Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/37

Rh General Land Office. In this circular the Commissioner referred to the various opinions of Attorney-Generals construing the act of March 2, 1831, entitled “An act to punish offenses committed in cutting, destroying or removing live-oak and other timber or trees reserved for naval purposes”; and also the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the United States vs. Ephraim Briggs (9 Howard, page 3, 1851), in which the Supreme Court decided that the said act authorized the prosecution and punishment of all trespassers on the public lands for cutting timber whether such timber was fit for naval purposes or not. This circular was addressed to the registers and receivers of local land offices throughout the United States charging them with the duty of investigating depredations and prosecuting trespassers; but it was found that the sums recovered in accordance with this circular were very small compared with the damages committed by trespassers upon the public lands during the period intervening between the publication of the circular and the incoming of this administration, and that the evil had grown rather than diminished in extent.

The present Commissioner of the General Land Office having submitted to me a report upon this subject, I addressed to him, on the 5th day of April, 1877, a letter expressing the opinion that the system theretofore adopted had failed to accomplish the desired purpose; that the interest of the government demanded an entire change in the mode of procedure, and that more effective measures should be adopted to compel an observance of the law, in order that the public lands might be protected from waste and spoliation. I further directed that agents should be employed for this purpose by the Commissioner of the General Land Office to be borne on his rolls as clerks or employés, and to be detailed for special duty to act under his instructions in ascertaining when, where, and by whom depredations had been committed on the public lands, and to report the facts in each case. Secondly, that if upon examination of the reports so obtained the facts elicited in any case were found to warrant the institution of legal proceedings to punish the trespassers, or to collect damages for the waste already committed, or both, report should be made to this department with the opinion of the Commissioner thereon, in order that such further proceedings might be had in the premises as the case required. Thirdly, that no agent so employed should be permitted to make any compromise for depredations on the public lands, but if any propositions for settlement were submitted to them, the agents were to be instructed to report the same to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, with a full statement of the facts in the case, showing the nature and extent of said depredations, when and by whom committed, the quantity and value of the timber, when cut, and the value of the land in its present and former condition, all of which, together with the opinion of the Commissioner thereon, was to be transmitted to this department for further consideration. Fourthly, that if in any case the emergencies should seem to require more prompt action than contemplated in the