The whole number of Indians in the United States and Territories, according to the very careful and systematic census contained in the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1875, was 279,333, exclusive of those in Alaska. It is not a very large number; the population of the city of New York exceeds it nearly fourfold. The Indian Bureau classifies these people under four heads: I. 98,108 Indians who “are wild and scarcely tractable to any extent beyond that of coming near enough to the government agent to receive rations and blankets.” II. 52,113 Indians “who are thoroughly convinced of the necessity of labor, and are actually undertaking it, and with more or less readiness accept the direction and assistance of government agents to this end.” III. 115,385 Indians “who have come into possession of allotted lands and other property in stock and implements belonging to a landed estate.” IV. 13,727 Indians who are described as “roamers and vagrants,” and of whom the commissioner, the Hon. Edward P. Smith, speaks in the following Christian and statesman-like language: “They are generally as harmless as vagrants and vagabonds can be in a civilized country. They are found in all stages of degradation produced by licentiousness, intemperance, idleness, and poverty. Without land, unwilling to leave their haunts for a homestead upon a reservation, and scarcely in any way related to, or recognized by, the government, they drag out a miserable life. Themselves corrupted and the source of corruption, they seem to serve by their continued existence but a single useful purpose—that of affording a living illustration of the tendency and effect of barbarism allowed to expand itself uncured,”