444 HYBKIBITY AND ABSORPTION 



escape the eye of a common observer. Traces of Indian descent may 

 be recognized among ladies of attractive refinement and intelligence, 

 and witli certain mental as well as physical traits which add to the 

 charm of their society. Similar indications of the blood of the 

 aborigines are familiar to Canadians in the gay assemblies of a 

 Governor-General's receptions, in the halls of Legislature, in the 

 diocesan synods, and other ecclesiastical assemblies, and amongst the 

 undergraduates of Canadian Universities. 



o 



But the condition of men and women of mixed blood, admitted to 

 all the privileges of citizenship, and mingling in pei-fect equality with 

 all other members of the community, is in striking contrast to that 

 of the occupants of the Indian reserves, where they are settled, for 

 the most part in isolated bands, in the midst of a progressive White 

 population. Such a condition is manifestly an unfavourable one, and 

 one, moreover, which cannot be regarded as other than transitional. 

 They are confessedly dealt with as wards, in a state of pupilage. 



Little bands of Indians, ranging fi-om sixty or seventy to three or 

 four hundred, and only in five cases exceeding a thousand, are thus 

 settled in widely-scattered localities, frequently with considerable 

 portions of the reserve lying unproductive, in the midst of good farm- 

 ing districts. It has become a subject for serious consideration how 

 far it is either wise in the general interests of the country, or 

 beneficial to the Indians themselves, to aim at perpetuating such 

 settlements of aborigines on a few thousand acres of reserve, ignorant 

 of the language of the community rapidly growing up around them, 

 and retained in a state of pupilage from which there is no emanci- 

 pation. Their land's are administered by officei-s of the Indian De- 

 partment as trustees for the whole; they may use the land under 

 certain conditions for farming, firewood, etc., but they cannot acquire 

 personal possession. Moneys obtained for portions of the reserve 

 which may be sold are in like manner held in trust, and tlie annual 

 income divided among them, or otherwise expended on their belioof. 

 But in all this they have no voice. Their own industry has contri- 

 buted in no degree to produce the resoui-ces thus shared by them 

 They are as nearly as possible in the condition of minors, 



A growing sense of the necessity for some modification of this 

 system has been felt for a considerable time ; and in 1867 "An Act 

 to Encourage the Gradual Civilization of the Indian Tribes," received 

 the Koyal Assent. This Act avowedly aims at the "gradual 



