134 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



to divide facts actually observed from creations of fancy. 

 But Mr. Catlin must not be held responsible for illogical 

 deductions even from his facts. I know not how Mr. Allen 

 arrived at his conclusion, but I do know that pictographs 

 in profile are found among very many, if not all the tribes 

 of North America. 



Now, for another example. Peschel, in " The Races of 

 Man " (page 151), says : 



The transatlantic history of Spain has no case comparable in iniquity to 

 the act of the Portuguese in Brazil, who deposited the clothes of scarlet 

 fever or small-pox patients on the hunting grounds of the natives, in order 

 to spread the pestilence among them ; and of the North Americans, who 

 used strychnine to poison the wells which the Eedskins were in the habit 

 of visiting in the deserts of Utah ; of the wives of Australian settlers, who, 

 in times of famine*, mixed arsenic with the meal which they gave to starv- 

 ing natives. 



In a foot note on the same page, Burton is given as au- 

 thority for the statement that the people of the United 

 States poisoned the wells of the redskins. 



Referring to Burton, in " The City of the Saints " (page 

 474), we find him saying : 



The Yuta claim, like the Shoshonee, descent from an ancient people that 

 immigrated into their present seats from the northwest. During the last 

 thirty years they have considerably decreased according to the mountaineers, 

 and have been demoralized mentally and physically by the emigrants ; for- 

 merly they were friendly, now they are often at war with the intruders. 

 As in Australia, arsenic and corrosive sublimate in springs and provisions 

 have diminished their number. 



Now, why did Burton make this statement? In the 

 same volume he describes the Mountain Meadow massacre, 

 and gives the story as related by the actors therein. It is 

 well known that the men who were engaged in this affair 

 tried to shield themselves by diligently publishing that it 

 was a massacre by Indians incensed at the travelers because 

 they had poisoned certain springs at which the Indians were 

 wont to obtain their supplies of water. When Mr. Burton 

 was in Salt Lake City he doubtless heard, these stories. 



So the falsehoods of a murderer, told to hide his crime, 



