This massaere, although provoked by treachery, has pro- duced the
worst effect upon the Indians, who still hold such schemes to be ruses allowable in war. The telegrams published on Friday are full of fresh local risings to avenge the slain, and there really appears to be a prospect that the fighting section of the tribesmen throughout the extreme South- Eastern States will try one last despairing outbreak. This is evidently the opinion of General Miles, the lemling officer in the field, who has formally recommended the President to transfer the entire control of the five great Indian Agencies -to the War Department, in order to secure energy and, we greatly fear, honesty of administration. The proposal is sup- ported by General Schofield, the Commander-in-Chief, and produced a heated discussion in the Cabinet, the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Noble, violently resisting the suggestion as an impertinence. President Harrison, after listening patiently to all arguments, decided that for the present there should be no change ; but it is believed that if fighting continues, opinion avill veer round towards the military view. The Generals are hampered at every turn by the supply difficulty, and it may be taken as certain that th military officers, who are all educated men, will be both more scrupulous and kinder in treating the Indians than the Indian Department of the Interior, which has always proved itself unequal to check
peculation in the distant agencies. The whole system is absurd, the Indians being treated as paupers, to be supplied with rations, rum, and blankets, yet held competent to make " treaties " both with each other and Washington ; but im- provement will never come until the matter is in non-political hands.
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