Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/161

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THE NEW HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY

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��chiefs at Washington, the distribution of gifts and the ratification of a new treaty. The policy of philanthropy, as it was called, consisted in furnishing the roving Indians with arms and ammunition, provisions, clothing and supplies, so that if they should go to war they could have an even chance, and if they remained at peace they would be in a condition of fat- ness and comfort to receive the amelior- ating influences of civilization. The Eastern philanthropists believed the In- dian could be Christianized; the men of the border said the only good Indian was a dead Indian. Both believed in Indian appropriations; the only thing that the borderer cared for was that the Indian should not get them."

" The present war will be brought to a triumphant conclusion by-and-by, of course. They always are. But there

��are simple-minded people all over the country who have no interest in any of the contracts by which the Indians are swindled and provoked to war, nor in any of the contracts for army supplies which grow out of Indian wars; who are begin- ning to tire of the monotony of this busi- ness, and to ask if it is not possible to determine the precise relations of the government to the Indians, and thus adopt a policy with regard to them which shall give us a rest from war. Would it be cruel, for instance, to refuse to furnish these lazy and vicious savages with arms and ammunition with which to fight us? The administration of President Hayes cannot more worthily distinguish itself than by the adoption of a just and wise Indian policy, which shall put an end to frauds in the service and wars on the border.

��TEE NEW EAMPSEIEE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY.

��BY REV. SILAS KETCHUM, PRESIDENT.

��In a former paper, I gave some account of the origin and design of the New Hampshire Antiquarian Society, the cau- ses and considerations which led to its formation, and a brief statement of the nature and extent of its collections. In the present I propose to exhibit :

I. The Library: including the charac- ter of the works collected or admitted ; the plan of their arrangement ; and the method of cataloguing or indexing the same, so as to render them accessible.

II. The work of the Historical Com- mittee and the manner of conducting it.

III. The wants of the Society as they relate to these departments.

I. The Library is omni generis, and consists of about 3300 volumes; 0700 pamphlets; 11,000 newspapers, in file or volumes ; 1900 manuscripts ; besides maps, broadsides and engravings, of which there are upwards of 800. In say- ing, however, that the library is of every kind, it is not implied that works moral- ly unfit would be admitted, or anything palpably worthless accepted. Neither is it implied that the library has no special- ty. On the contrary the Society makes a specialty of seveial classes of works, in-

��timately related to each other. (In enu- merating and describing these classes, however, it is not to be taken for granted that the Society has yet been able to se- cure any considerable number of volumes of any specified kind.) These are,

1. Works of local history; or histories of cities, towns, churches, parishes, so- cieties and institutions, wherever located ; but especially in New Hampshire.

2. Works of personal history: or au- tobiographies, biographies, pedigrees, genealogies, personal narratives, memo- rials and obituaries ; particularly of New Hampshire persons and families.

3. All documents, as journals, reports, addresses, election sermons, proclama- tions, surveys, commissions; printed bills and resolutions, emanating from, or relating to, the Legislature or the Exec- utive Departments of the Government of New Hampshire.

4. Catalogues and circulars of all schools, and reports, constitutions and by-laws of all institutions, societies, cor- porations, and associated bodies of what- ever kind or character within the state of New Hampshire.

5. All public and published address-

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