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ORGANIZATION OF INVALID VILLAGES.

In order to incite invalids to join in undertakings of this sort, advantages of a particular kind should be bestowed upon them, and they should be made to feel that in providing for them in this way, the country designs it as a means for aiding their families as well as themselves. Such an intention, thus plainly revealed, should, of itself, operate as a sufficient stimulus to enter into the movement. For, when all the advantages which, under good management, can be derived from associated labor are taken into account, when land is given, and numerous aids to self-support superadded, it does not seem as though men could hesitate about accepting and improving opportunities thus placed within their reach.

The system of bounty-lands has not tended practically to favor settlement. Within the past few years these grants have seldom been located by their original owners, most of whom have been in the habit of disposing of their warrants to speculators, for a trifle. Quantities of land, however large, when thus issued, are plainly valueless, as land, to their grantees, being only considered of worth as the representative of a floating value in the stock market. To throw land away in this manner is, certainly, to defeat the original purpose of the grant, which is to favor settlement upon it.

Instead of bestowing (in addition to a pension) a section of one hundred and sixty acres of land, which, at the government price of $1 25 per acre, is worth two hundred dollars, upon each invalid, and of which, if unable to hire labor, he cannot till the quarter, give him three acres per head for every member of his family actually settling with him, of tillage land, and ten of grazing land. Supposing there are five members in each family, this would give from fifteen to fifty acres, worth $18 75, or $72 50. To each family of five members let one cow be given, value $25; also, a cheap house, costing not more than $200. One large building for factory purposes would be needed. The cost of this would of course vary with circumstances, but taking the minimum side of the problem, not less than $2,000 would be required to build and stock it with tools. This estimate does not include machinery.

The following table will exhibit these propositions at a glance, calculated for a village of sixty families. Throwing out of the account the land, which costs the government nothing, and we have:

PER CONTRA.

Instead of such a village, on entering which, invalids should relinquish their pensions, let us see what the cost to the country would annually be, were the invalids simply to draw their pensions.

Supposing only one pensioner in each family, and he of the lowest grade -- then the account would stand thus:

Sixty pensioners at $96 per year, $5,760 00; which sum in less than three years would amount to the cost of establishing an invalid village.

After the expiration of three years, the country would thus save $5,760 per annum, for each sixty invalids disposed of in this way, while the rise in value of the public lands immediately adjoining these invalid villages would bring an additional return into the public treasury.

Presenting families with land, a house, a cow, some farming tools, and a factory for associated labor to exercise itself in, are advantages which should induce a very large resort on the part of invalids to this mode of supporting themselves and their families. While, on the other hand, to the country at large, it constitutes a most economical method for reducing the expenses of the Pension Bureau.

The government and direction of these villages should be under the care of the Agricultural Department. They should be managed with a due regard to the comfort and well-being of their inhabitants, as well as according to principles of economy. A local superintendent chosen from among the inhabitants themselves, and aided by proper assistants, should constitute the municipal government. But being in the nature of inchoate communities, like territories, they should be made amenable to the federal authority alone, in all questions relating to organic changes in their management. The Commissioner of Agriculture might appoint a resident agent to superintend the administration of the affairs of the community, though it would be more consonant with popular tastes to allow the inhabitants to choose a superintendent for themselves. These are matters, however, of a subordinate character, and which circumstances must be allowed to direct. When the main question of the feasibility of these communities shall have been settled, all inferior ones will follow in course.

ANNUAL DISTRIBUTION OF PROFITS.

The lands apportioned among the inhabitants of these villages being intended for their support, should not be considered as worked in common. No distribution of their profits should, therefore, be made. If they more than supply the wants of any one family, so much the better for them; if they fail to do so, then the next source of support, the factory, must be applied to. Between these two sources it seems hardly possible that any family could fail to earn something more than a mere living.