In years past too much laxity prevailed in its management, and the files
were handled by all comers, simply on their request, and returned at
their will, or not at all.
In these days most of the mischief was done. In the file room, there
are about ---- files, each in a paper wrapper, and comprising the title
papers of a particular tract of land.
You ask the clerk in charge for the papers relating to any survey in
Texas. They are arranged simply in districts and numbers.
He disappears from the door, you hear the sliding of a tin box, the lid
snaps, and the file is in your hand.
Go up there some day and call for Bexar Scrip No. 2692.
The file clerk stares at you for a second, says shortly:
"Out of file."
It has been missing twenty years.
The history of that file has never been written before.
Twenty years ago there was a shrewd land agent living in Austin who
devoted his undoubted talents and vast knowledge of land titles, and
the laws governing them, to the locating of surveys made by illegal
certificates, or improperly made, and otherwise of no value through
non-compliance with the statutes, or whatever flaws his ingenious and
unscrupulous mind could unearth.
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