GENERAL NOTES.
The Freedmen.
——A National Colored Convention met in Nashville, Tenn., May 6th, and continued in session four days. It was a body thoroughly in earnest and deeply impressed with a sense of the wrongs endured by the people of whom they were the representatives from all parts of the South. In an address to the country, adopted by them, they speak as follows in regard to their political condition: “Wholly unbiased by party considerations, we contemplate the lamentable political condition of our people, especially in the South, with grave and serious apprehensions for the future. Having been given the ballot for the protection of our rights, we find, through systematic intimidation, outrage, violence and murder, our votes have been suppressed, and the power thus given us has been made a weapon against us.” In regard to the recent emigration they say in the same address: “The migration of the colored people now going on has assumed such proportions as to demand the calm and deliberate consideration of every thoughtful citizen of the country. It is the result of no idle curiosity or disposition to evade labor. It proceeds upon the assumption that there is a combination of well-planned and systematic purposes to still further abridge their rights and reduce them to a state of actual serfdom. If their labor is valuable it should be respected. If it be demonstrated that it cannot command respect in the South, there is one alternative, and that is to emigrate.”
At the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, at its recent meeting at Saratoga, the report of the Committee on Missions for Freedmen, contained the following items: receipts from churches, $52,921.93; receipts from the State School funds, $4,246.00; expenditures on account of missions, $40,360.27. There are 48 ordained missionaries (of whom 34 are colored), 9 licentiates, 25 catechists (all colored), and 58 teachers (of whom 36 are colored). Eight churches were organized last year, and 1,215 communicants were received. The whole number of communicants is 10,577. The total amount paid for self-support by churches and schools is $18,611.55. It was determined not to transfer this department to the Home Missionary Board.
The Indians.
——Judge Dundy, of the U. S. Court at Omaha, has made a decision which, if confirmed by the Circuit Court to which an appeal has been taken, will greatly change the status of the Indians. It declares the reservation plan a nullity, and that Indians cannot be held within certain boundaries. It was made in regard to the Poncas, who were removed two years ago against their will to the Indian Territory. A small number returned this spring to Nebraska, where, though peaceably engaged in agriculture, they were arrested by Gen. Crook and taken back to the Territory. On a writ of habeas corpus, sued out for their relief, the judge decided that the Indian is a “person” within the meaning of the laws of the United States, and has rights under the laws; that Indians possess the inherent right of expatriation, as well as the white race, and have the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, so long as they obey the laws; that no rightful authority exists for removing by force any of these Poncas to the Indian Territory, as Gen. Crook had been directed to do, and that being unlawfully restrained of liberty, they must be discharged. If this decision be confirmed and the principle established, the results will be far-reaching.
——A prominent citizen of Southern Kansas asserts that not less than 5,000 white persons are now in the Indian Territory. A despatch from Independence, dated May 5, says: “Over 150 wagons passed into the Indian Territory southwest of this point yesterday.”
The Chinese.
——Gen. Grant, in responding to a cordial reception given him by the Chinese merchants of Penang, said that he never doubted, and no one could doubt, that, in the end, no matter what agitation might for the time being effect at home, the American people would treat the Chinese with kindness and justice, and not deny to the free and deserving people of that country the asylum they offer to the rest of the world.
——The bill introduced into the Senate by Slater, of Oregon, seems to be of some interest to the Chinaman in America. It provides that after July 1, 1880, no Chinaman shall be allowed to “engage in, carry on, or work at any manufacturing or mechanical business, or to own or lease, carry on or work any mine, or to own or lease any real estate for any other purpose than that of lawful commerce and for places of residence.” As if this were not enough, the Chinaman is forbidden to “work or engage to work as mechanic, artisan, laborer, waiter, servant, cook, clerk or messenger, or in any other capacity or at any other kind of labor, skilled or unskilled.” And there is a heavy penalty inflicted upon the Chinaman or American citizen who violates it. If such a bill should become a law there would be nothing left for the Chinaman to do except to climb a tree and stay there.
Africa.
——The London Missionary Society has received advices dated Jan. 23d, from Mr. Dodgshun. Preparations for proceeding to the lake from Kirasa were begun in June, 1878. Various delays have made progress very slow, as lack of porters and war between Mirambo and the Arabs, and Mr. D. had only then reached Unyanyembe. Meanwhile, three of the six who set out in August, ’77, were left on the field, and they the juniors of the expedition. Messrs. Hore and Hutley are at Ujiji. Two students of the Society have been appointed to join the force——Rev. W. Griffith and Mr. Southon, M. D. Dr. Mullens, the Foreign Secretary of the Society, offered himself to lead the new expedition. The Directors allowed him to go as far as Zanzibar, hoping that it would not be necessary for him to go farther. Central Africa seems yet to be a great way off.
——The following illustrates the exposure of African missionaries to suspicion and violence: “At Mukondoku in Ugogo we were within an ace of being attacked by over 100 of the natives, fully armed, and thirsting for the blood of the white men. Their only ground of complaint was that M. Broyon’s little child had lost a toy——an indiarubber doll——in our camp, which they found, and persisted in calling ‘medicine to ruin their country!’ When convinced that they were wrong, and that we had not the slightest wish to injure them, they only grew the more violent, and told the pagazi to leave us alone that they might kill us. A heavy payment of cloth smoothed the way for peace, but we fully expected to have to fight for our lives, as we had not a single man to be depended on to stand by us.”
——Mr. Mackay, of the C. M. S., at Lake Nyanza, writes that after his two years’ march he found the goods of the expedition in safety, but mixed in indiscriminate confusion. Ten days brought some order out of this chaos. The engines are complete, and almost everything, though divided into 70 lb. parcels for the journey of 700 miles, is at hand and in place.
——Mr. Mackay speaks thus of the evil of intemperance in Africa: “Oh, how often will I enter in my journal, as I pass through many tribes, Drink is the curse of Africa! Useguha, Usagara, Ugogo, Unyamwezi, Usukuma, Ukerewe, and Uganda too——go where you will, you will find every week, and, when grain is plentiful, every night, every man, woman and child, even to sucking infant, reeling with the effects of alcohol. On this account chiefly I have become a teetotaler on leaving the coast, and have continued so ever since. I believe, also, that abstinence is the true secret of continued and unimpaired health in the tropics. Whoever wishes to introduce civilization into Africa, let a sina quâ non of the enterprise be that its members be total abstainers.”
——The expedition, under Dr. Laus, to explore the west side of Lake Nyassa, returned in December. Livingstonia is proving a city of refuge to natives escaping from slavery. The health record is good.
——“In Western Africa the climate is still our great difficulty. It cripples our work by prostrating our men. The Gambia Mission has been almost entirely deprived of its Missionaries during the year from this cause, and the River Mission has been obliged to be suspended. The Committee would gladly diminish, if possible, these risks, and improve the chances of health, and attention is being given to this subject; but the need is being felt more and more keenly every year of adequate and well-furnished institutions, in which the African shall be trained to win Africa for Christ. The education of the girls, the women of the future, is also most desirable here.”——From the Annual Report of the Wesleyan Missionary Society of Great Britain.
——The Church Missionary Society received last year $935,000, and expended $1,020,000. The Wesleyan Missionary Society reports receipts, $666,000; expenditures, $786,000.