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Show I , , . . I REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF IRDIAN AFFAIRS. 39 I patents to Indians does not divest the United States of the fee; that ' as long as the title to such land is held in trust by the Government its status is practically the same ss that of public lands, and that not until the legal title passes out of the United States does the land cease to be the property of the United States or pass beyond its control. For these reasons the Office has used all the means in its power to prosecute every person known to have taken intoxicating liquors upon allotted lands. To illustrate the difficulties encountered in such prosecutions, atten-tion is invited to the case of James Lincoln, an allotted Indian on the Winnebago Reservation in Nebraska, who took liquor upon allotted land and was indicted for introducing liquor into the Indian country. After a strong defense he was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of $100 and costs of prosecution and to be imprisoned in the county jail for sixty days or until the fine and costs were paid. His imprison-ment began on February 19,1906. On April 2 he filed in the Supreme Court of the United States an application for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that the United States had no police power or jurisdiction over the Winnebago Reservation; that the law under which the indictment was drawn was unconstitutional and void as far as it. applied to that reservation, and that the United States district court was wholly without jurisdiction in the premises This application was not heard until May 14, when the court denied the petition for writ of habeas corpus and said: The sixty days named as the term of imprisonment had expired before the .case was submitted, and, indeed, had almost expired before the application was made for the writ. There is nothing to show whether the fine and costs have b&n collected upon execution, as the sentence authorizes. If not so collected, and if they con not be collected, then, tho possibly still in jail, he can - -8hortly be discharged on taking the poor debtor's oath. (Rev. Stat.. see. 1042). This section authorizes a discharge after a confinement of thirty dhys on ac-count of the nonpayment of fine and costs. So. that within ninety days from February 19, the time the sentence took effect, the petitioner can secure his dis-charge either by paying the fine and costs or by taking the poor debtor's oath, ' as above stated. An effort has been made to enforce the statutes of Washington against the sale of liquor to Indians, but with no success. The super-intendent in charge of the Yakima Reservation reported on July 91, 1906, that the prosecuting attorney of the couhty informed him that .as the Indians do not pay taxes he does not purpose to put the county to any expense in prosecuting them or in giving them protection, especially when crimes are committed on the reservation; this pol-icy, he says, is in accordance with the instructions of the county commissioners. The deplorable state of affairs which exists on the |