OCR Text |
Show REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. XLIII Kans., the terminus of the telegraph-line to the Osage Agency, is carried but once a week; consequently, if a message is not sent by a special messenger, at a very considerable cost, it must lie over for the weekly mail. This renders the telegraphic service, so far as that agency is cou-cerned, very nearly nseless. The distance of the Cl~eyenne and Arapaho Agency from telegraphic communication was a great obstacle in the way of a prompt suppression of the recent Cheyenne outbreak. The time required for commnnieation with Washington vas sufficient to enable the Indians to get out of the way of an immediate pursuit; and the cost of this outbreak alone to the government is more than sufficient to make a telegraphic connection ~r i the very Indian agency. I t mould be a wise economy to have tele-graphic communication opened at once with all the larger Indian agen-cies. In most cases the Indians would outand deliver the necessaq poles, and the expense of the wire and setting the poles would not involve a large ontlay. NECESSITY FOE A WAREHOUSE IN THE WEST. This bureau nhonld have a large warehouse located at some conveni-ent spot on the 1\Iissouri River, where a oollection of wagons, harness, and agricnlhml implements of all kinds should be kept constantly in store, in orker that when any of these articles are needed at an agency the avant could be promptly supplied. As it is the policy of the offlce to discourage open market l)~wchases, and as agricultural implements bought in the open market in the ~icin-ity of any of the agencies axe very expensive, and the time reqnired for the filling of an order and the delivery of the article is often an obstaole in the way of its use, by having a depot for such articles there would he greater facility in conducting the agricnltural work for the support of the Indians. INDIANS AT HAJIPTON. The Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Arapahoes who had been held as prison-ers of war at St. Augustine, Fh., for the past three years were released in May last and brought back by the way of Norfolk, and the adnlts (40 in nnmber) were sent to their home in the Indian Territory. Capt. R. H. Pratt, U. S. A., who had been detailed as their agent, interesteil himself with benevolent people at the North and succeeded in obtain-ing snpport sufficient to educate 18 of these youths at Hampton Sor-ma1 Institute, Hanvton, Va. Four were sent to Syracuse, N. Y., to be educated under Bishop Huntington's care. On September 2,1878, Captain Pratt was requested by this bureau to go to Dakota and secure 50 more scholars from among the Indian youth of the various tribes in Dakota. As the result he obtained from the Yank-ton Agency three girls and nine boys, from the Crow Creek Agency one girl and five hnyn, from the Lower Bnll6 Agency six bop, from the Fort |