THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL. NUMBER 6. SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1840. VOLUME I. [Illustration: THE RED MEN OF AMERICA.--FIRST ARTICLE.] It is a melancholy truth that this most interesting portion of the human race is rapidly disappearing from the surface of the earth. War, its murderous effects centupled by the destructive weapons acquired from the white man--disease in new and terrible forms, to the treatment of which their simple skill, and materia medica, equally simple, are wholly incompetent--famine, the consequence of their sadly changed habits, of the intemperance and wastefulness, substituted by the insidious arts of the trader for the moderation and foresight of their happier fathers--the vices, in short, and the encroachments of civilization, all and each in its turn are blotting out tribe after tribe from the records of humanity; and the time is fast approaching when no Red man will remain, to guard or to mourn over the tombs of his fathers. The conviction of this truth is become so deeply felt, that more than one effort has been made, and is making, to preserve some memento of this ill-treated people. We are not so much raising our own feeble voice in the service, as attempting a record of what others have done; but so much has been effected, and so zealous have been the exertions made to rescue the memory, at least, of these dying nations from oblivion, that the space we have assigned to this notice will be taken up long before our materials are exhausted. The accuracy of the facts and statements we shall lay before our readers may in every case be relied on. Among the most devoted and persevering explorers of the Red man’s territory, is one from whose authority, and indeed from whose very lips, in many instances, we derive a great portion of the circumstances we are about to describe--we allude to the celebrated George Catlin, whose abode of seven years among the least known of their tribes, and whose earnest enthusiasm in the task of inquiry which formed the sole object of his visit, together with his entire success in the pursuit, have constituted him the very first authority of the day. We have, besides, consulted all the writers on this now engrossing subject, but in most cases have afterwards taken the highly competent opinion just quoted, as to the accuracy of their descriptions--an opinion that has always been given with evident care and consideration.