mond, Tom received one hundred thirty-five
thousand pounds--a sum equal to one million dollars. That Diamond Tom
received this money there is no doubt, but where and how he got the
diamond nobody seems to know, and in his own time it was deemed
indelicate to inquire.

Tom might have wasted that money right shortly--there are several ways
of dissipating a fortune--but he wisely decided to found a house. That
is to say, he bought a borough--the borough of Old Sarum, the locality
that was to become famous as the "rotten borough" of the Reform Bill.

He bought this borough and all the tenants outright from the Government,
just as we bought the Filipinos at two dollars a head. All the people
who lived in the borough had to pay tribute, taxes or rent to Tom, for
Tom owned the tenures. They had to pay, hike or have their heads cut
off. Most of them paid.

If the time were at our disposal, it might be worth while to let this
story extend itself into a picture of how all the land in England once
belonged to the Crown, and how this land was transferred at will to
Thomas, Richard and Henry for cash or as reward for services rendered.
It was much the same in America--the Government once owned all the land,
and then this land was sold, given out to soldiers, or to homesteaders
who would clear the land of trees; and later we reversed the proposition
and gave the land to those who would plant trees.

There was this similarity, too, between English and American land-laws:
the Indians on the land in America had to pay, move or be perforated.
For them to pay rent or work out a road-tax was quite out of the
question. Indians, like the Irish, will not pay rent, so we were
compelled to evict them.

But there was this difference in America: the owner of the land could
sell it; in England he could not. The law of entail has been much
modified, but as a general proposition the landowner in England has the
privilege of collecting the rent, and warning off poachers, but he can
not mortgage the land and eat it up. This keeps the big estates intact,
and is a very good scheme. Under a similar law in the United States,
Uncle Billy Bushnell or Ali Baba might live in Hot Springs, Arkansas,
and own every foot of East Aurora, and all of us would then vote as
Baron Bushnell or Sir Ali dictated, thus avoiding much personal animus
at Town-Meetin' time.

But no tenure can be made with death--he can neither be bought, bribed,
cajoled nor intimidated.