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Show I REPORT OF COMMISSIONEB OF INDIAN AB'FbEB. 111 1 TOWN LOTS. No new town sites were created during last year. Payments.-The following payments for lots have been received by the Indian agent: Creek Nation $21,636.67 Cherokee Nation -.-----------------93,-687-.94- ---------------- Choctaw and Chickasaw nations- _------_----24-9,1-34-.19. ---------------- 364,458.70 Final payment on 56 of the 300 government town sites in the Five Civilized Tribes have been made and the patents covering the land prepared and delivered. Many lot holders who were delinquent on installments due, were notified of the intention of the department to declare forfeitures of such lots, and those on which the payments were not made have been declared forfeited. C~eek Zot8.-The Creek agreement, ratified by the act of March 1,1901 (31 Stat. L., 861), provides for the scheduling of lots to per-sons owning improvements or having the right of possession at 50 per cent of the appraised value, as follows: (a) Any person in rightful possession of lots having improrements thereon other than temporary buildings, fencing and tillage; ( 8 ) Any person having the right of occupancy of a residence or bushew lot or both, whether improved or not and owning no other lot or lots in the town; and ( c ) Any person holding lands occupied by him as a home within a town, also any person who, at the time of signing the agreement, had purchased any lot, tract, or parcel of land from any person in legal possession at the time. No person was entitled to purchase at less than the appraisal lots exceeding 4 acres in area, and all the other lots were to be sold at public auction. Reports came to the department that frauds had been perpetrated in the scheduling of lots in some of the towns in the Creek Nation. The services of Hon. William Dudley Foulke were enlisted to make an investigation, and on the strength of his report it was decided, where tribal patents had been issued and delivered, to bring suits to restore the title to the nation, and, where the lots had not been patented, to cancel the schedules. The execution, approval and recording of deeds in the towns covered by his report were suspended. M. L. Mott, national at-torney of the Creek Nation, was directed to bring suit where fraud was apparent in the original scheduling and W. L. Sturdevant, of St. Louis, was appointed a special counsel to assist him. The chief method pursued had been for some one to take in his own name all the lots that the law permitted one person to buy and then to have addi-tional lots scheduled in the names of relatives and friends, the expec-tation being to procure large areas at 50 per cent of the value of the |