Morning journal and courier., 1890-03-17

 FROM ALL QUARTERS. CONSTITUTION IN DAKOTA. PitiabIe Condition Of the
 Indians. FIVE MEN DROWNED AT SEA. Troops Advancing to tho
 Cherokee Outlet. \ TWO MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL. What Will be Done in Con-
 gress This Week.
l TWO MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL.
THE NATIsN,s WARDS.

Picture of the Condition Of the I'm.
 dians In North Dakosa-The story
 Told By Right Rev. John Shanley,
 D. D.-The Government Charged With Stealing Their Land - Sights
 Seen By the Bish0p-Death From
 Cold and Hunger-What the Gov.
 ernment Provides she Indians.
 PHnADELPHIA, March 16.-Right Rev. John Shanley, D. D., bishop of North Da- kota, occupied the pulpit of the seathedral here to-day and told pitiful story of the privations and sufferings of the Chippewa Indians occupying the reservation at the ex- treme northern part of his diocese. His ob- ject was to secure assistance for their relief. He described most viyidly the condition of these Indians as witnessed by himself dur ing the recent cold weather, when the ther- mometer marked forty degrees below zero. He charged the government with having stolen the eleven million acres of land this tribe possessed when Dakota territory was divided between the Sioux and Chippewa Indians. "Eleven million acres stolen boldly, and not one cent paid in return for 1t" said his grace, ssand the owners sent to the northern border of the state, the eoldest, bleakest spot in the country, where two townships were organized with five thou sand acres of land. This is filled with bad timber forests and lakes, swamps and rocks. On these five thousand acres were put ], 1880 Indians. who are trying to make their liv- ing. These wards of the United States are living where one hundred white men could scarcely raise enough to keep them"
 His grace described personal visit to these townships where, he said, he witnessed scenes tbat would have disgraced Siberia. 'sI spent over Q week with these pc ople with the thermometer registering forty and sometimes forty.four degrees below zero. The Indian houses are log huts constructed by the Indi- ans themselves without flooring and with sheets and quilts covering the windows and doorways. The creviees between the logs are filled with mud that cracks and falls out by the summer heat and is blown out by the northern wintry blasts, 50 that the occupants may as we'll be stopping outside. In these huts 1t Is not infrequent to find six families living. These 1,9S0 Indians cannot make their own living there. They have never implements. Last spring the director of the Catholic Indian bureau sent twenty four blows to these Indians and with these they managed to break eight hundred acres of the virgin soil. But there was no rain and to-day they are absolutely destitute.
 While visiting these people ] entered the house of an old Indian. There was no food in the house that day, but there were tears and desperation. A poor old Indian woman had puny, sickly child in her arms. She wspt for joy when she saw me, thinking God had sent reliet to her children. She showed me her child. There was not pound of flesh on it's bones. am sure that the child is dead. I am not easily moved, used as am to scenes of misery in large cities, but could not help but weep on that occasion. In one corner of the room there was boy six years of age. Another was cr ying by the chimney place trying to warm his shivering form, while an old Indian was kneeling by the fireplace muttering, prob- ably vowing vengeance on the white race.
 At another hovel poor old man of eighty. Ave years was lying on the frozen ground dy- ing of consumption, no one near him but his poor old wife, who knelt over him with a rosary in her hand praying for God to take her husband. Night was setting in, no light, no candle, no one to say . kind word to the old couple.
 In another hovel found the children with out clothing gathered around the fire place, plucking out.the charred sticks that they might roll iu the warm ashes.
 The United States appropriates $5, ,000 to these Indians-about $250 to esch one. This amount is sP.-t in uour and fat pork and aissrIputed among them. The pork ia sickening.
 myself would not have believed the truth of the story if had not witnessed 1t. During the eighteen months previous to the first of January, 1890, out of 1,400 Indians twenty-seven died. These deaths were almost invariably of starvation. The women are almost universally clad in one garments calico dress-to protect them,