The Silver State

THE BLACK HILLS JOB.
To-day's dispatches indicate that the investigation of Indian affairs will develop some illegal movements in regard to the Black Hills. The history of the gold discoveries in that section show that there was a ring connected with it, whose purpose was to have the Government purchase the country from the Indians while the excitement created by the reported discovery of gold by Custer's command was at its height and before the real truth was known in regard to it. It was singular, to say the least, that an army should be sent in a country reserved for the Indians, to prospect its mines and give glowing accounts of their richness, and that citizens should be prohibited from visiting it and satisfying themselves as to the correctness of these reports. There was evidently a "big job" in the Black Hills excitement, and there are some hopes that investigation will show who were to profit by the purchase, and what object the Government had in creating the excitement, by circulating reports of its fabulous wealth, and preventing the people from ascertaining, by actual experience, their truth or falsity.