African research, in its relation to commerce merely, is being taken up with energy in the three principal emporiums of the Mediterranean—Genoa, Marseilles and Trieste. The experienced African traveller, Dr. Mattenci, has started from Genoa at the head of an expedition fitted out at the charge of a number of Italian merchants. He goes through the Suez Canal to Suatin and Matamma, in the southwest of Abyssinia, and will penetrate, if time and circumstances permit, into the Galla Lands. Almost at the same date an Austrian expedition leaves Trieste, under charge of two marine officers, Pletsch and Pizzighelli. They propose to remain for above a whole year in Shoa, in order to make an exhaustive study of its capacity for export and import trading, and to return a complete report to a number of eminent Austrian mercantile firms. From Marseilles, lastly, several representatives of commercial houses in south-western Europe have been despatched to the Red Sea, Shoa, and Abyssinia, with similar instructions.—African Times.
—The Vatican has entrusted to the Algerian Roman Catholic Mission the creation of two stations in Central Africa—one on Lake Tanganika, the other on Lakes Victoria and Albert Nyanza.
The Indians.
—The House Committee reported against the several bills to establish territorial government in the Indian Territory. The conclusions of the Committee are as follows:
First—That the bill (Oklahoma) under consideration conflicts with existing treaty stipulations.
Second—That to decide that a treaty is no longer binding requires for its justification reasons which commend themselves to the principles of equity and good conscience, particularly where the parties to the compact with the United States are weak and powerless and depend solely on the good faith of the Government.
Third—That no such reasons exist for violating the treaty stipulations which reserve the Indian Territory exclusively for Indians, and which secure to the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks and Seminoles, the right of self-government, under the restrictions of the Constitution of the United States.
Fourth—That even if there were no opposing treaty stipulations, no objections resting on good faith, it would be unwise and impolitic to throw the Indian Territory open to white settlers without the consent of the Indian owners.
Fifth—That while official recommendations—some of them entitled to the highest respect—are strongly in favor of making Indians citizens of the United States, and transferring their land titles from the national tenure in common to the individual tenure in severalty, experience has shown that in the great majority of cases such measures, instead of benefiting, have proved injurious to the Indian.