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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIBS. VII used For the benefit of other reservations. This, it wiU be observed, only provides for the property which was on hand at the date of the passage of the act, to wit, on the 4th of Jnly, 1884, hut does not author-ize any apportionment or distribution of goods or supplies purchased after that date. This does not meet the necessities of the case to which I referred, and I now again invite attention to this matter and urge the importance of such legislation as will allow of the distribution of goods and supplies of all kinds to non-treaty tribes of Indians in such man-ner as to kind and quantity as in the opinion of the Department may be calculated to promote the best interests of the service; and I do not hesitate to assert that the same amount of money disposed of in this manner will do much more good and give more general satisfaction than it does on the present plan. SALE OF ARMS AND AMBfUNITION, AND LIQUOR TO INDIANS. I again call attention to the fact that no law exists to prevent the sale of arms and ammnnition to Indians. This office can and does pre-vent persons liceused and under bonds as Indian traders from furnish. ing either arms or ammunition to Indians; bnt outside parties furnish both arms and ammunition, because there is no law to punish them for so doing. This practice places the Indians in a semi-independent posi-tion to the Government, which has been productive of much trouble, and, in some instances, loss of life. I hope, therefore, that Congress may see the necessity of passing a strihgent prohibitory law on this subject, so that the personal liberty of both whites and Indians may be interfered with in this particular. Congress, at the last session, so far responded to my repeated re-quests for funds to he used iu the prosecution of persons who furnish intoxicating liquor to Indians as to make an appropriation of $5,000 for that purpose. This is one step in the right direction, and the first one that has been taken upon this particular subject, and it has already produced good results, one of which is that some of the violators of law are now in prison. But this is but a step in the commencement of what should be followed by legislation to make it thoroughly effective. After the offender has been arrested, tried, and found guilty, the pun- , ishment under the law as it now stands may be, andin many instances is, so light as to be no terror to the evil doer. When from $100 to $500 have been expended in prosecnting a case to conviction of the offender and then have him fined $1 and imprisoned one day, as has been the case in some instances, it is very obvious that this worst of all evils in the Indian country mill not be removed, and is so broad a farce as to be justly ridiculed and despised. The only effectual remedy for this is the one which I have repeatedly recommended, and that is to make the penalty not less than $300 fine, and not less than two years' imprisonment. The law now reads not more than $300. and not more than two years' imprisnnment. |