The general election in November was limited to the choice of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Judges of District Courts, and two Regents of the State University.

The Democrats held their State Convention at Lincoln on September 10th. The nominations made were as follows: For Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Eleazar Wakely; for Regents of the State University, Andrew J. Sawyer and Alexander J. Bear; for Judges of the District Courts: First District, Warren P. Conner; Third District, James W. Savage; Fourth District, William H. Munger; Sixth District, James W. Crawford. For the Second and Fifth Judicial Districts no nominations were made. The following platform was adopted:

The Democratic party of Nebraska, in convention assembled, reposing its trust in the intelligence, patriotism, and discriminating justice of the people, and standing upon the Constitution with all the amendments thereto on the foundation and limitation of all the powers of government and the guarantee of the liberties of the citizens, do resolve:

1. That we reaffirm all the old time-honored principles of the party, and take no steps backward.

2. That we deprecate the action of Republicans in making treaties with the various tribes of Indians, and then violating the same, and driving them from the lands conveyed to them, and thereby turning loose upon our frontier organized bands of outraged savages, seeking revenge on our inhabitants for the wrongs perpetrated upon them by Republican administrations. 3. The Democratic party maintains, as it has ever maintained, that the military is and ought to be in strict subordination to the civil power in all things. It denies, as it ever has denied, the right of the Federal Administration to keep on foot at the general expense a standing army to invade the States for political purposes, to control the people at the polls, to protect and encourage a fraudulent count of votes, or to fraudulently under the form of law inaugurate a candidate who has been defeated at the polls by a lawful majority both of the people and the Electoral College as provided by the Constitution.

4. That the right of free ballot is the great right of the American people, the right preservative of all other rights the only means of redressing grievances and reforming abuses. The presence of the military at the polls, and of a host of hireling officials claiming the power to arrest and imprison voters without warrant or hearing, destroys all freedom of election and overturns the very foundation of self-government. We call upon all good citizens to aid us in preserving our institutions from destruction by these imperious methods of supervising the right of suffrage and coercing the popular will, and in keeping the way to the ballotbox open and free as it was to our fathers.

5. We demand the strictest economy in the management of the affairs of government, national, State, and county. We arraign the Republican party of the State for its extravagance in the management of the affairs of the State; for wasteful and corrupt appropriations of the public funds of the State, whereby certain partisans have been enriched at the expense of the tax-paying public of the State. We demand that the system of abuse and misappropriation of the public funds should cease, and we call upon all good citizens, without regard to former party affiliations, to aid us in hurling from power the party that have so long abused the trust reposed in them.

The Republicans held their State Convention at Omaha on October 1st, and nominated the following ticket: For Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Amasa Cobb; for Regents of

the State University, Joseph W. Gannett and John L. Carson; for Judges of the six District Courts: First District, Andrew J. Weaver; Second District, S. B. Pound; Third District, Charles A. Baldwin; Fourth District, George W. Post; Fifth District, William Gaslin, Jr.; Sixth District, John B. Barnes. The platform adotped was as follows:

We, the Republicans of the State of Nebraska, again renew our pledges of fidelity to the principles of freedom and right for which we have ever contended; and now in convention assembled it is resolved:

1. These United States are a nation, and not simply a league of States.

2. We watch with apprehension the arrogance and treasonable utterances of the rebel brigadiers now in Congress, as a threatening danger to this nation. And, further, the Republican party of Nebraska proclaim that we have no concessions to make to unrepentant rebels; that we still adhere to the principles for which our brave soldiers have fought.

3. That we again offer the principle of freedom of the ballot-box, and demand at the hands of the Executive of this nation protection for the voters of the South, such as is accorded to all political parties in the North.

4. As the same issues are again being presented for decision at the ballot-box for which our armies contended so long and faithfully, with confidence we call upon the soldiers to vote as they fought, for the preservation of the life and purity of the Government.

5. That we welcome with much pleasure the signs of returning prosperity, as evinced by the increased activity of every department of industry, the general revival of manufacturing interests, and the additional confidence exhibited by all departments of business.

6. That we congratulate the country upon the suecessful resumption of specie payments, ever pledging the support of the Republicans of Nebraska to all efforts of the Republican party in the nation's counsels to protect the credit of the nation, and make the promises as good as gold.

7. That we demand at the hands of all Republican officials the utmost economy in the administration of all affairs of the Government; and that we pledge ourselves as a party to a careful supervision of the expenditures in all the departments of our State.

8. That we as Republicans of the State of Nebraska welcome back to the shores of America the champion of our Union, the protector of our nation's honor, and the hero of the great rebellion-General Ulysses Grant.

The election resulted in the choice by the Republicans of the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, the two Regents of the State University, and five out of the six Judges of the District Courts. The aggregate number of votes polled by all parties in Nebraska at this election was 84,514; and the highest number cast by the adherents to either party was for one of the two Regents of the State University, as follows: Republicans, 46,376; Democrata, 23,127; Greenbackers, 5,011.

in the State is estimated at about $80,000,000. The whole amount of the taxable property The collection of State taxes for two years will produce, under existing laws, $360,000 for 1879, at four mills on the dollar, and $120,000 for 1880, at two mills. To meet the current and incidental expenses of all the departments of the State government for the said two years, including $122,200 for the erection of public buildings and $112,625.33 for the payment

of claims, the Legislature appropriated the aggregate sum of $760,619.33, or $280,629.39 more than the amount to be raised by taxation during the same two years.

Among the appropriations for educational purposes and the support of charitable institutions are the following: For the State University, $50,000; State Normal School, $25,800; State Hospital for the Insane, $67,700; Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, $11,280; Institute for the Blind, $15,000; State Reform School, $10,000.

The Hospital for the Insane is located about three miles from Lincoln. The average number of patients in the institution for the year ending November 30, 1878, was 111; and the whole number treated during that year was

182.

In the Deaf and Dumb Asylum at Omaha, the pupils under instruction at the end of the year 1879 numbered 64, 12 more than in the preceding year. Of the boys, 8 are learning the art of printing and 12 the carpenter's trade. In the female department, 22 girls receive instruction in needlework.

The Nebraska State Prison, situated about the same distance from Lincoln as the Hospital for the Insane, in a different direction, is under excellent management in all respects. The prisoners are kept steadily employed in manual work of various kinds, their labor being under contract for a long term, and the contractor personally superintending the convicts at work in the prison. He furnishes them with clothing and supplies, and pays all the current expenses of the prison, and a stipulated yearly sum to the State for each prisoner. This method seems to have been found of mutual advantage to the State and the contractor. By act of the Legislature, the contract for the convicts' labor has been renewed for ten years, till 1889. During the year 1879 the number of convicts in the penitentiary was gradually increasing. On March 15th it was 207; at the end of November, 266; and on Christmas day, 271. Of the 207 confined there in March, 145 were residents of the State of Nebraska, and 50 of Wyoming Territory; 7 were United States prisoners, and 5 were county prisoners, detained in the penitentiary for safe-keeping. The classes of gravest crimes for which they had been respectively sentenced, and their proportional numbers, were as follows: Murder, 25; manslaughter, 3; malicious cutting, 6; arson, 2; grand larceny, 43; burglary, 18; robbery, 6; horse-stealing, 23.

The grain-crops in Nebraska for 1879 were plentiful and of fine quality. In many counties north and south of Platte River, out to the Republican Valley, the yield for the several crops in bushels per acre ranged as follows: Wheat, 12 to 18; oats, 30, 40, 45, and 50; barley, 25, 30, and 40. The crop of corn, which had been very extensively planted, appears to have been better than that of other grain; the average being 40, 50, and 60 bushels per acre,

according to localities. In Otoe County alone there were 110,000 acres planted, the average yield being reckoned at 60 bushels per acre; and the same was the case with Hall County.

Nebraska seems to be more subject to devastation from grasshoppers than some other Western States. Active measures have been taken to exterminate them. The Legislature has authorized road supervisors throughout the State to order out all voters in their respective precincts to do twelve days' work each in killing grasshoppers, for which each person is to be paid at the rate of two dollars a day in county warrants. Grasshopper clubs, so called, have also been organized everywhere in the State for their destruction.

The cattle-drives which pass through the State are a growing source of material prosperiy. The drive of 1879 from Texas and the southwestern ranges is reckoned at 250,000 head, and that from Montana and Oregon at 100,000. Kansas used to be the northern limit of the drive, which gave to Kansas City a considerable advantage as a market. For several years before 1879 the proportion of the stock remaining in Kansas has been steadily diminishing, while that remaining in Nebraska and Wyoming has been increasing. The great rendezvous of cattle-drovers, which formerly ended at Abilene on the Kansas Pacific road, is now to be found at Ogallala on the Union Pacific road in Nebraska, which point, it is predicted, will soon become the greatest stock thoroughfare on the

continent.

The internal revenue collections for Nebraska during the year 1879 amounted to $980,105.52, of which sum the Willow Springs distillery at Omaha paid nine tenths.

The most noteworthy event of the year 1879 in Nebraska relates to the writ of habeas corpus issued in behalf of Indians by the Judge of the United States District Court for Nebraska, and by him decided in their favor against the United States Government. It was the first case of that kind ever brought before a judicial tribunal in this country. The Ponca Indians, a peaceful tribe and most friendly to the white man, said also to be to a great extent civilized in their habits, and Christianized, were in the possession and occupancy of their own domain in southern Dakota, when, by a treaty dated March 12, 1858, they ceded to the United States Government all of their lands, excepting a certain tract whose limits are accurately described in the treaty, which they reserved for their own use and the permanent place of their homes. In consideration of this cession the United States Government agreed "to protect the Poncas in the possession of the tract of land reserved for their future homes, and their persons and property thereon, during good behavior on their part.' Annuities were to be paid them for thirty years, houses to be built, schools to be established, and other things were to be done for

them by the Government, in consideration of the cession. On this reserved tract the Poncas were peaceably living three years ago, when the United States Government determined to remove them to a place eleven hundred miles distant in the Indian Territory. In the gen eral Indian appropriation bill passed by Congress on August 15, 1876, there is a provision authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to use $25,000 for the removal of the Poncas to the Indian Territory, and providing them a home therein, with the consent of the tribe. This consent they persistently refused to give; whereupon the Government removed them from their homes by force, and, under guard of United States troops, they were transported to the Indian Territory. During the long march a great number of the Poncas died, and were buried along the route. The new place also proved so malarious and unhealthy that out of 581 Indians whom the Government had taken away from their reservation in Dakota, 158 died within about a year, i. e., at the rate of one in every three and a half. A large proportion of the survivors also were sick and disabled. It was probably on account of this unexampled mortality that in 1878 the Government took measures to remove the Poncas from that place and locate them elsewhere; as in the Indian appropriation bill passed by Congress on May 27, 1878, a provision authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to expend the sum of $30,000 for the purpose of removing and locating the Ponca Indians on a new reservation near the Kaw River. This second reservation is said to be no less unhealthy than the first. Under these circumstances one of the Ponca chiefs, Standing Bear by name, "to save himself and the survivors of his family, and the remnant of his little band of followers, determined to leave the Indian Territory and return to his old home in Dakota, where he might live and die in peace and be buried with his fathers." He informed the agent of their fixed purpose to leave, never to return, and that he and his followers had finally, fully, and for ever severed his and their connection with the Ponca tribe of Indians, and resolved to cut loose from the Government, go to work, become self-sustaining, and adopt the habits and customs of a higher civilization. In execution of this determination, Standing Bear with his family and followers left the reservation in the Indian Territory at the beginning of January, 1879, and, after sixty days' travel across strange lands for fifteen hundred miles in midwinter, reached the reservation of the Omaha Indians in Nebraska. The Omahas, who speak the same language and have been long connected with the Poncas by intermarriage, welcomed the wayfarers and bade them remain, offering them land at their choice to cultivate for their support. While thus staying at the Omaha reservation, Standing Bear and his followers were arrested by BrigadierGeneral Crook, commander of the military department of the Platte, and detained under his

charge, for the purpose of being taken back to the reservation in the Indian Territory, which they were alleged to have left without permission of the Government. General Crook acted in this matter upon express orders issued to him by his superior officer, the General of the Army, at the request of the Secretary of the Interior.

On April 8, 1879, when these prisoners were on the point of being marched back to the reservation in the Indian Territory, Mr. H. Tibbles, assistant editor of the "Omaha Herald," applied to the Judge of the United States District Court, then in session at Lincoln, for a writ of habeas corpus in their behalf, to be served on General Crook. The writ was issued the same day, and made returnable on the 18th. It was duly returned, and an answer filed by General Crook as respondent, stating the authority on which he acted in the arrest and detention of the relators. The case was argued on the first two days of May, G. M. Lambertson, United States District Attorney, appearing for the Government, and A. J. Poppleton and Jonathan L. Webster, two eminent lawyers of Omaha, for the prisoners, whose defense they assumed gratuitously. The main point in question before the Court was not the justice or injustice of the treatment met with by these Indians at the hand of the United States Government concerning their forcible removal from their lands in Dakota to the Indian Territory, but whether the United States District Court had the power to issue the writ of habeas corpus in behalf of the prisoners, and hear and determine the case made therein. The District Attorney maintained the negative on the grounds, among others, that an Indian can not appear in Court, is not entitled to the writ of habeas corpus, and is not a citizen, and that Indian tribes are not independent, but dependent communities. The prisoners' counsel showed, on the contrary, that the petition of their clients, besides being just, was perfectly legal; that, whether they were considered as still belonging to the Ponca tribe of Indians, an independent community, or as Indians individually, severed from all former connection with that tribe, as they claimed to be, they were legally entitled to the writ of habeas corpus, and the Court had the inherent power both to issue such writ and hear and determine the case made therein. They showed also that the Omaha Indians had a perfect right to give the relators part of the land in their reservation, it being their own, as they could give it to an alien coming to them from any nation or government on earth; the United States Government having no legal power to interfere with either. After the argument had been closed on the second day of the hearing, Standing Bear, by an express permission of the Judge, personally addressed the Court in s short speech, stating in plain terms some of the hardships and the mortality of his tribe and family since their compulsory removal from

The army of the Netherlands in Europe in 1879 consisted of 2,039 officers and 61,486 men; the East Indian army numbered 1,458 officers and 38,905 men.

The navy on July 1, 1879, consisted of 100 steamers, with 398 guns, and 14 sailing vessels, with 102 guns; total, 114 vessels, with 500 guns.

The merchant navy on January 1, 1879, consisted of 1,100 sailing vessels, of 806,279 metric tons, and 79 steamers, of 160,114 metric tons; total, 1,179 vessels, of 966,393 metric tons.

The aggregate length of railroads in operation on January 1, 1879, was 1,967 kilometres

(1 kilometre = 0.62 English mile), of which 1,089 were state railroads.

The aggregate length of the state telegraph lines on January 1, 1878, was 3,519 kilometres; aggregate length of wires, 12,882 kilometres; number of offices, 346; number of telegrams carried in 1878, 2,452,725; revenue, 791,000 florins; expenditures, 1,181,160 florins.

The number of post-offices in 1878 was 1,299. The number of inland letters was 40,704,846; of foreign letters, 11,698,212; of postal cards, 12,672,744; and of newspapers, etc., 82,797,742. The movement of shipping in 1878 was as follows:

COUNTRIES.

Great Britain..

Zollverein.....

known. The foreign population was as follows in 1876: Europeans, 54,280; Chinese, 319,137; Arabians, 14,983; Hindoos and others, 9,853. In America, Surinam, or Dutch Guiana, had in 1877 a population of 68,531; and the island of Curaçao, 41,870.

The budget estimates of the Dutch colonies for the year 1879 were as follows:

7,014,000

7,828,000

West Indies...

640,025 272,129

The commerce of the East Indian colonies in 1876 was as follows: Imports, 121,511,000 florins; exports, 213,519,000. The movement of shipping in the East Indian ports in 1876 was as follows: Entered, 7,363 vessels, of 1,529,458 tons; cleared, 7,550 vessels, of 1,596,083 tons. The commercial navy in the same year consisted of 1,384 vessels, of 130,266 tons. Java had 371 kilometres of railroad in 1879. The length of telegraph wires in operation on Java and Sumatra in 1877 was 6,953 kilome The total tres, and of lines 5,654 kilometres. number of dispatches sent in 1877 was 860,322; number of stations, 67. The number of letters sent through the East Indian mails was 3,550,401; number of papers, etc., sent to the different islands, 1,777,389; weight of the papers sent abroad, 48,784 kilogrammes (1 kilogramme 2.2 pounds); number of postal cards sold, 295,263.

=

M. de Roc van Andewerelt, the Minister of War, died on December 30, 1878, and in February, 1879, Lieutenant-Colonel den Beer Poortugael was appointed in his place. M. van Bosse, Minister of the Colonies, who died on February 21st, was replaced in March by Otto van Rees, the former President of the Council

Revenue.

1,28-1,600 867,896

1,682,28

447,698