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Show XXXVI BEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. I n my l a ~ets timate for the Indian service, I had the honor to recom-mend that a small appropriation be made to enable this office to take a census of the Indians. Congress, however, declined to do so. I have concluded to invite your attention again to this matter, so important do I consider it. The census of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, taken by Qeneml Sheri-dan in June, 1885, showed that the real number of Indians was much below the number who previously had been supposed to belong to those tribes, and that, of course, they had beeu drawing rations and supplies largely in excess of their dues. The recent cenws ordered by this of-fice nnder date of May 18, 1886, taken by Captain Bell, acting agent of the Plne Ridge Agency, shows that there hail been carried upon the rolls 2,241 more Sioux than really existed, and that rations had been issued accordingly; that is, as shown by the agency reports rendered quarterly. With a knowledgeof this fact, I have fixed a day upon which all the Indian agents on the great Sioux Reservation wiU be required to take a census of their respective Indians; and it is not improbable that a reduction in numbers, similar to that atYineRidge, will appear at other agencies. At this writing the result of the census thus ordered has not beeu made known to this office. I do not doubt that an accurate census woldd show a decrease in the number of Indians, below the number now claimed, throughout the country, or at least at several of the agencies. The outlay for taking the census is inconsiderable when compared with the great saving it would probablx effect. The saving i~ the two inshnoes quoted-Cheyenne and Arapaho and Pine Ridge--WIN amount to a large sum annually. lXDIAi4 MONEYS. This subject demands earnest attention. I have already in my former report (Report, 1885, page xxxvi) given a brief history of these funds, hut the importance of the subject is such that I deem it proper to repeat a statement of the m e . The class ot funds under discnssion is derived from various sources, but principally from a tax imposed upon others than Indians for pasturage of cattle upon Indian reserra-tions, from sale of dead and down timber cut on reservations by other than Indians, from sale of the natural products of the reserves not the re-sult of Indian labor, kc. From 18i6, when funda of this kind were first reported to this office, up to the latter part of 1883, these miscellaneo~~s receipts werenot covered into the Treasury, but were held by the several Indian agents into whose hands they came, to be applied, nnder the yer-sonal direction of the Ccmmissioner of Indian Affairs, to the sole use and benefit of the Indians of the reservations from which they were derived. But in Mmch, 1883, Congress, in the deficiency bill for that " |