law all persons who might be found
chargeable with those offenses. A trial of one of these cases has since
occurred. It occupied for many weeks the attention of the supreme court
of this District and was conducted with great zeal and ability. It
resulted in a disagreement of the jury, but the cause has been again
placed upon the calendar and will shortly be retried. If any guilty
persons shall finally escape punishment for their offenses, it will
not be for lack of diligent and earnest efforts on the part of the
prosecution.

I trust that some agreement may be reached which will speedily enable
Congress, with the concurrence of the Executive, to afford the
commercial community the benefits of a national bankrupt law.

The report of the Secretary of the Interior, with its accompanying
documents, presents a full statement of the varied operations of that
Department. In respect to Indian affairs nothing has occurred which has
changed or seriously modified the views to which I devoted much space in
a former communication to Congress. I renew the recommendations therein
contained as to extending to the Indian the protection of the law,
allotting land in severalty to such as desire it, and making suitable
provision for the education of youth. Such provision, as the Secretary
forcibly maintains, will prove unavailing unless it is broad enough to
include all those who are able and willing to make use of it, and should
not solely relate to intellectual training, but also to instruction in
such manual labor and simple industrial arts as can be made practically
available.

Among other important subjects which are included within the Secretary's
report, and which will doubtless furnish occasion for Congressional
action, may be mentioned the neglect of the railroad companies to which
large grants of land were made by the acts of 1862 and 1864 to take
title thereto, and their consequent inequitable exemption from local
taxation.

No survey of our material condition can fail to suggest inquiries as to
the moral and intellectual progress of the people.

The census returns disclose an alarming state of illiteracy in certain
portions of the country, where the provision for schools is grossly
inadequate. It is a momentous question for the decision of Congress
whether immediate and substantial aid should not be extended by the
General Government for supplementing the efforts of private beneficence
and of State and Territorial legisla