on the frontier have opened the way for civilization and Christianity—it is believed that the services of these officials, in efforts to prevent war and elevate the Indian race, would be quite as judicious as their employment when inexperience and mismanagement have culminated in hostilities. Allowing the civilized and semi-civilized Indians to remain under the same supervision as at present, the President of the United States should have power to place the wild and nomadic tribes under the control of the War Department. Officers of known character, integrity, and experience, who would govern them and be interested in improving their condition, should be placed in charge of the different tribes. One difficulty has been, that they have been managed by officials too far away, and who knew nothing of the men they were dealing with. The Indians, as far as possible, should be localized on the public domain, in sections of country to which they are by nature adapted.

The forcing of strong, hardy, mountain Indians from the extreme North to the warmer malarial districts of the South is regarded as cruel, and should be discontinued.

Every effort should be made to locate the Indians by families, for the ties of relationship among them are much stronger than is generally supposed. By this means the Indians will become independent of their tribal relations, and will not be found congregated in large and unsightly camps, as are now usually met with about their agencies.

Much of the army transportation now used in scouting for Indians and clearing the country could be utilized in transporting their stores, breaking the ground, and preparing the way for making the Indians self-supporting.

All supplies, annuities, and disbursements of money should be made under the same system of accountability as now regulates army disbursements. The officers in charge should have sufficient force to preserve order, patrol the reservations, prevent intrusions, recover stolen property, arrest the lawless and those who take refuge in Indian camps to shield themselves from punishment for crimes or to enable them to live without labor, and to keep the Indians upon their reservations and within the limits of their treaties. The officer in charge would be enabled to control or prevent the sale of ammunition, as well as to suppress the sale of intoxicating liquors among the Indians. Many thousands of the Indian ponies, useful only for the war or the chase, should be sold and the proceeds used in the purchase of domestic stock. A large percentage of the

annual appropriations should be employed in the purchase of cattle and other domestic animals; the Indians desire them, and the Plains will support hundreds of thousands of them. They will replace the buffalo, the elk, the deer, and the antelope. These cattle and other animals should be branded and given to the Indians by families; the surplus stock to be sold after three years under such restricted rules as would enable the Indians to receive full return for their property. From a pastoral people the Indians should be induced to become agriculturists; taught the seasons to plant and to harvest the variety of valuable products and the use of machinery as a means of obtaining food. The step from the first grade to the second would be easily accomplished provided the Indians were directed by a firm hand. As they accumulate property and learn industry, there would be a threefold incentive to their remaining at peace, namely, occupation, the fear of confiscation of property, and the loss of the comforts of life.

The above is no idle theory, as the writer has advocated such a policy for years, and by actual and successful experience has demonstrated that such was practicable even with the wildest tribes of the Plains, a part of whom, eighteen months before, had never shaken hands with a white man.

Two more important measures of improvements are also needed, and should be authorized by Congress.

In all communities there will be found disturbing elements, and, to meet this difficulty, courts of justice should be instituted. Frequently outbreaks and depredations are prompted by a few mischievous characters, which could easily be checked by a proper government. This is one secret of success with the Canadian system: where disturbances occur, the guilty suffer, and not whole tribes, including innocent women and children.

As a remark from Sitting Bull has been quoted, we will now repeat the words of Joseph, who says that "the greatest want of the Indian is a system of law by which controversies between Indians, and between Indians and white men, can be settled without appealing to physical force." He says also that "the want of law is the great source of disorder among Indians. They understand the operation of laws, and, if there were any statutes, the Indians would be perfectly content to place themselves in the hands of a proper tribunal, and would not take the righting of their wrongs into their own hands, or retaliate, as they now do, without the law."

Do we need a savage to inform us of the necessity that has

existed for a century? As these people become a part of our population, they should have some tribunal where they could obtain protection in their rights of person and property. A dispute as to the rights of property between an Indian and a white man before a white juror might not be decided in exact accordance with justice in some localities. Fortunately, our Constitution provides that "the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time ordain and establish "; and it is believed that Congress has power, at least in the Territories, to give such jurisdiction either to the military courts, or the Territorial courts, or both, as will secure justice to the Indians in disputes arising between the Indians and the white men.

The warriors may be made to care for their flocks and herds, and the industry of the Indians that is now wasted may be diverted to peaceful and useful pursuits; yet the great work of reformation must be mainly through the youth of the different tribes. The hope of every race is in the rising generation. This important work might well enlist the sympathy and support of all philanthropic and Christian people. As we are under obligation to support the tribes until they become self-sustaining, it might be advisable to support as many as possible of the children of the Indians at places where they would be the least expensive to the Government, and where they would be under the best influence. As the Government has expended hundreds of thousands of dollars in building military posts that are no longer occupied or required, and as there are at these places excellent buildings and large reservations, it would be well to utilize them for educational and industrial purposes. The present school system is regarded as too expensive, and productive of little good. The children are exposed to the degrading influence of camp-life, and the constant moving of the tribes destroys the best efforts of instructors. Several years ago the writer recommended the use of several of our unoccupied military posts, and that as many of the youth of the different tribes as could be gathered voluntarily be placed at these establishments, particularly the sons of chiefs, who will in a few years govern the different tribes. These could soon be taught the English language, habits of industry, the benefits of civilization, the power of the white race, and, after a few years, return to their people with some education, with more intelligence, and with their ideas of life entirely changed for the better.

They would in turn become the educators of their own

people, and their influence for good could not be estimated, while the expense of educating them would be less than at present, and thousands would be benefited thereby. The Indians, as they become civilized and educated, as they acquire property and pay taxes toward the support of the Government, should have the same rights of citizenship as all other men enjoy.

The President of the United States should have power to transfer from the War Department to the Interior Department any tribe that shall become so far civilized and peaceable in its disposition as to render it unnecessary to keep its members longer under the control of the military power.

Whenever an emergency arises which has not been foreseen and provided for by Congress, such as failure or destruction of their crops, the President should have power, on the recommendation of the officer in charge or the Governors of the different Territories in which they are living, to order the necessary supplies, as has been done in several instances to white people, in order to prevent great suffering or a serious disturbance of the peace; such supplies to be limited to the smallest necessity, and only until such time as Congress could take action on the matter.

A continuation of the system which has prevailed for the past twenty years will, it is believed, simply perpetuate a condition of affairs the result of which is a chronic state of insecurity and hostilities. The question may as well be met and decided. A race of savages can not by any human ingenuity be civilized and Christianized within a few years of time, neither will 250,000 people with their descendants be destroyed in the next fifty years. The white man and the Indian should be taught to live side by side, each respecting the rights of the other, and both living under wholesome laws, enforced with ample authority and exact justice. Such a government would be most gratifying and beneficial to the Indians, while those men who have invested their capital, and with wonderful enterprise are developing the unparalleled and inexhaustible wealth that for ages has lain dormant in the Western mountains, those people who have left the overcrowded centers of the East, and whose humble homes are now dotting the plains and valleys of the far West, as well as those men who are annually called upon to endure greater exposure and suffering than is required by the troops of any other nation on the globe, would hail with great satisfaction any system that would secure a substantial and lasting peace.

NELSON A. MILES.

IV.

CRYPTOGRAPHY IN POLITICS.

OLD as the art of cryptography is, it may be doubted whether it has made great advances in modern times. The need of it is not so pressing as it used to be. "How often," says Mr. Philip Thicknesse, an English writer on the art of deciphering, “do we not hear of a courier being murdered and his dispatches carried off, and for what other purpose but information? and, without the key to decipher letters so written, to what purpose should they be intercepted by such a deed?" Mr. Thicknesse wrote only a hundred years ago; but already there has been so great an improvement in the morals of governments that the custom of killing foreign-office messengers for the sake of their dispatch-bags is practically obsolete in diplomacy, and statesmen have ceased to pillage post-offices or rifle portmanteaus. If they wish for secret papers now, they serve a writ. The telegraph, moreover, has made many of the most difficult of the old codes of cipher unavailable. In this category must be placed all those composed of arbitrary marks, or of words or letters arranged in peculiar positions-in squares, parallelograms, columns, etc. Dr. William Blair, the author of an interesting though now antiquated treatise on "Cipher " in Rees's "Cyclopædia," gives many curious specimens of alphabets constructed of arbitrary signs. Charles I. used a code consisting of short strokes in various positions on a line. The Marquis of Worcester invented a cipher composed of dots and lines variously ordered within a geometrical figure. Dr. Blair made one of three dots, placed over, under, or on the line, by which he could represent no fewer than eighty-one letters, figures, or words. Mr. Thicknesse explained with much particularity, and also with a highly successful if not strictly necessary demonstration of the usefulness of secret writing in affairs of state, a plan of conveying information in the disguise of music, the notes, rests, expression-marks, etc., standing for letters.