Note 17 — Chapter III · ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS.

This Act wisely does not establish a full-fledged form of territorial government in Alaska, because the lack of a suitable population to maintain it reputably was conclusively shown by the census returns of 1880: it creates an executive and a judiciary; it extends certain laws of the United States relating to crimes, customs, and mining, over Alaska, and provides for their enforcement. The land laws of the United States should also be made operative in Alaska, they are expressly omitted in the present act.