e unemployed by
giving them free soup, could be devoted to settling colonies upon our
uncultivated lands, the vexing problems and contests between labor and
capital would be easily solved and obliterated; the unskilled poor
would be at once enabled to respond to the call of the poet--

"Come back to your mother, ye children, for shame,
Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame!
With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap,
She calls you to feast from her beautiful lap.

Come out from your alleys, your courts and your lanes,
And breathe like your eagles, the air of our plains!
Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives
Will declare it all nonsense insuring your lives."

CHAPTER XXIII.

MONARCH OF ALL HE SURVEYED: THEN DEPOSED.

Here on elevated lands around a pretty clearwater lake, directly on
the Florida Central and Peninsula Railroad, and near a famous grotto
extending deep into the earth, at the bottom of which, like a well,
was an abundance of water containing peculiar fish, near the noted
Eichelburger cave, and vast forests of gigantic trees with sloping
hills around, we founded the town of B----.

I was elected general manager, and went north to sell the $100,000 of
capital stock, convertible at the option of the holder into our lands
at schedule price, leaving a Mr. B---- as superintendent to cut
avenues, build a hotel, and conduct the general affairs in my absence.

For several years I devoted all my energies very successfully to
selling the stock and organizing colonies of settlers. I paid ten per
cent. dividend on the stock while I was manager, besides furnishing
thousands of dollars to defray expenses of building a handsome railway
station, a fine commodious schoolhouse and town hall, a good hotel,
and providing good roads.

I went to Tallahassee, and log rolled through the state legislature a
bill enabling us to form a city government, and statutory prohibition
of all liquor selling in our new town by incorporating said
prohibition into all our deeds. After securing these funds and many
settlers, also Ex-Governor Chamberlain of Maine as president of our
board of directors, I moved to the new town with my family, there to
reside permanently.

Here our duties were in many respects agreeable, because useful, for
quite a long time. My wife was mother of the town, going from house to
house ministering to the wants of the newcomers who had become sick
by