These people had discernment enough to see that such an enormous amount of soldiers and police as their list presented them would not be kept in pay if they were not necessary. And they naturally put the question at once--"What state would the country be in if the military and police were all taken away?" They had been brought to the zenith of civilization that they might see and admire it in its best form; but the world who read will see with me that they were close critics, and _agree_ with me, I think, that it is almost a pity they should be the teachers of such statistics as they are to teach to thousands yet to be taught in the wilderness. As I have shown in a former part of this work, I have long since been opposed to parties of Indians being brought to this country, believing that civilization should be a gradual thing, rather than open the eyes of these ignorant people to all its mysteries at a glance, when the mass of its poverty and vices alarms them, and its luxuries and virtues are at a discouraging distance--beyond the reach of their attainment.
Daniel was at this time cutting a slip from the 'Times,' which he read to Jim; and it was decided at once to be an admissible and highly interesting entry to make, and to go by the side of his former estimates of the manufacture and consumption of _chickabobboo_. The article ran thus:--"The consumption of ardent spirits in Great Britain and Ireland in the last year was 29,200,000 gallons, and the Poor Law Commissioners estimate the money annually spent in ardent spirits at 24,000,000_l._ (120,000,000 dollars); and it is calculated that 50,000 drunkards die yearly in England and Ireland, and that one-half of the insanity, two-thirds of the pauperism, and three-fourths of the crimes of the land are the consequences of drunkenness."
This, Jim said, was one of the best things he had got down in his book, because he said that the _black-coats_ were always talking so much about the Indians getting drunk, that it would be a good thing for him to have to show; and he said he thought he should be able, when they were about to go home, to get _Chippehola_[36] to write by the side of it that fourteen Ioways were one year in England and never drank any of this _fire-water_, and were never drunk in that time.