pie. Their appetite for ardent spirits is stronger thta
that of the whites — 6 wing in a great measure to their
manner of living, and especially to their diet. They
have also fewer and feebler inducements to coimteract
the propensity ; and by public opinion and fashion — •
as expressed in common practice, and in tne decla-
rations of tlie leading men — ^they are confirmed in the
evil quite as much as our citizens are restrained by
similar causes. Jiut worse than all, their ignoi;ance,
their indolence, and their poverty have made them
the prey of legions of civilized scoundrels, — partic-
ularly traders in peltry, — who have supposed them-
selves interested in making them as sordid and stupid
as possible, to induce tliem to hunt in the first instance,
and to rob them of their furs in the second.
