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year, and the year just prior to our coming on the grounds, his cut- 

 tings had been very large, and the forest commission decided to bring 

 a solid suit against shim for penalties; that is the suit Mr. Lynch 

 spoke of the other night, when just before it was to be tried Mr. 

 Thomson quitely dropped the title out from under us. 



Q. Done in the Comptroller's office ? 



A. Yes, sir; by cancellations. 



Q. Nothing the commission had anything to do with ? 



A. No, sir. ♦ 



Q. Did you make settlement with Mr. Thomson in some matters? 



A. No, sir; there we had a good case, and we looked up the 

 evidence and we thought we were all solid and on solid footing for the 

 big suit with Mr. Thomson. 



Q. The title was right when the suit was commenced ? 



A. Yes, sir; I thought it was good; he brought affidavits of some 

 men there that there was an occupancy on the land, and the Comp- 

 troller's office had a right to believe those affidavits, but they were 

 pure perjury in my opinion; it has been, spoken of that settlements 

 were made with individuals at different prices, but there" is very little 

 of it; we had mor% difficulty on settling upon settled rules where 

 men made Charges and the defense was that they were there 

 innocently through taking of some other man; a man would sell the 

 timber and the man had cut it in good faith; they were settled 

 at that time under those settled rules, I think every case was 

 settled under the settled rules, and we adhered to that course 

 for the reason that there were so' many of those cases that if you 

 commenced a variation on account of their not intending to commit a 

 trespass, we were going to be hounded to death with them; every man 

 would seek to find an excuse, and he would insist, " I didn't intend 

 to steal the timber," etc. 



Q. Do you recollect any exceptions to those rules ? 



A. There was an exception here two years ago of a trespass, and 

 that was just similar to what I say; a gentleman named Keyes bought 

 some land of a man who was to cut for Durant; there was part of the 

 lot that escaped their notice and went into the sale of 1885; that is 

 all the title the State had; we immediately seized the timber, being 

 State land, and Mr. Hall came here and went before the commission, 

 and stated the facts of the case to them; he said he was going to 

 redeem the lot;, he said that before he would pay any exorbitant 

 price he would go and redeem the lot; the forest commission after he 

 left the room directed' me to look the matter over and make such 

 settlement of the case with him as I thought best; the settlement was 



