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Show 28 REPORTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF TEE INTERIOR. His changing environment is modifying the relation of the trader to the Indians, especially as competition comes in to break up monop-oly and reduce prices. These results are secured in part by the increase in the number of traders on a reservation. For instance, on the Osage Reservation there are now about 300 licensed firms, engaged in every sort of business which would he found in a white community of 2,000 inhabitants. Pine Ridge Reservation has some 14 licensed traders, and others have nearly as many, the number vary-ing not only with the size of the tribe but also with the density of the surrounding white population; for sometimes the opportunity to con-duct a business without paying ground rent tempts a man to place his store inside of a reservation, even though his custom will come mainly from white people outside. One man recently regretted yield-ing to this allurement, for his competitor, a few rods over the line, opened a pool room as an attachment to his store, and the reservation trader begged in vain for permission to do likewise, on the plea that otherwise his business would be ruined. The main, and of course the best, source of competition is the ap-proach of white towns to the reservation boundary and the opening of reservation tracts to white occupancy after the Indians have been given their individual allotments. This gives the Indian a chance to buy and sell in white communities, and this Office has instructed agents everywhere that " Indians must be permitted to sell their crops and other articles produced by them at available market towns." Nevertheless, since the licensed trader is nearest the Indians, he con-tinues to have some advantage over an outsider in making sales and collecting debts, and his personal influence and example still go a good way with our red brother. Almost immediately after my entry upon my present office came the report of the death of a young Indian and the dangerous illness of two others on a Western reservation, caused by drinking the contents of a bottle of aconite which by mistake had been sold to them ns arnica. An Office circular was therefore issued on January 12, requir-ing that labels with a conspicuous symbol of skull and cross-bones be placed on all packages containing poisons or other compounds liable to cause serious injury if taken in considerable quantities. By the following circular of August 10, traders have been notxed that they must conduct their establishments with neatness and order and must guard against the sale of so-called medicines which have slcohol for a leading ingredient. The attention of the O5ce has been called to the fact that many licensed traders are very negligent as to the way in which their stores are kept. Some lack of order might be condoned, but it is reported that maw stores are dirty even to filthiness. Such a condition of affairs need not be tolerated, and improvements must be insisted on in that respect. |