xviii INTRODUCTION. 



of those of Great Britain, had been swept away by a 

 plague as great as that of Egypt. 



The citizens of the United States will better realise 

 this great waste, if they consider that this destruction 

 amounted annually to more than double the number of 

 the annual drives of cattle from Texas, which range from 

 350,000 to 500,000 head per annum ; or that it would 

 have been the same during the three years as if half the 

 cattle of Texas or all the cattle in Canada had been 

 carried off by some dire disease. 



The mere loss of food, however, is not the only evil 

 which has resulted from this wanton wastefulness. 

 Many of the wild Indians of the Plains, deprived of their 

 ordinary sustenance, Government rations not being forth- 

 coming, and driven to desperation by starvation, have 

 taken to the war path ; so that during the present war 

 many of the Cheyennes and Arrapahoes, and some of the 

 young braves from the friendly ' Eed Cloud ' and ' Spotted 

 Tail ' agencies have left their reservations, and joined the 

 hostile Sioux under ' Sitting Bull.' The hardy settler and 

 pioneer of the Plains who always looked to the buffalo for 

 his winter supply of meat, has been deprived of this re- 

 source, and complains most bitterly of this slaughter for 

 pelts. 



In 1873, when the settlers in Kansas were suffering 

 from the destruction of their crops by the ravages of the 

 grasshoppers, troops were considerately sent by the Go- 

 vernment to the Eepublicans to kill meat for the starving 

 families. When the soldiers arrived, however, at their 

 hunting-grounds, there was but little meat for them to 

 kill, as the ' buffalo skinners ' had anticipated them and 

 had slaughtered nearly every buffalo in the district. 



With the great economy endeavoured to be intro- 

 duced into each department of the Government of the 

 United States, it is difficult to understand how the Execu- 



