selected, and other business transacted relating to the State election. The Greenback National-Labor Convention assembled on June 17th, and nominated for Governor, W. P. Parks; for Secretary of State, C. E. Tobey; for State Treasurer, W. A. Watson; for Auditor of State, C. E. Cunningham; for State Land Commissioner, Wilshire Riley; for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Peter Brugman; for Chief Justice of Supreme Court, J. Cole Davis; for Clerk of Chancery Court, W. T. Holloway. The Democratic Convention assembled on June 4th, and nominated for Governor, T. J. Churchill; for Secretary of State, Jacob Frolich; for Auditor of State, John Crawford; for Treasurer of State, William E. Woodruff, Jr.; for Attorney-General, C. B. Moore; for Commissioner of Public Lands, D. W. Lear; for Supreme Judge, E. H. English; for Superintendent of Public Instruction, J. L. Denton; for Judge of Pulaski Chancery Court, D. W. Carroll for Clerk of Pulaski Chancery Court, J. W. Calloway. The following platform was adopted: We, the Democratic party of the State of Arkansas, in delegated convention assembled, reaffirming and renewing the pledge of our allegiance and unwavering devotion to those great principles of equal rights, untrammeled suffrage, and universal toleration toward all men of whatsoever race, nationality, creed, or condition, that underlie and uphold the fabric of our free Government and republican institutions, and hereby solemnly plighting ourselves to a continued recognition, observance, and enforcement of the same, do further make these our declarations of party principles: 1. That the General and State governments are cach in their own proper and constitutionally appointed sphere supreme, and entitled to equal love, obedience, and devotion, and that neither can trench upon the province or prerogatives of the other without grave danger and detriment to the highest interests of both. 2. That, recognizing morality and intelligence together as the true and lasting basis of every free government, and an essential requisite to a proper exercise and enjoyment of the rights and privileges of the same, we are in favor of such a system of free public schools as will increase to even greater extent the facilities of education our people now enjoy, and with this view we commend to the Legislature of our State such needed revision of our school laws as may be most conducive to this end. 3. That we favor and cordially invite immigration from every quarter without restriction, save that it be of an honest and industrious class, and we hereby proclaim and publish to the world that all charges and intimations that any man or classes of men have been or will be in any manner proscribed, or ostracized among us on account of political opinion, or otherwise, is an unjust and unfounded libel upon our people and State; and we hereby guarantee equal protection and enlightened tolerance to all alike who may come to cast their lot among us, and make our beauti ful and growing State their home; and we demand from the Legislature the enactment of such suitable laws as will tend to encourage and increase immigra tion into our midst. 4. We are in favor of such wholesome legislation as may be necessary to encourage the investment of capital in and the building up of manufactories in the State to the full extent that the same may be done without undue discrimination in favor of one class or branch of industry or enterprise before another of equal importance to the welfare of the people at large. 5. That, recognizing from well-attested acts and conduct in the recent past that the time has come ignoring the party affiliations and prejudices of a bitwhen a large number of our colored fellow-citizens, ter past, are now willing to strike hands with us in the living present and march shoulder to shoulder with the great political party to which is intrusted the reins of power to be exercised for our common weal, we do hereby warmly acknowledge their kindly aid and disposition already shown, and cordially invite them to a yet fuller and more active cooperation with us in fostering and forwarding our common interests, and the welfare of our noble Commonwealth. We endorse the action of the Democratic State Convention assembled in 1878 in recommending the submission of the question of our State's bonded indebtedness to the people by resolution providing for an amendment to our State Constitution, as also the action of our State Legislature of 1879 in submitting the same to the people, and we do not now regard that question as a political one, and remit the same to the people to be voted on by them at the approaching election, irrespective of party. The result of the election was the success of the Democratic ticket by a large majority. ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES. Lieutenant-General Sheridan reports that there were 4,850 officers and men in the Department of Dakota; 2,840 in the Department of the Platte; 4,720 in the Department of Missouri; and 3,640 in the Department of Texas. He protests anew that this force is too small for the work which it has to perform, and inadequate for the suppression of disturbances in the Territories and Western States, and the protection of the borders. In the Division of the West there is only one man for 75 square miles of territory, in the Department of Texas only one man for 125 miles. Major-General Hancock reports a force of 317 commissioned officers and 2,390 enlisted men in the Division of the Atlantic. The number of soldiers drawing increased pay for length of service under the act of 1854 is 6,129; for five years of continuous service, 3,762; for ten years, 1,872; for fifteen years, 227; for twenty years, 130; for twenty-five years, 97; for thirty years, 41. The number of men and officers killed and mortally wounded in actions with Indians in the four years past was for each year as follows: In 1876, 16 officers and 272 men; in 1877, 7 officers and 121 men; in 1878, 2 officers and 8 men; in 1879, 2 officers and 32 men. The total losses for the four years were 27 officers and 333 men. According to the report of Adjutant-General Drum, the enlistment of soldiers has been conducted with such care in selection, that out of 23,300 applicants only 5,026, or less than 22 per cent., were enlisted. A great improvement in the class of men applying for enlistment has been observed within the past few years, which he ascribes to the act of June 18, 1878, to advance the more soldierly and intelligent of the enlisted men to commissions. The total number of soldiers who have passed out of the service during the year is reported as 7,582: 285 by death, 2,043 by desertion, 3,158 discharged on expiration of service, 482 by court-martial, 15 by civil authority, 116 on account of minority, and 653 by order. The assignments of recruits and reenlistments amounted to 5,620: recruits assigned, 4,166; non-commissioned of ficers reenlisted, 474; musicians, etc., 41; privates, 939. The deaths reported among the white troops by the Surgeon-General were 219, or about 1 per cent. of the mean strength (22,100), of which number 126 died of disease and 93 of wounds and casualties. The proportion of deaths to cases treated was 1 to 179. The number of white soldiers discharged from the service on surgeons' certificates of disability was 734, 3.3 per cent. of the average strength. The number of deaths among the colored soldiers was 46, or 1.9 per cent. of the mean strength; 21 of these died of disease, and 25 of wounds, accidents, and injuries. The proportion of deaths to cases treated was 1 to 88. The number of colored soldiers discharged on certificates of disability was 42, or 2.2 per cent. of mean strength (2,368). Casualties of seventeen hostile engagements with the Indians were reported for the year ending June 30, 1880. The organization of the army at present providos for 11 general officers, 555 officers, and 1,286 enlisted men for the staff; and 1,989 officers and 24,214 enlisted men for the line. Secretaries Sherman and Ramsey in their reports to the President recommend that the strength of the army be increased to 25,000 men in the troops of the line, instead of that number of enlisted men for all duties, to which limit the army is confined by the appropriation bills. Frontier tactics have undergone a great change since the extension of railroads through the Territories. It is no longer necessary to guard stage-routes and maintain small posts; but considerable bodies of troops may be concentrated at points of intersection on the railroads, whence they can be rapidly forwarded to the scene of action when Indian outbreaks take place. It is desirable to build permanent quarters for the soldiers at these central posts. Many of the small posts are still occupied, because they afford the only available quarters for the troops, which have ceased to be of any strategic importance. Secretary Ramsey and General Sherman recommend that authority be given to sell these useless sites and buildings, and apply the proceeds to erecting new barracks at the important military positions. The lack of officers for field-service prompts the suggestion that only retired officers be allowed in the educational employments for which regimental officers are now frequently detailed. There are 78 schools in operation in the army, under the supervision of officers, with an aggregate attendance of 2,305 enlisted men and children. The enlistment of 150 schoolmasters, with the rank and pay of sergeants, is recommended by the Secretary of War. Adjutant-General Drum addressed a circular in July to the adjutant-generals of the different States, offering to aid in the organization of the State militia, and to help assimilate the rules and forms used in the State organizations to those employed in the regular service. The motive of the interest in the discipline of the State forces manifested on the part of the authorities of the regular army is to enable the army to be readily strengthened by the State troops and regular and volunteer recruits suitably officered by officers of the militia in the event of a war. Officers were detailed to visit and inspect the suminer encampments of the State troops. The year has witnessed the suppression of the two troublesome bands of hostile Indians who have infested the Northern and Southern frontiers for many months, escaping over the borders when hard pressed by the military. The Apache leader Victoria and his band have been destroyed in Mexico, and the main body of the Sioux led by Sitting Bull have delivered themselves up to the military authorities. In the engagement between Major Thornburgh and the Utes, near the White River Agency, September 29, 1879, 10 were reported killed and 35 wounded. In an attack upon Colonel Miles's command by the Sioux, at Beaver Creek, Montana, 3 were killed and 3 wounded, July 17th; in a skirmish at Salt Lake, Texas, July 25th, 2 were wounded; at Big Creek, Idaho, July 29th, 2 were wounded, and 1 killed at the same place August 20th. In an engagement with the Apaches, near Fort Bayard, New Mexico, 4 were killed and 1 wounded, September 5th. A number of engagements took place in New Mexico between a detachment under Colonel Morrow and the Apaches belonging to Victoria's band. On September 30, 1879, 2 were killed at the head-waters of the Rio Cuchillo Negro; 3 were killed and 1 wounded at Grozman Mountain, October 26th and 27th; on the Rio Perche, January 13, 1880, 1 was killed and 1 wounded. In an engagement in the San Mateo Mountains, January 17th, 2 privates were wounded and an officer killed. În engagements in the Carvallo and San Andreas Mountains, January 30th and February 7th, 1 was killed and 4 wounded. A severe fight took place on the east side of San Andreas Mountain, April 6th and 7th, between Mescallero Apaches and a portion of Colonel Hatch's command, in which an officer and 8 men were wounded. In a meeting on Ash Creek, Arizona, with Victoria's Apaches, May 7th, 1 man was killed. Trouble occurred also with the Sioux in Montana, who attacked several scouting parties. A party supposed to belong to Sitting Bull's band attacked a small detachment on Pumpkin Creek, February 7th, wounding 1 and killing 1; in another attack near Rosebud River, March 8th, 2 scouts were killed. On April 1st a skirmish took place on O'Fallon's Creek, in which 1 man was killed. The Apaches were hotly pressed in New Mexico and Arizona by the United States troops and by volunteer organizations of citi zens. They were encountered and scattered by a force commanded by General Grierson, and pursued wherever they showed themselves. Victoria and his band of marauders were finally driven over the Mexican border in September by General Buell. The Ameri. can forces pursued them into Mexican territory for more than 100 miles south of Quitman, Texas, when they were notified by the Mexican Colonel Terrassas, with whom they had communicated, that a further advance into Mexico would be objectionable. After committing a massacre in the district of Chihuahua, the Indians were met by the Mexican troops under Terrassas. Victoria was slain with 60 of his warriors and 18 women and children; and 68 women and children were captured. The remainder of his band, about 30, fled across the line into American territory again. The raids of Victoria extended through a year and a half. His band and their allies are supposed to have committed as many as 400 murders. A party of Mescalleros who had been separated from Victoria's band in the fight with General Grierson attacked a picket near Eagle Springs, Texas, October 29th, and killed 4 men. An organized band of emigrants from Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas, called the Oklahoma Colony, started in November for the strip of territory of 57 miles beyond the border-line of Kansas in Indian Territory, which they claimed was not a portion of the ceded reservation, and which they announced that they would settle upon and occupy by force unless forbidden by act of Congress, since the Secretary of the Interior had expressed the intention to settle the wild Indian tribes of the Southwest upon the disputed tract, and the Federal courts had not promptly accorded a judicial hearing of the matter. The president of the colony was D. I. Payne. The removal of the Utes from the reservation in which silver and gold mines have been found, in Colorado, has been attended by many difficulties. A critical conjuncture, in which the Indian agents and the small body of troops on the reservation were in danger of becoming the victims of a sudden outburst of savage rage, was brought on by the action of the State authorities in regard to a case of manslaughter, in which an Indian was killed by a freight-carrier, and the perpetrator captured and put to death by the Indians. (See COLORADO.) At the beginning of November about 1,500 Indians who had taken part in the rebellion of Sitting Bull had surrendered to the military, and were placed on the reservation in Montana, under the control of the garrison at Fort Keogh, and set to agricultural employments. The chiefs Spotted Tail and Rain-in-the-Face gave themselves up with their camps; but Sitting Bull refused to deliver himself up till the return of the British officer, Major Walsh, who had treated with him as a mediator. The number of Indians in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is 255,938, all of whom except some 18,000 are under the_control of agents of the Government. In the Indian Territory there are 60,560 civilized and 17,750 uncivilized Indians. There are about 25,000 Indians in Dakota, 23,000 in New Mexico, 21,000 in Montana, 17,000 in Arizona, and 14,000 in Washington Territory. Over 5,000 Indians live in the State of New York, and 10,000 in Michigan. The number of acres broken by Indians not belonging to the five civilized nations of Indian Territory in 1880 was 27,283; the number of acres under cultivation, 170,847; bushels of wheat raised, 415,777; of corn, 666,430; of oats and barley, 222,439; of vegetables, 376,145; tons of hay, 56,527; number of cattle owned, 78,812; of sheep, 864,137. By the civilized tribes the number of acres cultivated was 314,398; the number of bushels of wheat grown, 336,424; of corn, 2,346,042; of oats and barley, 124,568; of vegetables, 595,000; tons of hay cut, 149,000; bales of cotton raised, 16,800; number of cattle owned, 297,040; of swine, 400,282. Among the Indians, exclusive of the five civilized tribes, 110 day-schools and 60 boarding-schools have been maintained with 316 teachers. These have been attended by upward of 7,000 children. The boarding-schools are regarded as more efficacious than the dayschools, since in them the teaching of farming and domestic work can be more successfully conducted. As much attention is given to instruction in useful labor necessary to self-maintenance as to the schoolroom studies. There are tribes numbering 50,000 Indians who have no treaty school funds. The Indian Bureau intends to open 13 new boarding-schools during the present season, which will be the first schools established for the instruction of the Western Shoshones, the San Carlos Apaches, and the first regular and satisfactory instruction provided for nine other tribes, numbering in all over 33,000 individuals. The officers conducting Indian affairs deem that the time is come when the tribal customs can be supplanted by the law of the land to a considerable extent, and when the policy of granting communal rights only in the reservations may safely be abandoned, and agricultural lands be allotted to individual Indians to hold in severalty. Acting-Commissioner Marble reports that the feeling among the Indians on the reservations in favor of individual ownership is almost universal. Following the issue of patents comes disintegration of tribal relations, and if his land is secured for a wholesome period against alienation, and is protected against the rapacity of speculators, the Indian acquires a sense of ownership, and, learning to appreciate the advantages and results of labor, insensibly prepares himself for the duties of a citizen." The Commissioner recommends a law also to prevent polygamy and legalize marriage among the Indians, and the enactment of a code of criminal law for the reservations. He considers that the laws for the punishment of trespassers upon Indian reservations are inadequate, and asks for a law making such interlopers strictly amenable to punishment. Secretary of the Interior Schurz, in his annual report, expresses similar views of Indian policy. The policy of massing the Indians on the largest reservations, which was followed in the beginning of the present Administration, in accordance with which the Pawnees, the northern Cheyennes, and the Poncas were removed to the Indian Territory, Mr. Schurz thinks has been a mistaken one. The policy_advocated is to respect the rights which the Indians possess in the lands they occupy and their attachments to their homes, and by teaching and encouragement to cultivate among them independence and a love of work and desire to accumulate private property. He advises giving separate holdings of land, with an inalienable title running a sufficient length of time; proposing to allot lands in fee simple eventually to Indians able to maintain themselves upon them, and to dispose of the lands of those of the Indians who do not prove themselves able or disposed to maintain themselves upon them, for the benefit of and with the consent of the owners, to white settlers. The aim of such a policy is to dissolve the tribal system and to gradually make citizens of the Indians. By a decision of the United States Circuit Court, rendered by Judge Dundy, the Ponca Indians are entitled to the lands in Nebraska from which they were removed. By the same principle their former reservation in Dakota will be returned to them, and the Sioux, to whom the Poncas' lands were assigned and who now hold them, have no legal title and may be dispossessed. The Chief of Engineers, General Horatio G. Wright, directs attention to the backward condition of the harbor defenses. Only a small portion of the existing fortifications are of recent construction, and planned with reference to modern heavy ordnance. These are all of them earthen barbette batteries. The casemated forts, which were as good as any in the world when they were built, were designed only to resist the attacks of wooden vessels, and are pierced for guns long out of date. The modern naval vessels are armed with guns of from 9 to 17 inch bores, firing 800 to 2,000 pound projectiles, and are clad with from 6 to 24 inches of iron armor. Foreign nations have naval stations within a few hours' sail from the American shore. Immediately upon the declaration of a war these fast war-steamers could appear at any one of the American ports and pass the present batteries with ease. The navy could not avert such a danger, and no rapid concentration of troops could prevent the burning of the seaport thus attacked by explosive shot. Some of the wealthiest cities of the United States, thousands of millions' worth of property, and a large part of the naval and military stores of the Government, are thus ex posed to quick destruction upon the first outbreak of a war. This danger can only be successfully guarded against by a thorough system of harbor fortifications constructed in accordance with the principles followed by European nations, casemated forts armed with the heavi est artillery and protected by thick iron scarps, supplemented by earthen batteries and a wellplanned system of torpedo defense. Barbette batteries may be used entirely in the ports with shallow harbors which will not float the heaviest ironclads. Fortifications should be studded along the channels of approach of every harbor and in the harbor, and in all waters in the neighborhood of a city within the longest direct or curved range of modern gunnery. In the harbor mouths and channels should be placed lines of torpedoes for the purpose of holding the vessels of the enemy under the fire of the fortifications. The torpedoes should be ready in the fortresses to be laid down at the breaking out of a war according to regular plans which have been studied out with reference to the topography of the bottom and the tidal currents. The wire for firing. the torpedoes should be securely laid in subterranean galleries conducting from the secure chambers within the fortifications, where the electrical apparatus is placed, out into deep water. Heavy mortars should be placed to command every position where the enemy might anchor either for the purpose of shelling the city or of destroying the torpedo lines. The guns and mortars should be heavy enough to penetrate the iron plating and break through the decks of ironclads, and should be numerous enough to prevent the fastest war-steamers from running their fire. The present casemated forts, where they can be strengthened and pierced for heavy ordnance, ought to be coated with strong plates of iron, and provided with iron casemate shields to protect the guns and gunners from direct or curved fire. The trial of a 11-inch muzzle-loading rifled cannon which had been made over from a 15inch smooth-bore has been very successful, and proves the practicability of converting old guns into effective weapons of the approved form. With this gun 398 rounds were fired with 90 pounds of powder and 495 and 543 pound shot, and 3 with 95 pounds of powder and 540 pound shot. Tests with an 8-inch breech-loader, with battering charges of 35 pounds of powder, led the Board of Ordnance to recommend the breech-loading system. The advantages of the use of chambers in rifled cannon for heavy charges having been tested with a 3-inch rifle, one of the 8 inch rifles was chambered and tried. After a preliminary trial 100 rounds were fired with the maximum charge of 55 pounds of powder and 180-pound shot. The velocity was found to be about one third greater than in the unchambered guns, and the power and accuracy were increased, while the wear of the bore by the 55-pound charge was no greater than that produced in the other form by 35-pound charges. The penetration at 1,000 yards was 9.93 inches, while that of the unchambered rifle of the same caliber is 7.73 inches, and that of the English 9-inch rifle 8.76 inches. In all kinds and calibers up to 11inch bores the method of converting old guns into the newer forms, both muzzle- and breechloading, has proved a success. Four 12-inch breech-loading rifled guns were directed to be constructed in the bill making an appropriation of $400,000 for armament. The reluctance of contractors to take the orders for guns heavier than the foundry plants are adapted to caused a delay; but the contracts were finally placed. The manufacture of small-arms in the National Armory during the fiscal year aggregated 20,387 rifles and carbines. The reserve supply on hand at the end of the year was 22,979, including the manufactures of the year. The Springfield breech-loader is still retained. No form of magazine gun has yet been brought to the point of perfection which would warrant its general use in the army. The Hotchkiss type is the most promising one, and is being developed and improved, and, if successful, will probably be adopted, though the bolt and handle are not looked upon with favor in the service. The Chief of Ordnance, General Benet, has recommended that the bayonet and the saber both be abolished. The General of the Army gave orders for studies and experiments with the design to have the ramrod shaped so that it would serve the additional purpose of a bayonet or foil after the manner devised by Lieutenant Zalinski, and for the manufacture of a light, efficient knife or trowel for digging in the ground and other uses. Colonel Benton, commanding the Armory, has produced a combined bayonet and ramrod, which is a simple modification of one used in Hall's breechloading carbine, invented seventy years ago. It occupies the same space as the ordinary ramrod, is strong and efficient, reduces the weight carried by the soldier, and does away with the bayonet-scabbard. In the butt of the gun is a receptacle for the screw-driver, cartridge-extractor, and wiper. A trowel-knife has also been devised. A limited number of both instruments have been furnished to soldiers for trial. Trials at extreme ranges have demonstrated that the service-rifle is able to wound or kill up to nearly 3,000 yards, and that the carbine with the rifle-cartridge made for the service carries as far. The 500-grain bullet fired from any rifle with sufficient twist ranges nearly 3,700 yards. Ordinary variations in the weight of powder-charges do not affect elevation at very long ranges, velocities approximating each other. The range of the Government rifle may be made, according to Colonel Benton and Captain Greer who made the trials, as long as that of any in the world by preparing the cartridge as at present, but with an increased weight of ball. The case of suspected hazing of the colored cadet Whittaker, at West Point, in April, who was found with the cartilage of his ears cut open, and with other injuries and marks of violence, which he asserted had been committed upon him during the night by a band of students of the Academy, aroused considerable popular excitement. The authorities of the school were convinced from the first that the tale was an imposture, and that the cadet had inflicted the marks upon himself for the purpose of obtaining an excuse from certain examinations, or from some other motive. An investigation was entered upon, in which Whittaker exhibited a threatening anonymous letter, which he said had come to him several days before the alleged outrage. The presence of the AttorneyGeneral, who was requested to watch the proceedings of the trial as a representative of the Government, was resented by the commandant and other officers. No one was implicated besides the supposed sufferer by the evidence brought out at the trial. In the yearly report of Major-General Schofield, commanding the post, the officers and teachers are defended from the charge of showing disfavor to the colored cadets, and the students are exonerated from the imputation of hazing Whittaker. The regulations which require white cadets to sit at the same mess with colored students, to meet them and hold the necessary intercourse with them in the class-room, on parade, and in other places, General Schofield considers an invasion of their social liberty. The two races are not required to occupy the same dormitories. The white cadets respect the legal rights of colored cadets more scrupulously than those of each other. "The enforced association of the white cadets with their colored companions, to which they have never been accustomed before they came from home, appears to have destroyed any disposition which before existed to indulge in such association. The intellectual inferiority of the lately enslaved race is a reason for the want of success of colored cadets at West Point. One out of the eleven appointees has passed through the course and graduated with credit, though without social recognition. The case of the cadet Whittaker is the natural result of the assumption that the enfranchised race have attained in half a generation the social, moral, and intellectual level which the average white man has reached in hundreds of years. . . . He imagined that officers who had fought to make him free, and who were laboriously striving to teach him what he could not comprehend, were governed in their conduct toward him by 'hate of the nigger,' and that cadets who would neither touch him nor speak to him, could be believed to have tied his hands and feet, and cut his hair and ears, and that so tenderly as not to hurt him. He had not reached that point in civilization where it is first apprehended that human nature may be governed by motives other than love, hatred, or fear." The cadet Whittaker was subsequently dropped from the roll of the college, having failed to satisfy the requirements of the stand |