"Do the above data of forty-two years prove his assertion, that 'the
fur trade, by which old profits were made, is a peculiar trade, tending
to disappear' or do they prove the reverse? The value or price of
furs has steadily advanced also.
"Again: 'The hunters in the Hudson's Bay Company are as perishable a
race as the animals hunted.' Any trader knows this is false, except
in the sense that we are all perishable. Applied to the United States
Indians, it is true, from the cause assigned - rum - and worse causes -
the vices of civilization. The cost of transportation to any portion of
the Hudson's Bay territory heretofore has been so great that the rum
used there must, to be profitable, be the purest that can be
found, as there is water enough in Prince Rupert's Land with which to
dilute it: so that what the Indian gets will not hurt him. The rivers
in the United States (the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Yellowstone,
the Arkansas, the Platte, and others) easily and cheaply carry 'rot-
gut' and death to the United States Indian.
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