GENERAL NOTES.
The Negro.
—We were misled by a usually reliable authority in regard to the income of the Peabody Educational Fund. In 1866, its trustees distributed, in eight States, $35,400; in 1873, in ten States, $137,150; and in 1877, $89,400. We give the figures from their report, and take the largest and smallest.
—April 21st, the barque Azor sailed from Charleston, S. C., with 250 emigrants, one-fifth being children. They go under the auspices of the Liberian Exodus Association to Boporo, about sixty miles north-east from Monrovia. It is intended to purchase a steamship to make regular trips to Monrovia. A reporter from the Charleston News and Courier accompanies the Azor.
—Mr. Orcutt, General Secretary of the American Colonization Society, writes that vessels will sail under their auspices in June and November. He fears for the new exodus movement, as having more zeal than knowledge; and remarks that, “at the very outset, they were subjected to disappointments and annoyances, which evinced the need of a competent controlling agency in the management of their affairs.”
—A meeting of colored men was held at Washington, a few weeks ago, to organize a colony for the West, and measures were taken to promote that object. They denounced the Liberian exodus.
—Senator Ingalls has written a letter, in which he promises to all the colored people who may choose to emigrate thither, a cordial welcome to Kansas, the protection of her laws, and equal facilities for education.
—“We starve and pinch the American Missionary Association, giving little more than $200,000 a year towards founding Christian schools, and planting Christian pulpits, among four million freedmen, in the pit of ignorance and degradation; we do little to speak of among the Celestial pagans on the Pacific slope; and our labor among the Indians is light. But our Romish friends are now said to be spending $600,000 a year among the freedmen, among whom they have 150,000 pupils under priestly schools. There are 137 Catholic missionaries and teachers among the Indians.”—President E. P. Tenney, Colorado College.
—“The Roman Catholic Church has purchased a tract of 7,000 acres of land within nine miles of Chase City, Va., and propose to colonize it, and educate the freedmen, on the industrial farm plan.”—Evangelist.
—A correspondent of the Christian Observer is informed that there are twenty-five Romish schools in the three States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, with free board and tuition.
—The following is the closing sentence of an affidavit, signed by Gen. Lopez Analto, and sworn to before a U. S. Commissioner in Florida:
“I further declare and say, to the best of my knowledge and belief, that there are negroes from the United States at different places on the Island of Cuba, who are to this day held as slaves, shipped from the United States, under various pretexts, since the rebellion in the United States, and upon American vessels.”
The investigation of this matter was interrupted by the sudden death of Judge Leonard.
—The delays, and partial defeat, of the various Central African Missions, are referred to on an editorial page.
—One of the results to be anticipated from the establishment of new missionary stations in the interior of Africa, is the effect which such civilized settlements among the hunting-grounds of the slave-traders will have in suppressing that terrible evil. It is still the whole business of thousands to buy or steal Circassian, Abyssinian, and negro boys and, especially, girls.
The Chinaman.
—In the United States Circuit Court, at San Francisco, Judge Sawyer has rendered a decision, in the case of the Chinaman who applied for naturalization papers, holding that Chinamen are not white persons within the meaning of the term as used in the Naturalization Laws, and are not entitled to become citizens. “White,” he holds to be equivalent to Caucasian; and that, by exact construction of the provision, all but white persons, and persons of African nativity and descent, are excluded forever from citizenship. The case will probably be appealed.
—We commend the story of Yung Wing, as told by Rev. Joseph Twichell, in his recent lecture at New Haven, to those who are either hopeful or hopeless as to the Chinese in America. Under his care, the Chinese Government is expending annually $100,000 in maintaining about 120 Chinese boys at schools in Connecticut, where they are receiving a thorough course of education.
—The Chinese in San Francisco paid, in 1866-67, more than $42,000 in school taxes. California law omits Mongolian children from the apportionment of school funds, refuses them admission to the common-schools, and opens no schools for them. Thirteen hundred Chinamen have petitioned the Legislature for separate schools for their three thousand children of proper age. Such are provided for those of African and Indian descent. The petition was at once laid on the table. A leading paper stigmatized it as a dangerous and aggressive indication of a movement on their part to “obtain larger wages,” and showing a desire “to mingle their youth with ours, with a view, doubtless, to more thorough assimilation in the body politic.” And yet, the burden of the complaints against them has been that they will not assimilate, and will work cheap! If consistency is a jewel, it is evidently not a “California diamond.”
—A correspondent of the Intelligencer asserts that the opposition to the Chinaman is instigated mainly by the liquor-sellers and the Roman Catholic priests, neither of whom has John any use for, and whose patrons he displaces.
—A Chinese church is to be organized at Oakland, Cal., composed in part of members from Dr. Eells’ church, and the mission under the care of Rev. J. M. Condit. This is the second church in California, all the members of which are Chinese.
—Prof. Mooar in Evangelist: “Our greatest danger in regard to this problem is not that the Chinaman will be too pagan for us, but that we shall fail to be Christian enough for him.”
The Indian.
—A writer in the Advance says that there are 6,500 persons in the Indian Territory, formerly slaves of the Choctaws and Chickasaws. The treaty of 1866 provided for their citizenship among the tribes, and an allotment of fifty acres of land to each. In the first Indian Legislature after the treaty, a law was passed refusing to comply with the treaty; so that, in the land where they were born, and where they toiled in slavery to enrich their masters, they can own no land, cannot send their children to the nation’s schools, are not permitted to vote, and have no protection from, nor access to, the Indian courts of law. So, the big fish eat the little fish, all the way down.
—The various plans for organizing the Indian Territory under a territorial government, are in the face of solemn treaties, and the opposition of the various tribes to whom it has been promised. It is only another of the wrongs to which the poor Indian has been subjected by the cupidity of his white neighbors, and their disregard of the rights of so-called inferior races.
—The Bill creating the Territory of Oklahoma has been agreed upon by the House Committee on Territories.
—As to the rebel Indians, Gen. Sheridan allows a Nez Percés prisoner to go to the Canadian frontier, to offer immunity from punishment to the fugitives of that tribe, if they surrender to the military. Some have left Sitting Bull, and refused to fight with him longer. A band are raiding in Texas, in the neighborhood of Fort Ewell. The Bannocks at Lemhi Agency, in Idaho, complain that the agent has defrauded them, and threaten trouble. To Sitting Bull’s inquiries about peace, Gen. Miles answers that, when the Indians give up their ponies and guns, they will receive cattle and other property of greater value; and that when peace is made, the Government will provide for them, as it does for all friendly Indians.
—The Nez Percés Indians take a Turkish bath every morning.—See Leavenworth Times. The Christian Recorder (A. M. E.) says: “No people can go down who make a plentiful use of soap and water.”