searching the
records for evidence to oust him; the lordly cattle baron, relying on
his influence and money, stood at the Commissioner's desk side by side
with the preemptor, whose little potato patch lay like a minute speck of
island in the vast, billowy sea, of his princely pastures, and played
the old game of "freeze-out," which is as old as Cain and Abel.
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