I 1 2 WINTER SKE TCHES. 



British rule, he consoHdated all his territory 

 and obtained the royal charter, still carefully 

 preserved, which created him the first lord 

 of the manor. The area of his possessions 

 extended from the Croton Riv^er twenty miles 

 north, and from the Hudson east to the Con- 

 necticut line. 



Mr. Henry George would have looked upon 

 the ownership of so much land by one man as 

 a heinous offence. According to his theory, 

 the Indians, who had previously held it in 

 common, must have been a happy and pros- 

 perous set of men. Nor would he have stopped 

 to consider what was sure to be the distribu- 

 tion of it. Children were born, and children's 

 children's inheritances divided and dismem- 

 bered it, until to-day the possessor of the 

 manor-house holds but 2000 acres, all the rest 

 having gone into the hands of strangers. For 

 one or two generations real and personal prop- 

 erty may remain in a family, and then all is 

 scattered, perhaps to be heaped up again by 

 some one at the bottom who exchanges places 

 with those who were at the top. Our philos- 

 opher would have it all equalized at once and 

 kept forever on an equality. This scheme 

 will be successful when the tides cease to ebb 



