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a bill the session before which was defeated; by the act of chapter 179 

 of the Laws of 1890, which is an amendment to section 179 of the 

 Code of Civil Procedure, actions which are authorized for penalties 

 are to be tried in the county adjoining the one where the trespass was 

 committed. 



Q. What is the object of that? 



A. That was to enable us to obtain convictions in trespass cases or 

 verdicts; matters of extreme difficulty, and I understand, a similar act 

 has been declared unconstitutional by a late decision of the Court of 

 Appeals; we gained nothing by the passage of this act. 



By Chairman Ryan: 



Q. Did you ever bring suits under that act ? 



A. I think Mr. Burke Jias brought several actions under that act; 

 chapter 556 of the Laws of 1890 amends the act in relation to the col- 

 lection of taxes, a statute of limitations within which redemptions 

 •may be made upon the ground of occupancy, and it also shifts the 

 burden of proof from the Comptroller to the occupant himself, com- 

 pels him to show actual occupancy, not presumptive occupancy; we 

 prepared and presented a bill in 1889 to prevent the building and 

 extension of railroads through the forest preserve ; the Senate 

 amended it and passed it, but it died in the Assembly; the same bill 

 was introduced in 1890 and failed. 



Q. What was the purpose of that bill and the reason for it? 



A. Well, I think it the almost unanimous opinion of all who know any- 

 thing about the North Woods that the most destructive element at work 

 is fire; railroads are responsible very largely for fires wherever they 

 exist there; I know that I went through from Moriah to Paul Smith's 

 station over the Northern Adirondack road, and the destruction on 

 both sides of the road is terrible, and absolutely unnecessary in my 

 judgment; one of the first letters that I got after my appointment as 

 commissioner, was from one of the judges of the Supreme Court of 

 that district, who called my attention to that scene of havoc through 

 there; it is worse than the destruction by water in the Baquette river; 

 not only that, but the railroads render it possible to carry away all 

 woods, hard and soft, and can take every thing off on wheels; as 

 Sargent says in his report: "The new methods of lumbering by aid of 

 railroads, means the absolute destruction of the forests;" we have 

 thought that we were voicing the sentiment of the people in trying to 

 check the creation of railroads, especially those for lumbering pur- 

 poses, and freighting purposes there ; besides these bills that I have 

 mentioned, we also introduced a bill to permit leasing small parcels of 

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