GENERAL NOTES.
The Freedmen.
—Over 3,000 people attended the Agricultural Fair for colored people held at Talladega, Ala., in November, under the auspices of the college. Stock, farm products, cookery, needle and fancy work, flowers and pictures, were brought in for exhibition. Contests were held in athletic sports, and in spelling, declaiming, etc., between students of the different schools. Several hundred white people attended, and showed their interest by acting as judges on the committees with the colored people. The fair was kept entirely free from all the objectionable features which so often mar our State fairs, and indeed was opened with prayer, and, after the addresses and award of premiums, closed with the Doxology.
—Dr. Rust, the Corresponding Secretary of the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the M. E. Church, reports that its work during this year “has never been exceeded in any year of its history. It has erected more school edifices, more commodious and commanding; educated more teachers, prepared more ministers, led more souls to Christ, and set in operation more streams of elevating influence, done more and better work for Christ and humanity, than in any like period before.” The financial statement for the year ending July 1, 1878, gives its total receipts for the year as $63,403, and its expenditures, mainly for salaries and board of teachers and educational expenses, including $3,000 paid on its debt, at the same. The society has aided in the establishment of five chartered institutions having full collegiate powers, three theological and two medical schools, also chartered, and ten other educational institutions.
—Dr. Ruffner, Superintendent of Public Instruction in Virginia, claims that $850,000 was collected from the people and set apart by law for the support of the common schools, and charges that this, with the interest, has been diverted from its proper use and applied to the ordinary expenses of the State Government.
—A national colored Baptist educational convention was held last summer at Nashville, Tenn. In an address published by them they offer heartfelt thanks to Northern Baptists, who alone have helped them to what educational facilities they have enjoyed. To the Southern white Baptists they are grateful for the “good resolutions” they have passed in favor of the black man. They urge the colored Baptists to support their own publishing house, newspaper, and the educational enterprises of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.
—Public sentiment has almost effaced the color line in Virginia; given political freedom and safety in North Carolina; and created a powerful party of “Independents” in Georgia; and it will bring South Carolina to her senses in time. Moral forces require more time and patience than physical force.—Christian Union.
—Two colored students of Mr. Spurgeon’s Pastor’s College, Rev. Messrs. Richardson and Johnson, with their wives, have left England as missionaries to Central Africa. They were all freed slaves from this country.
—The Rev. Alfred Saher, English Baptist Missionary at the Cameroons, West Africa, has translated the Bible into the language of the people, and now reports upwards of 2,000 converts.
The Indians.
—Mr. Wheeler writes from Keshena Agency, Wisconsin, of the second successful Agricultural Fair among the Menomonees. About 200 entries of corn and potatoes were made, with other vegetables, grains and grasses in abundance. The displays of woman’s work and of live stock were very fine. A ploughing match was held. About $200 was expended in premiums, voted from the tribal funds for that purpose. Advantage was taken of the opportunity for giving instruction in the arts of agriculture, and for exhorting them to keep their children faithfully in the schools. Such gatherings both prove and promote progress.
—Brig. Gen. Pope reports that the late outbreak of the Cheyennes was caused by starvation. He says of the Indians in general: “If they are left with the means to go to war, as is the custom, we simply sleep on a volcano. Unless, therefore, ample, and above all, regular supplies of food can be guaranteed to the Indians, I am compelled, in justice to the Government and the frontier settlers, to ask that more troops be sent to the agencies in the Indian Territory, and that at least two of the posts in Western Kansas be largely reinforced by cavalry. I have also to ask that any Indians sent from the North into this department be disarmed and dismounted before being sent here, so that they can be placed in the same condition as the Indians with whom they are to live.”
—Major Mizener reports more in detail:—The causes which led to the leaving of the Northern Cheyennes may be summed up as follows: They were disappointed in the country. Their rations were poor and entirely insufficient. They were home-sick, despondent and disappointed, and were anxious to get back to a country better known to them, and where game was to be had, while here they did not have enough to eat.
—General Sheridan attributes our Indian wars to two classes of causes; the first being the constant encroachment upon the lands of the Indians, sacredly guaranteed to them by treaty, and the constant removal of the tribes to distant reservations, in which they are again troubled by the tide of immigration. He says no other nation in the world would have attempted the reduction of these wild tribes, and occupation of their country, with less than 60,000 or 70,000 men.
—Secretary Schurz affirms that the real cause of Indian wars has been the breaking of treaties. He recites an exhaustive history of Indian wars to show that this has been the case, and that very few of the wars have arisen from the maladministration of agents.
—Gen. Sherman, in his annual report, declares that many of the Indians prefer death to agricultural toil; that to convert them from a nomadic into a pastoral race is the first and fundamental problem; that each tribe must be dealt with according to its own nature; that whatever department of the Government is charged with this work, must be intrusted with large discretion to adapt its measures to emergencies. He traces the Indian wars generally to broken promises, insufficient rations and impending starvation.
—Of the joint committee to which the transfer of the Indians to the War Department is referred, the three members of the Senate are from Nebraska, Kentucky and Illinois; of the five members of the House, but one comes from as far East as this. The committee, therefore, represents communities that favor the army. It is understood that the Indians themselves do not desire the change; that the army does not want the responsibility; yet that it will probably be done, unless the President interferes, because the Indian ring desires it, and because the army makes it a point of honor.
The Chinese.
—The First Church in San Francisco, Dr. Stone’s, has just opened a new and well-appointed room in the basement for its mission and Chinese Sunday-school. The Petaluma Church has also enlarged its lecture-room for the use of its Chinese school.
—As the Chinese children are not permitted to enter the San Francisco public schools, those who have embraced Christianity are taught in the Union Mission in the old Globe Hotel. The school has two sessions, one of which is conducted by an American lady, the other by Hung Mung Chung, who is a fine Chinese scholar and a man of much dignity and scholarly attainments, said to be a lineal descendant of Confucius. During the past year Hung Mung Chung was baptized and became a member of the Protestant Church for Chinese. He teaches the children the Chinese classics and the maxims and precepts of Confucius. Each session of the school is closed by singing and repeating the Lord’s Prayer—in the morning in English, in the afternoon in Chinese.
—The San Francisco Chinamen contributed $1,200 to the yellow fever sufferers of the South. The sand-lot meetings have not yet reported the amount of their collections.
—The Chinese Sunday-school in Chicago has been in existence nearly six months, with an average attendance of fourteen scholars. It is said that the number can be largely increased if teachers can be procured.
—Rev. W. P. Paxson, Superintendent of the missionary work of the American S. S. Union in their Southwestern Department, says: “One striking event in my missionary work has been the organization of a Chinese Sunday-school in St. Louis.”
—Mr. Ha Shan Sin was baptized last Sabbath by Rev. E. D. Murphy at the Immanuel Presbyterian Chapel of this city. The young man is about twenty-two years old, was born in San Francisco, though he has spent most of his life in China. This is the sixth of the Chinamen that have been received into the churches of this city. Three have been enrolled among the members of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church, Dr. Howard Crosby’s.
—The first Chinaman was admitted to citizenship in the United States by naturalization, last week, and we count the event an auspicious one just at this time. The man is Wong Ah Lee; by trade he is a cigar-maker, and his wife is an Irish-woman. With a view, mainly, to make a case which can be carried up to a conclusive decision from the highest court, the Judge here ruled that a Chinaman is either white or black, and so must come in. California’s ruling has been that a Mongolian is neither white or black, and so cannot come in.—Congregationalist, December 4.