THE OJIBWAY NATION. 241

L. In this letter : Why they have not improved, and
why they have decreased in numbers.

To give a statement of all the disadvantages they
have had to encounter would not be in accordance with
my present object, nor with the necessity imposed on me
with reference to your.columns; yet I will mention a
few. In their intercourse with-the frontier settlers they
meet the worst classes of pale faces. They soon adopt
their foolish ways and their vices, and their minds bes
ing thus poisoned and preoccupied, the morality and
education which the better classes would -teach -them
are forestalled. 'This is not to be wondered at when it
is.generally known that the frontier settlers are made up
of wild, adventurous spirits, willing to raise themselves
by the downfall of the Indian race. These are traders,
spirit-sellers, horse thieves, counterfeiters and scape-
gallowses, who neither fear'God nor regard the laws of
man. When the Indians come in contact with such
men, as representatives of the American people, what
else could be expected of them? Itis not strange, that,
seeing as he does the gross immorality of the whites
whom he meets, and the struggle between the pale face
for wrong and the red man for right, which begins when
they' first meet, and ends not-until one dies, that he re-
fuses to ‘follow the footsteps of the white man in the