It were far from prudent to preach emancipation in Florida or Louisiana; at the "diggins" it is decidedly unsafe to call the shooting of Indians by the harsh name of murder. "We saw a young mountaineer, wild with rage, threaten the life of an American who had ventured to suggest that the murders committed by these Indians were provoked by many previous murders of the whites, and that they should not be avenged by _indiscriminate_ slaughter, but by the death of the _guilty_." The horrible character of the frequent massacres is aggravated by the adoption, on the part of the white savages, of the repugnant and barbarian usages of the unfortunate heathens whom they first provoke and then hunt to the death, by the tearing off of scalps, and suchlike hideous and unchristian abominations. Unfortunately, these scenes of slaughter and atrocity are of constant occurrence, not only in that far-off land where gold is to be had for the gathering, but wherever the white man and the red come in contact. The air of the prairie and backwoods seems fatal to all humane and merciful feelings, and the life of the Indian is held no dearer than that of skunk or buffalo. Mr Parkman tells us of "a young Kentuckian, of the true Kentucky blood, generous, impetuous, and a gentleman withal, who had come out to the mountains with Russel's party of California emigrants. One of his chief objects, as he gave out, was to kill an Indian--an exploit which he afterwards succeeded in achieving, much to the jeopardy of ourselves and others, who had to pass through the country of the dead Pawnee's enraged relatives." No censure is passed upon this generous and gentlemanly young murderer by Mr Parkman, whose book would nevertheless indicate him to be a man of education and humanity, but who is apparently unable to discern any moral wrong in wantonly drilling a hole through the painted hide of a Pawnee. The system of extermination seems practically inseparable from the aggrandisement of American territory at Indian expense. When Mexicans are to be ejected, the process is more humane, or at least less cold-blooded and revolting in its circumstances. But, although the barbarity diminishes, the injustice is as great. By American annexators and propagandists, respect of property may be set down as an Old World prejudice; still it is one by which we are contented to abide; and we cannot see the right of any one to turn a man out of his house because he does not keep it in repair and occupy all the rooms, or to pick a quarrel with him as a pretext for appropriating a choice slice of his garden. A considerable portion of the people of the United States are evidently convinced that they are the instruments of Providence in the civilisation and population of the New World, and look forward to the time as by no means remote when their descendants and form of government shall spread south and north, to the exclusion of British rule and Spanish-American republics, from Greenland to Panama.