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1858
62
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON,
suburbs and the streets remote from business that these out- rages are perpetrated. Washington city is not a commercial place, and the men who resort here are not of the character of thrift and enterprise that are to be found in other cities. They are drawn here by various influences and circumstances. They are generally employees-certainly a large portion of them-of the Government; and they have not the means of contributing in the same proportion that the same number of inhabitants, if business men, would have. I grant you that they are not able to furnish a police, and make the improvements necessary not only to the general comforts of a city on so extended a scale; but it is very important that the members of Congress and the officers of the Government who resort here should have conveni- ences, some of which have been stated, as water supplies and other things necessary. The citizens cannot incur this expense. I do not think the citizens here ought to be reproached because they have needed wood for the comfort of the poor in winter, in extremely bad weather, when visitations of Providence have come upon the country. It seems to me that we ought to have some sympathy with the people of this District; and if we, from our connection with the Government, are more fortunate than they are, it ought not to exclude them from a certain degree of consideration and sympathy on our part. It reminds me of a circumstance that took place when I was talking to a tribe of poor Indians, at Austin, in Texas. They were Lipans, or Muscalero Indians. They were charged \.Vith pilfering, robbing occasionally, and I was remonstrating against it, and inculcating the necessity or propriety for their own indi- vidual benefit, that they should assume a local habitation and a name. They were wandering, like Arabs, from place to place, encamping at different points. When game became scarce they abandoned their old encampment and went to another. They considered that it was necessary to remove in this way, and objected to having a local habitation. They said that when their deity was angry with them and called some person from among them, it was not good to stay there any longer lest some other person should die. They thought the best plan was to keep mov- ing. I showed them, as I thought very conclusively, that the comforts of their wives and children would be greatly improved if they would build little huts and have spaces of ground enough around them for cultivation, where they could have domestic animals, and if game was scarce they would have the means of subsistence. After one of them had reflected for some length
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