Nature constructed the noble red man with certain little mental, moral and physical eccentricities, and these eccentricities can be better worn away and remodeled on the evergreen shore.
Poor, weak, fallible man cannot successfully grapple with the task of working over an entire nation of human beings and changing the whole trend, so to speak, of a nation's mental and moral nature.
Let us not, therefore, usurp the prerogative or attempt to perform the Herculean task which a wise Creator has laid out for Himself.
The policy of Divine administration, if I mistake not, is to improve the Indian and reform him in a future state in a large corral where the worm dieth not. This of course is only my private opinion, and I am offering it now in packages containing six each, securely boxed and sent free to any address on receipt of $1. I would sell it cheaper were it not for the excessive freight and the recent rise in white paper.
Supposing then the above to be the correct theory, what can poor erring man do to forward the good work? Evidently he can do nothing unless it be to change the state of the red man from a discouraging and annoying mortality to a bright and shining immortality.
I would suggest that this be done so far as possible by those who can spare the time and ammunition to do so. I will give to such all the encouragement and moral support I can. I would assist in the good work, but I am most too busy now planting my raspberry jam and setting out my early Swedish dried apple pie plant.
THE PREVIOUS REPORTER.
Fluke MaGilder, an old Washington reporter, who afterward was well known among Western newspaper men, was one of the most tireless and persistent news-gatherers I ever knew. He used to tell with considerable apparent pleasure how he didn't obtain the points on a prominent military court martial which was held at Cheyenne in 1876. It happened on this wise: