lives
and property of citizens upon the frontier are to be at all regarded by
the Government. Their continued restraint at a distance from the scene
of their repeated and cruel murders and outrages is still necessary.
It is a mistaken philanthropy, every way injurious, which prompts the
desire to see these savages returned to their old haunts. They are in
their present location as the result of the best judgment of those
having official responsibility in the matter, and who are by no means
lacking in kind consideration for the Indians. A number of these
prisoners have forfeited their lives to outraged law and humanity.
Experience has proved that they are dangerous and can not be trusted.
This is true not only of those who on the warpath have heretofore
actually been guilty of atrocious murder, but of their kindred and
friends, who, while they remained upon their reservation, furnished aid
and comfort to those absent with bloody intent.

These prisoners should be treated kindly and kept in restraint far from
the locality of their former reservation; they should be subjected to
efforts calculated to lead to their improvement and the softening of
their savage and cruel instincts, but their return to their old home
should be persistently resisted.

The Secretary in his report gives a graphic history of these Indians,
and recites with painful vividness their bloody deeds and the unhappy
failure of the Government to manage them by peaceful means. It will be
amazing if a perusal of this history will allow the survival of a desire
for the return of these prisoners to their reservation upon sentimental
or any other grounds.

The report of the Secretary of the Navy demonstrates very intelligent
management in that important Department, and discloses the most
satisfactory progress in the work of reconstructing the Navy made during
the past year. Of the ships in course of construction five, viz. the
_Charleston_, _Baltimore_, _Yorktown_, _Vesuvius_, and the _Petrel_,
have in that time been launched and are rapidly approaching completion;
and in addition to the above, the _Philadelphia_, the _San Francisco_, the
_Newark_, the _Bennington_, the _Concord_, and the Herreshoff torpedo
boat are all under contract for delivery to the Department during the
next year. The progress already made and being made gives good ground
for the expectation that these eleven vessels will be incorporated as
part of the American Navy within the next t