The month of November was not without some incidents of interest.  From the first to the fifteenth, a number of Indian families applied for food, under circumstances speaking loudly in their favor.  The misfortune is, that these poor creatures are induced to part with everything for the means of gratifying their passion for drink, and then lingering around the settlements as long as charity offers to supply their daily wants.  The usual term of application for this class is, Kittemaugizzi, or Nim bukkudda, I am in want, or I am hungry.  By making my office a study, I am always found in the place of public duty, and the latter is only, in fact, a temporary relief from literary labor.  I have often been asked how I support solitude in the wilderness.  Here is the answer:  the wilderness and the busy city are alike to him who derives his amusements from mental employment.

Nov. 7th.  The Indian Cause.—­In a letter of this date from Mr. J.D.  Stevens, of the Mission of Michilimackinac, he suggests a colony to be formed at some point in the Chippeway country of Lake Superior, and inquires whether government will not patronize such an effort to reclaim this stock.  The Indian is, in every view, entitled to sympathy.  The misfortune with the race is, that, seated on the skirts of the domain of a popular government, they have no vote to give.  They are politically a nonentity.  The moral and benevolent powers of our system are with the people.  Government has nothing to do with them.  The whole Indian race is not, in the political scales, worth one white man’s vote.  Here is the difficulty in any benevolent scheme.  If the Indian were raised to the right of giving his suffrage, a plenty of politicians, on the frontiers, would enter into plans to better him.  Now the subject drags along as an incubus on Congress.  Legislation for them is only taken up on a pinch.  It is a mere expedient to get along with the subject; it is taken up unwillingly, and dropped in a hurry.  This is the Indian system.  Nobody knows really what to do, and those who have more information are deemed to be a little moon-struck.

18th.  ESTIMATION OF MR. JOHNSTON.—­Gov.  Cass writes from Washington:  “Mr. Johnston’s death is an event I sincerely deplore, and one upon which I tender my condolements to the family.  He was really no common man.  To preserve the manners of a perfect gentleman, and the intelligence and information of a well-educated man, in the dreary wastes around him, and in his seclusion from all society but that of his own family, required a vigor and elasticity of mind rarely to be found.”

NEW INDIAN CODE.—­The loose and fragmentary character of the Indian code has, at length, arrested attention at Washington, and led to some attempts to consolidate it.  A correspondent writes (Nov. 18th):  “Gen. Clarke has not yet arrived, but is expected daily.  In the meantime, I have prepared an analysis of the subject, which has been approved by the department, and, on the arrival of Gen. Clarke, we shall be prepared to proceed to the compilation of our code, which, I do hope, will put things in a better situation for all.”