land you see was given as grants to old soldiers. A colonel could claim
1200 acres, a major 800, a captain 600 acres, and a private 100 acres.
Not one in twenty who drew their lots meant to live on them, and of the
few who tried most of them failed and left. Speculators had their agents
round taverns and stores ready to buy soldiers' tickets, and got
transfers for a few dollars, sometimes for a keg of whiskey or a
hundredweight of pork. If you want to kill a country, deal out its land
as grants to old soldiers. It does the soldiers no good and keeps back
settlement, for the grants they got are left by speculators unimproved,
to the hurt of the genuine settlers, who want roads opened, fences put
up, and ditches dug. You will find out this yourself when you begin to
clear a lot. This giving away land to soldiers is well meant, but
soldiers wont go on it and it is just a way to make speculators rich. No
man should get an acre from the government unless he binds himself to
live on the land and clear it. On the master saying he was told much
land was got by politicians, Jabez grew warm in denouncing them.
Whatever party was in office, used the land as a means of bribery. They
bought the support of members by grants of land and, when an election
came round, got the settlers to vote as they wished under threats of
making them act up to the letter of their settlement duties or offering
back-dues and clear titles in return for their support. No candidate
opposed to the government can be elected for a backwoods county. With
such talk Jabez relieved their journey until they came to a side-road,
which was a mere bridle-path. Up this they turned, passing through solid
bush. It was a bright, hot day in the clearings, but under the trees it
was gloomy and chill, with a moist odor of vegetation which was grateful
to the master, and this was his first experience of the bush. Fallen
trees, which lay across the track, their horses jumped, as they also did
on meeting wet gullies. Jabez said the path had been brushed by an
Englishman, rumored the son of a lord, who had bought the block of land