This circular, in the interest of railroad companies, is signed by Willis Drummond, commissioner, and directed to registers and receivers of district land offices. While the acts of congress exclude from the grants to railroad companies all lands held by pre-emption and homestead claims, the secretary of the interior says it means _valid_ claims. He then declares all claims invalid or fraudulent when there has not been a literal compliance with the statute. If the pre-emptor filed his claim one day or one week before he commenced his occupation, his claim, as against the railroad company, is fraudulent. Or, if for some cause, after having complied with all preliminaries, he should leave his claim for a day or a week, it could be treated as abandoned, and his right would be lost. These rulings, in favor of railroad companies, and adverse to the settlers, having been made, the companies were not slow in taking advantage of them. Men who supposed their claims to be valid, who had invested their all in improving them, have had their validity questioned, or have been charged with abandonment. The first intimation a settler has, is a notice to appear and defend the home of his family against the claim of a powerful corporation that is seeking to take it from him. He must submit to the alternative of losing his home at once, or of protracted, expensive litigation, with the assurance that he is combatting a powerful adversary before a tribunal that has already prejudged his case in favor of his opponent. All that the railroad companies need do to defraud the settler is to satisfy the register or receiver that, under the rulings of the department we have quoted, the settler's claim is invalid, or that he has abandoned it.