Slaves under the Stars and Stripes.
The following, in a despatch from Washington, D. C., August 20, to the San Francisco Examiner, is said to be an excerpt from the report to the war department by Major O. T. Sweet, now in the Philippines:— Whenever a question relating to slaves comes up before me, I simply make the owners prove their slaves beyond doubt, in which case I have nothing to do with them; but in case I can pick a flaw in their title, I give the alleged slaves freedom papers. Thousands of Moros are held as slaves who are by right free people. Surely the Constitution does not follow the flag, when an agent of the United States Government recognizes in United States possessions the titles of ownership in slaves, when men and women are held as mere chattels. It is also stated that in the islands of Mindanao and Jolo there is an infamous traffic in children. The people are improvident, and famine forces them, so they think, to dispose of their children. These things, recognized in the colonies, will ere long be recognized in the homeland. So went that other great republic, Rome. This nation is following the same path.