the sole reason which I understand you to give for discountenanc I correct in this ? ing the collection of money for these suits. And are we to infer that it is on this ground and no other that you oppose the collection of money for this purpose ? Are we to understand that you would be in favor of the Poncas recovering their lands by process of law, provided it were practicable ?

You say, also, that you hope I will " concur " in your " recom mendation that the money collected for taking the Ponca case into the courts shall be devoted to the support and enlargement of our Indian schools." May I ask how it would be, in your opin ion, possible to take money given by thousands of people for one You specific purpose and use it for another different purpose ? " say, Had the friends of the Indians who are engaged in this work first consulted lawyers on the question of possibility, they would, no doubt, have come to the same conclusion." Had the friends of the Indians engaged in this work, and initiated this movement without having consulted lawyers, it would have been indeed foolish. But this was not the case. Lawyers of skill and standing were found ready to undertake the case; and the mat ter stands therefore to-day precisely as it stood when I wrote to you on the 17th instant. All the money which is thought to be needed for carrying the Ponca case before the courts can be raised in twenty-four hours in Boston, if you can say that you approve of the suits being brought. If your only objection to the move ment is the one objection which you have stated, namely, that it would be futile, can you not say that, if lawyers of standing are ready to undertake the case, you would be glad to see the at tempt made in the courts, and the question settled ? If it is, as you think, a futile effort, it will be shown to be so. If it is, as the friends and lawyers of the Poncas think, a practicable thing, a great wrong will be righted.

Am " to settle them (the Indians) in severalty, and say that them by patent an individual fee-simple in their lands," will give enable them to " hold their lands by the same title by which white men hold theirs," and that " then they will, as a matter of course, have the same standing in the courts and the same legal protec tion of their property." May I ask you if any bill has been brought before Congress which is so w orded as to secure these ends ? My only apology for troubling you again is my deep in terest in the Indians, and in the Ponca case especially. You

Yours truly, HELEN JACKSON.