site commission arbitrarily divided the lots into four classes, and appraised class A at + cents a square foot, B at 2 cents, C at 1 cent, D at 3 to 4 of a cent, and E at of a cent, without any reference to actual value. It was purely arbitrary, and might as well have been one mill or fifty dollars.

Lots were scheduled to various persons on the ground of improvements which were fictitious. Since the appraised valuation in Muskogee was really less than onethird of the real value, this right gave the possessor of these improvements the right to purchase at less than one-sixth the actual value, and it becomes important to know what kind of improvements conferred this valuable privilege.

Mr. Tams Bixby, who was for some time Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, thus describes the character of the improvements upon three large lots, embracing a whole block which was scheduled to him:

tar and costing $20 were allowed, also trees set out, where the parties claimed a home in the same town. Under this construction of the law people became very industrious while the commission was in a town. "Everybody was a carpenter or

a stone mason.

After the schedule of Muskogee was approved, notices of appraisement were served upon the parties to whom the lots were scheduled, informing them of the fact and giving the amount of the appraisement and the terms of payment. Sometimes these notices were served by copy, sometimes service was acknowledged on the notice itself. An examination of these notices shows, in one case, that some six hundred and twenty-five of them were acknowledged by a single individual as 66 agent" for the persons to whom the lots were scheduled.

The deeds were shown to the commission, occasionally by the persons to whom they were made, but more gener

Q. Were there any other improvements? A. No, sir, nothing but a fence; just a common rough lumber fence.

Q. There were no other improvements? A. I don't know how you look at it-what you call improvements. There were some trees, fruit trees I think, some on each lot. Q. How old were those fruit trees? A. They were not very old. . . . There might have been twenty in the entire block.

Foundations for a house, earth which had been carted for the purpose of filling the lot, and buildings which in any other part of the world would be considered temporary, were all held to give a claim by virtue of this section.

In other towns the commissioners determined that all improvements worth over $20 should be deemed permanent! But a well, whether dug or bored, which had water in it was considered a permanent improvement, even though it did not cost $20, because it could not be removed! Foundations put down by stone and mor

sion required no other proof of ownership, and the lots were at once scheduled to the parties named. The "agent" then, usually without further authority, acknowledged service of the notices of appraisement, and in five hundred and forty-five cases out of six hundred and twenty-five he made the payments for the lots; and after deeds to these respective lots had been executed by the Creek Nation, he caused the various persons to whom the quitclaims had been made, to deed the lots back to him or to a company he controlled. About eighty per cent of the property was thus deeded back, and the transfers were merely colorable to enable him to hold large tracts of land in violation of the Creek Agreement.

Many witnesses testified that they had never received a quitclaim or bill of sale from the "agent" at all before the lots were scheduled to them. It would thus appear that these quitclaims had never been delivered, and the right to schedule the lots in such cases did not exist.

Some of the parties never gave the "agent" any authority to make the schedule for them. Generally no consideration was paid for the quitclaims. These parties understood that the "agent" was to have the lots; that they were

holding for his benefit. "The use of the name was all that was wanted."

Many parties to whom the lots were thus quitclaimed did not even know they had ever owned the lots scheduled to them. When there were a number of persons in one family whose names could be used, the agreement usually was that one member should keep one lot for holding the rest for the " agent."

One witness testified: "I happened to hear that X was giving away lots. That is the way the report was going around. I got interested right away, and went around there and got there just in time to get about the last one. . . . All I know about it was, he asked me for the names of a few of my friends that I could have these lots scheduled to, and the way I understood it, he just deeded the whole block to me. It was several lots in block 49, and then I was to give a quitclaim deed to every one but one, and to keep one myself."

The people to whom the "agent" had lots scheduled lived all over the United States, in Illinois, Minnesota, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. So eager was he to find names of persons who might hold lots for him that the names of minors were used in considerable number.

These lots were all claimed under Section 12 of the Creek Agreement, which provided that any person having the right of occupancy of a residence or business lot or both, in any town, whether improved or not, and owning no other land therein, should have the right to purchase such lot by paying half its appraised value.

The town-site commissioners themselves admitted that they had no knowledge or information whether the quitclaims shown to them had ever been delivered, and that a great many of the deeds were made to persons they had never heard of. One commissioner, being asked whether it did not occur to him that these parties might not be holding the lots for the men who made the deeds, answered: "I do not know that I gave that much consideration; I thought the Nation was doing well to get some one to pay for them!"

The above circumstances relate to a single case only, but the "agent" in his

written statement says he believes "this was the general plan carried out throughout the territory. There was nothing hidden or secret about it. It was a matter of general knowledge." There were some thirty towns in the Creek country to which this statement applied.

By the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, approved by the President, an investigation was made, the facts relentlessly exposed, and many suits have been brought by the Government to set aside these illegal transactions and recover any profits fraudulently made. Great difficulties, however, lie in the way of any complete recovery. Public opin

ion in the towns affected is all but unanimous in favor of these frauds and is very intense; the more so because any attempt to throw a cloud upon land titles is considered injurious to the prosperity of the towns. No justice for the Indian could ever be secured if the cases were to be tried by jury. Fortunately, they come before a Federal court sitting in equity. But much of the evidence has disappeared; the low appraisements made can hardly be reviewed or altered, and testimony as to the fictitious character of the improvements is in many cases not now attainable. Much of the land has passed into the hands of purchasers in good faith, and the parties guilty of fraud may be found pecuniarily unable to account for the profits illegally obtained. Even if the outcome of the pending litigation shall be favorable, the measure of redress will still be grossly inadequate. Moreover, the expense of this litigation has to be paid out of the tribal funds. Under the circumstances, ought not Congress to provide the means of conducting these suits to final determination, and also, if the remedy be found inadequate, to add some further indemnity to these wards of the Nation, thus robbed of their own by means of a treaty which furnished such facilities for plunder, and by the acts of Government subordinates whose carelessness and acquiescence in fraud were important contributing factors in the spoliation of the tribe?

Will the American people, through its representatives, do justice to the Creek Nation?

THE EARTHQUAKE'S DEVASTATION

The sympathy and aid of the world are pouring forth to Italy in her day of suffering. The calamity of last week in loss of life has no parallel in the history of earthquake tragedies unless it may be in that of Assam in * India (1897), when within three minutes the buildings in a hundred and fifty thousand square miles were laid in ruins, with a loss of life never closely calculated. At Lisbon, in 1755, some 60,000 people died; 30,000 lives were lost in the Calabrian shocks of 1783, which bore a close resemblance in many points to the earthquake of last week; at San Francisco, in 1906, perhaps seven or eight hundred perished; at Kingston, in 1907, a few hundred. But unless the most moderate estimates are exaggerated, the number of deaths in Sicily and Calabria last week will exceed that of all the disasters just named added together. The Italian Government thinks 115,000 a reasonable surmise; unofficial figures go beyond 200,000. What is and always will be immeasurable is the agony of the survivors, the torture and horrors of the wounded and helpless penned in where none could reach them, the sufferings of the homeless, unfed, half-demented fugitives. It was at half-past five on Monday morning of last week that the blow fell, and a large part of those who were killed had not warning enough to leave their houses before destruction came upon them. The main shock lasted a half-minute. The center of disturbance was in or near the beautiful Strait of Messina, a

narrow

Waterway between Sicily and that part of Calabria which forms the very toe of the boot to which the shape of Italy is so often likened. On the Sicilian side, to the north and not far from the famed passage between Scylla and Charybdis, lay the ancient and prosperous city of Messina, with nearly a hundred thousand people;

nine miles across on the Calabrian side and a little to the south lay Reggio, a town of perhaps fifty thousand inhabitants; all along the northeastern coast of Sicily and the southwestern coast of lower Calabria were smaller towns, villages, and hamlets, low-lying and near the sea. Those places which were higher or farther back from the center of danger, as Taormina in Sicily, escaped, but the others— Messina, Reggio, Bagnara, Palmi, Stefaniconi, and perhaps a dozen little towns were first battered, shaken, and crushed by the shock, then overwhelmed by the thirty-foot high wave that followed, and finally devastated by the fires which sprang up on every side. At Messina, says one despatch, buildings were not only shaken down, but their foundations were wrenched from under them; cathedral, city hall, prisons, barracks, three hotels (in one, the Trinacria, many foreigners, but no Americans, perished), and scores of business buildings were thrown down instantly, so that the place to-day is little more than a heap of ruins and ashes. survivor who reached Catania gave this pitiful account of Messina's condition as it appeared to his eyes on Tuesday:

A

The flames are still making their way slowly over the devastated area. Imprisoned and pinioned human beings, unable to extricate themselves, are being burned alive. Others are dying of their injuries, while still others are starving. The streets are filled with confused masses of brick and mortar, beams, furniture, chimneys, and roofs. It is absolutely impossible to recognize one thoroughfare from another. In many cases they appear as enormous crevasses or great ditches, twisted into fantastic shapes. All the water-pipes, sewers, and gas-pipes of the city have been destroyed, and water, mud, and filth are flooding the torn streets. Gas explosions occur frequently and result in the breaking out of scores of small fires. For several hours after the first destructive shock Messina was absolutely without organized relief, for the reason that the municipal authorities, the soldiers, the police, doctors,