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.
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