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Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN APFATRS. 9 occupat'ions. This was with an eye to such situations as developed, for instance, in the Rocky Ford district of Colorado, where there is a. constant and g r o d g demand for the labor of Indian schoolboys in the sugar-beet fields. It is a simple enough matter to handle transportation charges for pupils from schools near at,hand, but in , order to extend the scope of this enterprise I have wanted to bring ' , some from rather remote schools, in which case the railroad fares become unduly burdensome. It is for such pupils that I wish to be able, when necessary, to dray upon our school-transportation funds; for, to my mind, such work as the boys get in the Rocky Ford dis-trict at fair wages, teaching them how to measure manual labor in , money units, is worth as much as, or more than, any form of instruc-tion they mn get in the schools themselves I have therefore given . all possible encouragement to the employment of these young people in the beet fields, where the work is not such as to tax their strength unduly, the employers are kindly disposed, and the Government's oversight is complete. The lads like it; and an example of what it has done for them, aside entirely from their training in industry, responsibility and regular hours, is furnished in a report from the superintendent in charge of the Navaho Reservation, that 49 scbool-boys and 3 adults from there who worked in the Colorado beet fields for six weeks this season, returned with $1,672.56 earnings clear and above a? expenses. The pupils, he writes, are going to spend their money- for sheep, and arrangements have been made so that their sheep will be cared for by their relatives while they ate at school. Thus in a single season's work these lads have been started in a profitable calling with capital furnished by their own labor, and those who have the strength of character to continue as they have begun will be self-supportingwhen they have attained theirmajority. The question of liquor selling to Indians is ever present in the far ~ 6 satnd looms up in connection with the work of the emplop-ment bureau. In most places where large numbers of Indians have been set at work, like the Yuma dam and the beet fields, this matter has been very satisfactorily handled by the 1oca.l authorities. Indeed, it is safe to say that there hasbeen less drinking among the Indians . who have been away from the reservations at work under such super-vision as is provided, than among a cor~esponding number on the reservations and in the neighboring towns ; and since the Cong~eshs as made so generous a provision for the detection and punishment of the' unlawful traffic, it is hoped that there will be even less trouble than heretofore. It is, however, hard to secure a conviction for'liquor selling, when a case does occur, in a comm~mity where there is any considerable laxity of public sentiment on the subject. It is no easier there than elsewhere to induce an Indian to testify against persons |