Indian clergyman has a record of the murders in Crow Wing, a village of perhaps five or six hundred inhabitants, where he was then living; and in one year, there were, I think, about one hundred and twenty-five such murders. Those were in the sad times of debauchery, before the present missions were started. And at Mille Lacs, where there is no mission, the mortality in drunken fights has been very great all through the years. But in the rest of the Indian country, as at Leech lake, Red lake, Cass lake, and on the White Earth reservation, they have learned the sacredness of human life. At Mille Lacs, until within a very few years, and perhaps now, a common sight was to see the women gathering up all the guns and knives, and taking them away into the woods to hide them, the men being about to engage in a drunk, and they being anxious that none should be killed.

NATURAL POLITENESS AND PATIENCE.

A pleasing characteristic of the Indian is his politeness. He is never rude, rough, and boorish, as the white man often is. When a stranger comes into the wigwam, no matter how much the curiosity of the inmates is excited, they will not stare at him. One can see them check the little children, when, their curiosity being excited, they stare at the new comer too intently. They are naturally polite. They very quickly learn table manners that are unexceptionable, and to conduct themselves in company with ease and grace, and often with great dignity. When the wife of our aged Indian clergyman was attending a reception at the White House, there was a greater crowd of distinguished people, congressmen and others, around her and her husband, than there was around the president; but she was equal to the occasion, and received with the grace and dignity of a queen. Indians say that when they go among white people the latter often crowd up to them and stare into their faces, as if they were wild beasts. They would never do that. The average white man whom they meet up in the pine country shouts to them from as far as he can see them, "Bo zhoo, neche," and then follows it up with launching at them a few of the most obscene words in the Ojibway language, which they have all learned. The Ojibways would never do so to white people.

Nearly every summer I have been on a long canoe trip, lasting a week or two, with white gentlemen as passengers, and Indian canoe men; and nearly always I have found that before the end of the trip the Indians established themselves as the better gentlemen of the two. The white men would be impatient, cross, fretful, on account of mosquitoes, rain, cold, or the mishaps of travel; the Indians always preserved their equanimity in the most trying circumstances. No matter if they were packing very heavy loads, while the white gentlemen walked empty-handed; no matter if they were devoured by mosquitoes, while, their hands being full, they could not switch them off; no matter if the trail was horrible, encumbered with fallen logs, and they sinking to their middle in the swamps, weighed down by their heavy loads, while perhaps at the same time a sudden shower would fall; there never was a word nor a look of impatience, but they smiling as tranquilly as if it had been a good path and a sunny day. Their manhood would not allow them to demean themselves by showing the slightest fretfulness or impatience under any circumstances. Their conduct was a silent rebuke to their white brothers. Seeing them so petulant, so easily worried, often so unreasonable, they felt for them a good-natured contempt.

THE CHRISTIAN OBJIBWAY.

To

Can the Indian rise to the standard of the white man? answer this question, one looks backwards, and thinks of the Indians he has known; and as the picture of them rises before the memory, I have to confess that some of the best men I have ever known, and the freest from faults, were Indians. There, for instance, is Edward Reese, a full Indian, for twenty years government teamster at Leech Lake. Industrious, faithful to every duty, a good neighbor, a kind father and husband, patient and forbearing, honest and loving, the sweet spirit of Christ looking out of his face, in his daily life he has been an inspiration to every one who meets him, whether whites or Indians. Running my mind over twenty years of intimate knowledge of this man, I cannot recall an act, or a word even, that Edward Reese did or spoke, that was not a manly and a Christian act or word. Yes, one would have to go even farther than that, and say that he never saw Edward Reese show

a temper even, that was not a Christian temper. Of how many white men one knows can one say the same? Yet Edward Reese is not a whit better than the old chief, David Kirk, of the same village. Nor is he any better than was the blacksmith, now deceased, Ke-zhi-osh. Nor was he any better than was old Rocky Mountain of Red Lake, or Shay-dayence of White Earth, or a great many others, including some in every village. So the answer to that question, after summoning up witnesses to the bar of memory and trying the case, has to be, if it is the answer of truth, by one who knows them intimately, that even in one generation, and with all the disadvantage of heredity and most unfavorable early surroundings, a great many Indians are just as good, and as nearly perfect characters as any white men or white women ever get to be.

And what has been said above of the men applies equally to the women. They may not know how to dress as nicely, and not be so well acquainted with points of etiquette, but there are just as good women, and plenty of them, among the In-. dians as there are in any white community. It would make this paper too long to give examples.

But here a word of caution has to be put in. Every one of those I have been speaking of are Christians. I have rather a poor opinion of heathen character, and would not expect to find much that is lovable there; a few noble traits, perhaps, that show what the original edifice was intended to be, amidst a mass of ruins. There is not much that is desirable in the old life; nearly all has to be built up anew out of Christianity. I am not writing here an essay on Christianity or missions; so I pass that side of the question over entirely, only saying that the most sincere, consistent, lovable and zealous Christians I have ever known in my life were Indians. Some of them have passed away; a great many are still living. Nor do I speak of the Indian clergy still living, now eight in number, who are all of them all that such men ought to be. Taking it on the whole, I think that Shay-day-ence, who from being the great grand medicine man of the Ojibway nation and a chief servant of Satan, became late in life a Christian and a wonderful volunteer missionary, was the most wonderful Indian I have known. Paul did not have a stranger conver

sion, nor a more burning zeal, than did old Shay-day-ence. There is a very imperfect sketch of him in this Society's Library, so I will say no more of him.

With what feelings does the Ojibway regard the coming of the white man into his vicinity? With a feeling of apprehension, and a wish that he would not come. When the whites within the last five years were about to come near Cass lake, the chief, an excellent man, told me that he wished they would not come, because it would break in upon their "righteousness of life." We, who saw how they lived, would not regard it in many respects as "righteousness of life;" but that was their feeling.

TREATMENT OF THE AGED.

How are the old treated by the Ojibways? Oftentimes a daughter will do a good deal for her aged parents; but a son cares very little for them (I am speaking of the heathen), and does less. It is with them as with ourselves, the women are a good deal better than the men. But it seems to be an unwritten law among them that an old man, and especially an old woman, must shift for himself or herself somehow. They have a contempt for the aged and useless, like all heathen. The son never seems to think he is under any obligation to do anything for his aged father or mother. Nor do they make any complaint of him, for they do not seem to expect anything. And one always hears the complaint that food given by the government, or by charitable persons, does not get to the old persons for whom it was intended, but is eaten by the well and strong.

Going a few years ago to the house of one of our Indian missionaries, I noticed an old heathen woman lying on the floor, who seemed so feeble she could not sit up. On inquiry it appeared that her son had told her, in the very coldest of January, to go out of doors and make her bed in the snow, because he was afraid to sleep in the house with her, fearing that she was about to turn into a man-eating witch. That, of course, was only an excuse; the real reason was that he was tired of her, and yet she had been a good and devoted mother. So she had to go, and slept out several nights, and was so badly frozen that she died in the hospital to which we had her taken. The missionary and his wife had brought her

to their house, as soon as they learned of it. When dying she sent for her son, but he paid no attention to it, and left it to strangers to bury her. It excited no comment, nor was he apparently lowered in the estimation of the community in which he lived. Taking a general view, we must say that the old are badly neglected and have a hard time. One good old woman who was blind was generally reported to have starved to death, though her relatives, who were numerous, might easily have given her rabbits or a little something to eat.

TOBACCO SMOKING AND CHEWING.

Tobacco is largely used by the Ojibways, men, women, and children. They smoke it mixed with the inner bark of the red willow, and also chew it. All the children think they must have their tobacco the same as their elders. The women from Cut-Foot-Sioux are the greatest chewers I have seen. Ordinarily the heathen man thinks he must have a plug as long as one's arm and as thick. It is doubtful, though, whether they use more of it than certain classes of our own people. I once asked the principal merchant at Leech Lake, how much money he took in in a year from the Indians for tobacco. He made a calculation, and said $2,000. There were three stores there, and if the others sold as much it would make $6,000 a year in that one village. There were about 1,000 persons around the lake, and perhaps two-thirds of them got their tobacco there. The total government annuities for 1,600 Indians were $10,666. For a people as poor as they were, often starving, this was a serious drain on their resources, and it seems strange to us that they did not apply that $6,000 to food. An Indian at Leech lake lately went to a merchant and told him that he and his family were in such a state of absolute starvation that he must have five dollars' worth, on credit, to save them alive. The good-hearted merchant consented, and told him to name the kinds and amounts of provisions to take up the five dollars. The first item the man gave was tobacco, a dollar and a half.

MORTALITY OF CHILDREN.

Although the Indian women, beginning early, bear so many children, comparatively few live to maturity. Ask any