MODESTY AND EFFECTIVENESS
"The population of the Territories has doubled in ten years and the
strength of the Force has been reduced by half. Our detachments have
increased from 49 to 79." This was one of the striking and illuminating
statements made by Commissioner Perry in his Annual Report for 1901. The
Commissioner was looking around and ahead and did not intend that the
Government should be left ignorant of the rapid changes which were
taking place. The reduction of the Force was a tribute to the
extraordinary efficiency of its members in establishing peace and order
throughout a vast domain. But it is not fair or human "to ride a willing
horse to death," and with increased population and widening areas to
oversee, the strain being put upon the men in the corps was too great.
In even the organized portions of the Territories there was only an
average of one constable to every 500 square miles. It was highly
important that with half the population foreign born, alien to our laws,
unacquainted with our institutions and disposed to bring with them a
sort of a hatred of authority born of experience under old-world
despotisms, there should be present the educative and restraining
influence of an adequate number of the riders in scarlet and gold.
Without that influence the newly-found liberty of these European
immigrants would soon degenerate into licence. Those of us who recall
those critical formative days agree with the statement that the
constables took a large view of their duties and that their tact and
discretion led these strange people not only to obey the laws but to
look upon the Police as friends willing to aid and assist them in every
way.
The Commissioner therefore strongly urged not only the maintenance of a
sufficiently large force to meet the situation, but pressed for the
adoption of his particular policy to have a reserve of at least fifty
men always in training at headquarters who would be qualified for
detachment duty whenever occasion arose. He gives adequate reason for
this policy when he says, "The men on detached duty are in responsible
positions; they have to act on their own initiative, often on matters of
considerable public concern; their advice is sought by new settlers. To
carry out their important duties satisfactorily they must be well
trained, have experience, and be of good character. It is therefore
unwise, contrary to the interests of the public and the good reputation
of the force, to send on detached duty men who have not the proper
qualifications, necessary experience, and who have not yet established a
reputation for reliability and sobriety; in other words who have not
been tested and proved."
There was an old song, written perhaps in the days of the Peninsular
War, to attract men to sign up for service in the possible hope that
some one of them might be instrumental in putting the tyrant out of
commission:
"A raw recruit
Might chance to shoot
Great General Buonaparte."
But the Mounted Police Force was not built on those lines. Their
business was to keep avoidable shooting off the programme altogether
either by themselves or others, and to effect that desirable end they
must be self-controlled, disciplined and tactful men. In order to be of
that type every man must get thorough groundwork training in the depôt
division before he goes out with the possibility of being on detached
duty at any moment. Successful insistence on these points of policy was
one of Commissioner Perry's early achievements. It was in the best
interests of the country and the Force that such things should be
recognized by the authorities.
How necessary it was that the Police should be wise and at the same time
firm is evidenced that very year when Superintendent Charles Constantine
was in command at Fort Saskatchewan. Amongst the Rutherian or Galician
people there arose a religious controversy, and a religious controversy
is a hard thing for civil authority to tackle. But Constantine was a
very discreet officer. He saw how easily a serious conflict on the
subject might be precipitated amongst an excitable people. "Religion,"
writes Constantine, "is a very real thing to the Galician and on this
matter he feels very strongly." Constantine made special study of the
situation. There were three different branches of the church amongst
these people, the Roman and Greek Catholic and the Orthodox Russian or
Uniate Church, which was in creed and ritual a sort of half-way between
the other two. The Russian church people had put up a church building
near Star, but having no pastor of their own, they divided on which of
the two others, the Roman Catholic or the Greek Catholic priest, should
conduct services. The discussion became quite warm and threats of
violence were common. Constantine would not interfere as between the
controversialists, but he kept his eye on the situation and gave special
direction to certain of his men. Matters came to a climax on Easter
Sunday, when the two rival priests, each accompanied by some 200
followers, came to hold service in the church. Constantine knew of the
situation beforehand, and he had sent a sergeant and two constables,
prudent men, to see that there was no breach of the peace. Both parties
claimed the right to hold services in the church and neither would yield
nor would they hold a joint service. So the Police held the balance
level by locking the door and then asking the parties to go one to each
side of the church outside and hold their own services. This was done
and there was no ill-will. After the services they dispersed to their
homes and the danger passed. Constantine thought well of people who
could be earnest about religion and law-abiding. And he makes this
general remark about them: "On the whole my observation leads me to
believe that the Galician immigration has brought a very desirable class
of settler to the North-West and one which will in a short time be of
material assistance to the productiveness and prosperity of the
Dominion." And the record of these people during the years since this
wise officer wrote these words has amply borne out his opinion. In the
earlier years the excitable character of the Galicians, and the absence
of instruction in their old haunts as to rights of life and property,
led them into the commission of a good many offences against our laws,
but no alien race has been more anxious to become Canadian and
especially, amongst the young people who have grown up in this country,
we have met many who are a large asset to the Dominion. As a rule they
are industrious, and Constantine's vision of their future has become a
reality.
[Illustration: FORT SELKIRK, YUKON.]
[Illustration: ESQUIMAUX FAMILY.]
Up in the Yukon that year there were continued echoes of the famous
O'Brien murder case detailed in our preceding chapter, the leading note
being that the capture and execution of this desperate criminal had
attracted world-wide attention to the efficiency of the Police and had
made the Klondike country safer for everybody. For instance,
Superintendent A. E. Snyder, who took over the command at White Horse
from Superintendent Primrose, says, "I am very pleased to be able to
state that there were no very serious cases of crime during the year. I
am satisfied that it was not for want of material that we were indebted
for such a happy state of affairs, as among the class of people
continually on the move coming in and going out there are quite a few
that would be capable of attempting anything if they were certain of
escaping detection. I can only attribute the lack or comparative utter
absence of serious crime to the extreme watchfulness of our men which
renders it well nigh impossible for loose characters to engage in
doubtful enterprises and stay in the country. The (under the
circumstances) speedy and condign punishment meted out to O'Brien
elicited favourable comment from citizens generally irrespective of
nationality, the Americans especially commenting favourably on it and
contrasting it with their experience of similar incidents in mining
regions of the Western States." Referring to the same case Inspector
Starnes, then in charge at Dawson, says, "This case has cost the
Government a great deal of money, but I am sure it had a very salutary
effect on the bad element, as it has shown them that nothing will be
left undone and no expense will be spared to prevent crime and bring the
guilty ones to justice." Starnes has a reference to the verdict of a
coroner's jury in the case of one Dr. Bettinger which indicates that he
thinks the jury "played safe." It appears that the doctor had started
from Dawson for the coast on foot and that he was not clad well enough
for such a trek. When he did not turn up at points he ought to have
reached, Inspector McDonnell was put on the trail and all the detachment
men along the river took up the search. In a few days the body of the
unfortunate man was found seven miles off the Yukon trail up the White
River. Inspector Wroughton, who was out on an inspection trip, held an
inquest in order to have the body properly identified, so that any
matters connected with the estate might not be confused. And this jury
concluded that the body was that of Dr. Joseph Bettinger and that the
said Bettinger "came to his death from some cause or causes unknown to
the jury, but are of the opinion that death was caused by exposure
during extreme cold weather." The opinion of the jury was no doubt
correct, though they expressed it with proverbial caution.
Starnes refers with proper sarcasm to the cases in which people imagine
the Police ought to save them from the results of their own
carelessness. He says, "There have been a number of sluice box robberies
on some of the creeks, and we have been fortunate in securing one or two
convictions, but in many instances it was impossible to find the
thieves. This class of crime is one of the hardest to detect, owing to a
great number of miners leaving their sluice boxes unprotected when there
is a lot of gold in them, and another reason being that it is impossible
to identify gold dust. We may have our suspicions in many cases, and in
some feel sure of our man to a moral certainty, but it is almost
impossible to prove the guilt unless we catch the man in the act. The
distances being so great, it is out of the question for us to place
guards on every claim, and the miners who wish to keep their gold must
take proper precautions. It would be just as well for a farmer in the
East to leave ten dollar bank notes in his stable yard with no one to
watch them, as to leave gold in the sluice boxes the way some of the
miners do." Starnes here hits at the all too common assumption of people
who, with sense enough to be responsible for their acts, think that some
one else is under obligation in matters of health and property to save
them from the consequences of their own practices. And he delicately
suggests to the careless miners that they have missed the fact of
contributory negligence when they have thus led others into temptation.
These policemen were making a constant study of the unveneered humanity
on the frontier and developed a keen perception of right and wrong, and
had a rugged conviction that every one should get a square deal, but
should realize that he must bear his own burden of responsibility. A
fine instance of the Police opinion that men should get fair play is
found in the report of Inspector A. M. Jarvis, who in 1901 was in
command of the Dalton trail post in the Yukon country. He says, "The
Dalton trail, which is the pioneer route to the 'inside,' is much in
need of repairs. A vast area is tributary to this trail. From the Yukon
River to the 141st parallel and as far north as the White River the
Dalton trail is the main artery. Three years before the Klondike was
heard of, Mr. Dalton blazed his route into the interior, acting as guide
to the explorers into the country where he had done important work or
trading in furs. When the rush into the gold-fields took place, he spent
large sums in bridges and corduroy, especially between Dalton House and
Five Fingers, which, now that the Yukon has the monopoly in freight and
passengers, brings him no return. While the construction of this trail
was a business venture, yet it remains a benefit to the country, and is
of great value to the prospector. I should like to see Mr. Dalton
recompensed for his unprofitable outlay." What came of this suggestion
history does not record. The world is under immense obligation to
adventurers who have blazed new trails to hidden natural resources. But
the world is not always as fair as this Police Inspector in recognizing
its obligation.
In his report in 1902 Commissioner Perry, in view perhaps of comments
made by some who were ignorant of conditions, and such are occasionally
found in public bodies, frankly says that the expenditure on the Mounted
Police is large, but that when it is looked upon as a factor in the
peaceful settlement of a vast territory, such expenditure is a splendid
investment which will pay big dividends to the country for generations
in the form of a contented, happy and prosperous population. The
Commissioner's words are that "the benefits will be reaped by posterity
when the Force has disappeared and its work is forgotten." It is hard to
get these policemen to estimate their work highly enough. They have the
usual British reticence intensified by definite practise of it, and that
is why no man who has been a member of the Force will ever give a true
history of its achievements. He is afraid to give the Force its due lest
he should seem to be boastful when he records deeds that are stranger
than fiction. And so when the Commissioner speaks of the Force
disappearing and its work being forgotten we must enter a protest
against this being read except in the light of the well-known habit of
these men to keep religiously far away from the braggart spirit. The
Force has undergone changes and may ultimately disappear in so far as
the present form of organization is concerned, but those of us who have
known the country and the men all through the years affirm without
reservation that it can never be forgotten. The work of the corps has
been so indelibly stamped upon the history of Canada that the record can
never be erased as long as this country endures.
How, for instance, can any country forget a Force concerning one of
whose members this same Commissioner Perry, proud always of his men,
writes in the very next paragraph, "To one who is unacquainted with the
country it is difficult to convey any adequate idea of the labour
involved in policing such a vast region and carrying out the
multifarious duties imposed on us. As an instance of this I may mention
the work done by Corporal Field last winter. He is stationed at Fort
Chippewyan, Athabasca. He was informed that a man had gone violently
insane at Hay River, 350 miles from his post. He proceeded there with
dog train, accompanied by the interpreter only and brought the
unfortunate man, who was a raving maniac, back to Fort Chippewyan, and
thence escorted him to Fort Saskatchewan, travelling a distance of 1,300
miles with dogs and occupying forty-four days on the journey. This is
not an isolated instance. It represents the work of Inspector West and
his men in the Northern Country."
All this is written by the Commissioner with the most admirable and
characteristic police restraint. He gives the facts in outline and
leaves the rest to the imagination of those who know the country. He
says nothing about Corporal (later Inspector) Field having just come in
from a long patrol, tired and entitled to a rest, albeit he was a noted
trail-maker. Nor does he relate any details of the trip after the insane
unfortunate. But those who have travelled the broken plain can see much
between the lines of the simply worded report. We can see the vast white
expanse of snow and ice wind swept at times by the fierce blizzards out
of the north. We can see the return journey when the violent man would
have to be watched day and night and yet given liberty enough at times
to keep him from being chloroformed with the cold. A fine humane act was
this and one that could only be done by a man who embodied in himself
the coolness, courage and gentleness that form so splendid a
combination. This and countless deeds of a like kind ensure the Mounted
Police an enduring place in our Canadian temple of Fame.
It appears that there were always some people who believed that all they
had to do when any mishap occurred in their experience was to sit back
and get the Police to put things right. This was a tribute to the way in
which the Force had exercised paternal oversight in their districts. But
it was carrying things rather too far and forgetting that the best help
comes to those who help themselves. There was a good deal of
horse-stealing and horse-straying in progress in 1902 and when their
horse got out of sight some settlers imagined they were stolen when in
reality they had only strayed. These people thought the Police should
assume the task of securing the return of their herds and droves. This
calls a mild protest from Inspector J. O. Wilson, when at Regina. Wilson
says, "Settlers are still prone to report a horse stolen when it is
missing without making any special effort to find it themselves. There
is a case on record where a settler named Hansen, who for the past seven
years has lost horses, now expects the Police to find them for him. Much
time has been spent in fully investigating his complaints, but this
gentleman is not yet satisfied and has written to say that he considers
it the duty of the Police to hunt up lost horses." And then the
Inspector indicates the lines along which the efforts of the Force are
properly directed. "In connection with this," he says, "I beg to state
that when horses are reported lost, descriptions are forwarded to all
detachments and instructions issued that should they be seen or heard
the owners are to be notified. A large number of horses have been
returned to their owners in this way." But to leave their police duties
and hunt the stray horses of careless settlers was a little too much to
ask.
Up in the Yukon that year there were contrasting pictures of events in a
country that could always be counted on for happenings of interest.
There is a fine touch in a report from that tender-hearted officer, the
late Inspector Horrigan. Two gallant Police Constables, Campbell and
Heathcote, were drowned at the mouth of the Stickine River, where they
were crossing in an old boat as no other was at hand. Campbell's body
was not found, but Heathcote's was recovered and brought to the nearest
point, Wrangel, in the United States, for interment. "I am informed that
the funeral was one of the largest and most impressive ever held in
Wrangel. The service was conducted by the Rev. Mr. Reirdon, of the
Presbyterian Church, with a full choir. The edifice was crowded to the
doors, and the majority followed the remains to the last resting place.
I chanced to be in Wrangel on June 30, Memorial Day, and noticing a
procession of children clothed in white, several veterans of the Civil
War and a number of citizens, I followed them to the cemetery and
witnessed a very touching sight. To my surprise I noticed that Constable
Heathcote's was the first grave decorated with bouquets and
sweet-smelling flowers by kind and loving hands. It mattered not to them
what altar he knelt at or what flag he had served under. They knew him
in life as a policeman, proud of his uniform and his country. In death
they honoured his memory." This is well put by Horrigan, and the whole
incident indicated the deep-seated attachment existing between the two
great branches of the English-speaking race. Incidents like this go far
to destroy the "ancient grudge" which some Americans have against
Britain because a century and a half ago a foolish British King and a
still more foolish set of advisers treated British subjects overseas in
an absolutely un-British way.
And then in the same northern area we have in the report of that exact
and capable Inspector, W. H. Routledge, another side of life in the
account of a murder case which, in cold-blooded deliberateness and
treachery, perhaps puts the O'Brien case into the shade. O'Brien was a
very inhuman and brutal murderer, but he, though on the look-out for
prey, seems to have somewhat accidentally fallen in at Fossal's
road-house with the three men he murdered a few miles farther along the
way. But there is no particular evidence that he had made special
efforts to be their ostensibly friendly companion beyond the usual
comradeship of mutual helpfulness on the trail. But in the case
Routledge reports two men, La Belle and Fournier, seem to have gone to
White Horse with the deliberate intention of ingratiating themselves
with some of their fellow-countrymen by the use of their French mother
tongue, joining them on the way down to Dawson, and then murdering them
when they arrived at a convenient place. And so these two creatures
found at White Horse, Leon Bouthilette, Guy Beaudien, and Alphonse
Constantin from Beauce County, Quebec, who had recently come from the
East, going to Dawson. La Belle and Fournier got passage with these men
on a small boat, travelled with them, camped, ate, and slept with them
till one night in camp on an island near Stewart River they murdered
their three hosts, probably in sleep, and after rifling their pockets,
and to hide their crime, they tied the bodies up, weighted with stones,
and threw them in the river. Then they burned up all evidences of their
crime, got in the boat and went to Dawson, from which place they
proceeded farther, found another compatriot named Guilbault and murdered
him on the way to Circle City, Alaska. Once again it was a case where
the murderers left no possible witness to testify and considered they
were safe. But they forgot they were in the Mounted Police country--in
the land of the men in scarlet and gold who never let go till justice is
done.
The Police at White Horse had the number of the boat, 3744, and the
names of all the men in it. Other boats, starting from White Horse about
the same time, arrived in Dawson. But boat 3744 and its occupants,
though seen by several on the way, dropped out of sight at Stewart River
and was not seen again till Constable Egan discovered it empty at
Klondike city.
The body of a man who had been killed by bullets was found in the river,
and there was a small key tag with the name "Bouthilette, Beauce, P.Q."
on it. This gave the Police a clue, and it was followed with
characteristic energy and skill. A web of circumstantial evidence had
again to be woven. Later on another body was found and Surgeons Madore
and Thompson were satisfied that another death by violence had occurred.
The body corresponded with the description given of Guy Beaudien.
Constable Burns, of the Dawson Division, who could speak French like a
native, haunted the mines and creeks in plain clothes, unearthed
Fournier, who was identified by one Mack, who had seen him at White
Horse, as one of the men in boat 3744. Detective Constable Welsh,
Sergeant Smith, Corporal Piper, Constables Burke and Falconer with
others were on the scent. Welsh went to Skagway and found the sailing
list of the boat _Amur_ on which the murdered men had come from Seattle.
To that point and others he went, and then acting on information from
Constable Burns, who had combed the French Colony for evidence, Welsh
went on through six different States and finally caught and arrested La
Belle in Nevada. La Belle said enough to indicate the whereabouts of the
murder event and Welsh wired this information. Corporal Piper and
Constable Woodill and the Dawson photographer went, located the "Murder
Island," gathered some incriminating articles and took photographs from
every angle. Then the work went on and the Police accumulated such an
unbreakable chain-mail web of evidence starting with a man who had come
with the murdered men from Montreal to White Horse, continuing with
others who had seen all the parties on boat 3744 and then with men who
had seen articles and money on La Belle and Fournier which they knew to
have been the property of the murdered parties, that these cold-blooded
monsters practically confessed, each throwing the blame on the other.
They were committed for trial, found guilty by judge and jury, and paid
the extreme penalty for their horrible crime.
Down on the prairie the Police were equally intent on duty and equally
successful in serving notice on all and sundry that tampering with human
life and prosperity would not be tolerated. And every one who came into
the Canadian West was wise if he governed himself accordingly. An
accomplished young forger and potentially worse, by the name of Ernest
Cashel, barely twenty-two, drifted up to Calgary from the State of
Wyoming and proceeded to test the calibre of Canadian authority. He was
arrested, but escaped from the city authorities. Then the Mounted
Police, whose officer commanding at Calgary was Superintendent Sanders,
D.S.O., were called upon and discovered that Cashel had stolen a pony at
Lacombe to help in his escape. Shortly afterwards D. A. Thomas, north of
Red Deer, notified the Police that a relative, J. R. Belt, had
disappeared from the latter's ranch east of Lacombe. Constable McLeod
investigated and discovered that when Belt was last seen a young man,
who gave himself the name of Elseworth, was staying with him. The
description indicated that Elseworth and Cashel were one and the same.
Belt's horse, saddle, shot gun, clothes and money, including a $50.00
gold bill, had vanished. It looked like a murder case, and so
Superintendent Sanders put our old friend Constable Pennycuick, who had
unearthed O'Brien in the Yukon, on the trail of Cashel. Every detachment
of the Police was put on the scent. In a while a man, answering Cashel's
description, stole a diamond ring up in the edge of the mountains and,
despite great cunning, was arrested by Constable Blyth at Anthracite. He
was wearing some clothes like Belt's and had the diamond ring. Then
Constable Pennycuick, hearing that Cashel had been staying at a
half-breed camp near Calgary, went there and got some clothing Cashel
had left there. Part of it was the rest of Belt's corduroy suit.
Pennycuick also got track of the $50.00 gold bill which had been seen by
some of the half-breeds with Cashel. Pennycuick traced Cashel's route
from Belt's to near Calgary with Belt's clothes, horse, saddle and the
aforesaid $50.00 gold certificate. But thus far there was no evidence
that Belt was not alive somewhere, and so Cashel was tried for stealing
and sentenced to the penitentiary. Two months later the river gave up
its dead, and the body was identified by certain marks and by an iron
clamp on the heel of the boot. Bullet holes in the body of the same
calibre as the revolver and rifle carried by Cashel completed the
evidence. He was brought back from the penitentiary, charged with
murder, and after a trial in which he was brilliantly defended by Mr.
Nolan of Calgary, was sentenced to be hanged.
But the end was not yet. John Cashel, a brother from Wyoming, had come
up and was given permission to see Ernest in the cell. As he entered the
chaplain was leaving and the guard being relieved. Taking advantage of
the situation, John Cashel slipped his brother two loaded revolvers with
which that evening Ernest held up the unarmed Constables and made his
escape. It was a dark night, with heavy snow falling, and this clever
and daring criminal well armed got clear away. Then the alarm was sent
out, detachments were notified and Commissioner Perry, accompanied by
Inspector Knight, went up to Calgary to take personal direction of the
search. Evidently, as happens in such cases this outlaw had friends,
who, supplied him with information, telling him what was being done and
to add to the confusion, people all over the country became nervously
excited and began "seeing things," so that several supposed Cashels were
reported from a dozen directions. A drunken half-breed in Calgary caused
excitement by telling that he had Cashel tied up in his camp, but the
cool-headed Sanders saw through his yarn and locked up the half-breed
for being drunk and disorderly. Superintendents Primrose and Begin, on
the Commissioner's orders, sent patrols out through the ranches. Here
they came across ranchers who had been held up for food and money by a
man whose description tallied with that of Cashel. As the Police could
not cover the whole country, some civilian volunteers were called for
and these were placed along with police detachments. Finally Sanders
mapped out the country, got detachments together to the number of five
under Major Barwis, Inspector Knight, Inspector Duffus, Sergeant-Major
Belcher and himself, and the order was to search every building, cellar,
root house and haystack with instructions that if they found Cashel they
were, if human life was to be saved thereby, to set fire to the building
or stack where he was and smoke him out. The detachment under Inspector
Duffus, consisting of Constables Rogers, Peters, Biggs, Stark and
McConnell, while searching Pittman's ranch 6 miles from Calgary, came
across Cashel in the cellar. He was found by Constable Biggs, who was
fired at by Cashel out of the dark hole. Biggs returned the fire and
backed up the steps to tell the rest. Constable Rogers then ordered the
men to surround the house and sent word to Inspector Duffus, who came
and called on Cashel to surrender. But he would not answer and the
building, a mere shack, was set on fire. When the smoke started, Cashel
agreed to come out and was arrested. This was the close of an arduous
hunt, a great many of the Police having been almost continuously in the
saddle day and night in cold weather for weeks. They were determined
that no one should boast of eluding the Police by making a clear "get
away."
This time there was no escape, and the daring murderer was hanged in
Calgary, first confessing his crime to the Rev. Dr. Kirby, his spiritual
adviser. Once more the unbreakable net of the famous riders of the
plains had been thrown out to show that the whole country became a
prison for anyone who offended against its laws.
It was perhaps the recurrence of cases of this kind where the Police
were proving the enormous value of the Force to the country that caused
Superintendent Primrose in 1903 to make a plea for some increased
recognition of his men. In his report he says, "In nearly every walk of
life in the past twenty years wages have gone on increasing, but, I
regret to state, the same scale of wages still obtains in the Police
Force. For instance, I am at present employing a constable on detective
work whose pay is seventy-five cents a day for which we have to pay a
Pinkerton man eight dollars a day." And it is no disparagement to the
Pinkertons to say that the Police could give them some "pointers" when
it came to work on the frontiers.
The question of pay for their men was a constant anxiety for the
officers, who were themselves receiving a mere pittance in comparison
with the salaries paid to men of equal education and experience in other
departments of the civil service. So we find, in 1904, that fine
officer, Superintendent Wood, in the Yukon making reference to the fact
that though an increase of pay had been granted to others the pay of the
Police had remained practically the same since their organization. Wood
feels that it is humiliating for the men. "A constable's life," he
writes, "is not altogether an enviable one. He is liable to be exposed
to the inclemencies of the weather at all seasons of the year, and is at
times called upon to risk his life in the performance of his duty. He is
under much closer and severer restraint than private individuals." This
is putting it all very mildly, as was the manner of the Police when they
were speaking of themselves. Then Wood goes on to say, "It is of
importance that a member of the Force should be made to feel that his
position is an honourable one, and that he is entitled by virtue of his
office or calling to the respect of the community at large. This state
of things could be arrived at if he felt that his position was equal to
those in other walks of life, and that his services were rated equally
as high. But the mere fact of his receiving 50 cents to 75 cents a day
with his food and clothes while carpenters, blacksmiths and labourers on
the outside receive five times as much and in the Yukon ten times as
much, is enough to instill a feeling of inferiority so far as his
calling is concerned." This is an important view. And Wood in the same
report emphasizes his argument, though he does not refer to it in that
connection, that the Police are expected to do work as mail-carriers,
postmasters and such like, outside proper police duty, because the
country could not get civilians to do it at the remuneration offered.
The whole thing troubles Wood, who was of a sensitive temperament and
very anxious to retain high-class men in the Force. And so he refers to
it again in the following year and says that a constable who was a
skilled mechanic and was saving the country great expense by looking
after the manufacture of stove pipes, tinware, etc., had been offered as
much an hour by town merchants as he was getting in a day in the corps
on the scale allowed by the Police Act. And Wood, who feels keenly for
the men, says, "Our poor circumstances are so generally known that it
has become usual to send members of the Force complimentary tickets for
entertainments and reduce the fees in clubs and societies for them."
Probably what was in the minds of those who sent tickets and reduced
fees was that it was an honour to have with them the men in scarlet and
gold who made human life and property safe on the frontier and whose
standards of manners and education made them most desirable company. But
the comparative poverty was there amidst abounding chances to be rich in
the gold country and elsewhere in a new land. Men who served through the
dangerous formative periods of Western history died poor in worldly
goods. It is a fine thing to know that all through the years these men
out of the sheer love of adventure and their high ideals of devotion to
duty did such service, but the facts should not be lost sight of when
the pensions of the "old guard" survivors are being considered from time
to time.
The quality of the non-commissioned officers and men is often brought
out in their detachment reports. These reports reveal not only men of
ability and insight, but throw light on the kind of people these Police
in the north had to guide. Sergeant Frank Thorne, for instance, was in
charge at a place called Tantalus. The man who gave that name to the
elusive mining prospects of the region had a sense of humour and the
fitness of things. Thorne says, "Hundreds of people landed at Tantalus
en route to the new White Horse diggings. Most of these people had been
misinformed as to the best place to start from. I informed some of them,
but found that a person with gold fever is very unreasonable and
stubborn. Those that returned this way wore a very dilapidated and sorry
appearance." But the Police, I suppose, helped them out of their
troubles, for these red-coated giants did not lose their humanitarian
disposition even amidst the follies of the foolish. And the Police knew
well the strain under which these deluded and disappointed people often
found themselves, for Wood tells us of the Police at Dawson and White
Horse having as many as forty lunatics committed to their care in a
single year. This involved heavy and anxious work, and the
Superintendent shows the spirit in which it was done when he laments the
lack of suitable accommodation and fears lest some of these unfortunates
may hurt themselves in the unsuitable quarters provided.
Speaking of the humanitarian disposition of the Police, one finds many
incidents to show how they resented offences against the helpless, and
how relentlessly they brought the perpetrators of such offences to book.
In the same year, 1904, of which we have been writing, Sergeant Field,
of Fort Chippewyan, to whose rescue of a lunatic we have already
referred, got word that an Indian had, at Black Lake, 250 miles away
from the Fort, deserted two little children, two and three years of age
and that these two children according to the testimony of other Indians
had been devoured by wolves. Part of the clothing had been found and all
around the blood-stained ground was trampled by wolves. The Indian was
at Fond-du-Lac, but could not be advantageously arrested unless Field
could get some evidence from others who were not there. So Field bided
his time till all the Indians were at Fond-du-Lac in the summer. Some
eight months had gone by, but Field did not forget. Fond-du-Lac was
several hundred miles from Fort Chippewyan, but Field got there at the
proper moment, arrested the Indian, took the witnesses along and started
for Edmonton, where the Indian was tried and given a term in the
penitentiary. It had cost Sergeant Field a strenuous trip by trail,
river and train of nearly eighteen hundred miles, but he had by his
action told the Indians of the whole region to deal properly with their
children and their old people.
A very remarkable case in 1904 was that in which after an extraordinary
display of mastery over difficulties, the Police under Staff-Sergeant
K. F. Anderson (now Inspector) brought one Charles King to justice for
the murder of his partner Edward Hayward, near Lesser Slave Lake in
Northern Alberta. The case was not only a portrayal of the persistent
methods of the Police, but it threw a fine sidelight on the way in which
the Police had won the friendship of the Indians through guarding the
Indians against exploitation by white men. It moreover gave a good
exposition of the Indians' unique powers of observation.
[Illustration: CORONATION CONTINGENT. LONDON. 1911.]
[Illustration: CORONATION CONTINGENT. LONDON. 1911.]
[Illustration: INDIANS RECEIVING TREATY PAYMENT ON PRAIRIE.]
[Illustration: FORT FITZGERALD, ATHABASCA.]
[Illustration: ICE-BOUND GOVERNMENT SCHOONER.]
In October, Moos Toos, the headman of the Indian Reserve at Sucker
Creek, came to Sergeant Anderson and told him that white men were
cutting rails on his Reserve. Anderson immediately went over with the
Chief and found men employed by a very prominent firm of contractors
cutting rails. The Sergeant stopped them at once and made them pay the
Indian for what they had already cut. This, of course, was pleasing to
Moos Toos, who, on returning home with Anderson told the Sergeant that
some days before, two white men with four pack-horses had come from
Edmonton and camped on the Reserve near a slough. They had stayed there
some three days or so and then one of them left, but there was no sign
of the other. An Indian boy had noticed that the dog that had come with
the white men would not follow the one that left. This was observation
number one. Then some Indian women, as their custom is, went over to the
place where the men had camped to see if anything was left that might be
of service. One Indian woman noticed that the camp fire-place was much
larger than required for ordinary use. Another Indian woman stood at the
edge of the fire-place and looking up noticed, on the underside of the
leaves of a poplar tree, globules of fat where the thick smoke had
struck the cool leaves and the evaporating fat had condensed. She said,
"He was burning flesh in this fire." These two things, added to the fact
that a shot had been heard by other Indians in the direction of the
white men's camp, made them suspicious. They told Moos Toos, their
headman, and he, in recognition of the goodness of the Police to him,
told Anderson about it, and added that he thought something was wrong.
Anderson thought so too, and with Constable Lowe went down to the place.
They raked in the ashes and found fragments of bone and other substances
which they carefully sealed up and kept for analysis. Moos Toos, who was
on hand with some of his Indians to help, found a large needle with the
eye broken, then by going barefooted into the slough where the water was
four feet deep, discovered a camp-kettle which some of the Indians had
seen with the white men. Later on Moos Toos and Lowe found in the slough
a pair of boots in one of which was stuffed a rag with various articles,
including the other part of the broken needle. In the meantime, Anderson
had got into touch with the surviving white man at the home of a trader
some distance away and asked for his story. This man, who gave his name
as King, said that his companion was a man he had overtaken on the trail
over the Swan Hills. His name, he said, was Lyman, and he had been on
the way on foot. King said Lyman had left the camp on foot for Sturgeon
Lake and that he supposed he was on the way there. Anderson sent out in
that direction, but there was no trace of such a man at any point, and a
Hudson's Bay employee who had just come from Sturgeon Lake met no one on
foot and there was no trace on the trail of anyone so travelling.
Anderson and Lowe then arrested King on suspicion and held him while
they pursued further investigations. Anderson was convinced that the bed
of that slough, if uncovered, could unfold a tale. And so he hired the
Indians to divert it by digging a ditch that would drain it into Sucker
Creek a half-mile away. It was quite an undertaking, but the Indians,
who have lots of time on their hands in the summer and fall, offered to
do the work for a hundred dollars. The work was well done and Anderson's
expectations were not disappointed. He found amongst some minor articles
a sovereign-case which was fairly conclusive evidence that the man who
had vanished from the earth was probably an Englishman. The
sovereign-case was traced back to the manufacturer in England and to the
man who had sold that number to a certain Mr. Hayward, a man up in
years, then deceased. The clue was followed up and a son of Mr. Hayward
was found who recalled that his father had presented a sovereign-case to
another son when that son left for Canada. The son who had gone to
Canada was known to be in the Edmonton and Northern country, but the
people at home had not heard from him for some time. Regardless of
expense and without delay, the Police brought Hayward all the way from
England to Edmonton for the trial. He identified the sovereign-case as
the one given by his father to the missing man Edward Hayward. A
specialist in analysing had been brought from Eastern Canada who
pronounced the blood, brains and bones found in the ashes of the camp
fire to be human elements. There were some twenty witnesses in the case,
those outside the Police being Messrs. J. K. Cornwall, George Moran and
the rest half-breeds and Indians. Once more the police had the chain of
circumstantial evidence welded solidly link by link. King was declared
guilty, but on a legal technicality a new trial was ordered. By this
time the witnesses were all back home. But they were brought back,
including the brother of the missing man from England. The verdict again
was guilty and King paid on the scaffold the penalty for his mean and
cold-blooded murder of a travelling companion. A very curious thing in
this trial was the sworn statement of Hayward, the witness from England,
that his sister had told him there, the morning after the shot was heard
by the Indians near the Lesser Slave Lake, that she had dreamed that
their brother Edward had died by violence in Canada. This was not
offered or accepted as evidence, but was mentioned incidentally as at
least an extraordinary coincidence.
The Mounted Police were evidently determined not to allow crime to make
any headway because if the impression ever got abroad that men could
play fast and loose with law and go unrebuked, there would be no end to
it. So we find Superintendent Sanders saying again that the Force should
have more men to cope with the demands of the immigration movement. "It
is only natural," he says, "to expect that a percentage of criminals
should accompany a large migration into a new country. A malefactor who
finds it necessary to lose his identity for a while cannot choose a more
convenient location than a country just filling with new settlers and
where one stranger more or less is not likely to be noticed." This is
sound reasoning, and Sanders is looking into the future when he is
asking for men enough to deal with the new order of things so as to
prevent trouble in the future. "Once," says he, "get the new-comers
within our gates imbued with the proper respect for British law and
British justice, and prevent the criminal element getting a foothold,
and a work will be accomplished of inestimable value hereafter."
And up in the Yukon, Assistant-Commissioner Wood, out of wide
experience, says, "It is a well-known saying that prevention is better
than cure, and any innovation in our system tending to the prevention of
crime in Canada, and more particularly in the North-West and the Yukon
Territories, is to be welcomed." And then Wood goes on to advocate the
adoption of certain methods for the detection of criminals which for
that period showed that these men were keeping a little more than
abreast of their times though they were on duty in the wilderness places
of the earth. He advises the establishment of a Criminal Identification
Bureau at Ottawa with branches in all the cities and at the headquarters
of each division of the Mounted Police Force. He goes on to define
methods by photographs of every one arrested, measurements under the
Bertillon system and the use of the finger-print method, which he quite
properly declares, as we now know, to be the most infallible means of
identification. That Wood had made a special study of the subject is
evidenced by the fact that he backs his argument by appeal to history.
He says the finger-print system had been in use in Korea for 1,200 years
as a means of identifying slaves and was adopted in India in 1897 as a
way of preventing impersonation amongst the natives. The Scotland Yard
authorities accepted the system in 1898, which was the year of the Yukon
Gold Rush, and it is very interesting to find the Officer-Commanding on
that frontier being so forehanded as to be amongst the first in Canada
to advocate the use of methods now generally adopted. These men of the
Mounted Police were wide awake and were determined, we repeat, to
prevent the criminal class from getting a foothold in this country.
It is interesting to find in the same period that the Police never
seemed to forget. As related above, Fournier and LaBelle had been
executed in January, 1903, for the murder of Beaudien and Bouthilette. A
third man of the same party had vanished at the same time, but no body
had been found. Two years afterwards a body was found in the river,
taken to Dawson, the clothes removed and washed by Sergeant Smith and
the body identified by these clothes and a paper dried out, as the body
of the third man, Alphonse Constantin. Thus was the fact of his death
established in the interests of relatives and estate--a matter of vital
importance for the satisfaction of all concerned. And thus did the
curtain fall on the final act in a dark tragedy of the North.
But all these incidents were making for the future peace of the country.
It was the establishment of the "Pax Britannica," as Commissioner Perry
said with justifiable pride in the record the Police had made throughout
the years. He quotes the words of a famous Indian Chief to which we have
already called attention in the chapter on Indian treaties when that
Chief, referring to the Police, said, "Before you came the Indian crept
along. Now he is not afraid to walk erect." "For thirty-one years," said
Perry in 1905, "neither white man nor Indian has been afraid to walk
erect, whether in the great plains, the far North or the distant Yukon."
And even at the time he was writing those words Corporal Mapley was on
patrol over an unknown route from Dawson to the Peel River, Inspector
Genereux of Prince Albert was away on a 1,750-mile trip North, of 132
days by canoe and dog-train to investigate a case of alleged murder,
Sergeant Fitzgerald was on patrol to the mouth of the Mackenzie River
and Inspector Moodie was establishing new posts around the Hudson
Bay--all having a reassuring and stabilizing effect on the vast
uncivilized North land.
And again turning to another side of their work there were many cases
that were charged full of a Victoria Cross type of valour which went
unnoticed except as things done in the ordinary course of duty unless
some tragic element intervened to call special attention to it.
Constable Pedley, of Fort Chippewyan, for instance, a noted trailmaker,
had made many a trip (as others did) fraught with tremendous hardship.
But it was not till one day when he broke for a while under the
tremendous strain that his extraordinary efforts got into the light of
public notice. Here is part of his modest report when he was detailed to
escort a lunatic from Fort Chippewyan to Fort Saskatchewan: "I left
Chippewyan in charge of the lunatic on December 17, 1904, with the
interpreter and two dog-trains. After travelling for five days through
slush and water up to our knees, we arrived at Fort McKay on December
22. Owing to the extreme cold, the prisoner's feet were frost-bitten. I
did all I could to relieve him, and purchased some large moccasins to
allow more wrappings for his feet. I travelled without accident until
the 27th, reaching Weechume Lake. Here I had to lay off a day to procure
a guide as there was no trail." This is put with great suppression of
anything like telling what a difficult time he was having, but again we
read between the lines. The trip is "without accident" but there was
"extreme cold." Pedley was nurse and doctor as well as guard over the
unfortunate madman who raved as they travelled along almost impossible
roads. Then Pedley goes on: "I arrived at Lake La Biche on the 31st, and
secured a team of horses to carry me to Fort Saskatchewan. I arrived on
January 7, 1905, and handed over my prisoner." Pedley had spent his
Christmas and New Year not in a happy social circle, but in the company
of the unhappy victim of insanity. And he ends his report by saying,
"During the earlier part of the trip the prisoner was very weak and
refused to eat, but during the latter part of the trip he developed a
good appetite and got stronger." Pedley's care was improving the
madman's condition, but it was taking it out of himself. The unfortunate
was transferred to Calgary guardroom, and that Pedley's nursing had
worked a change is evident because Assistant-Surgeon Rouleau reports
that it was "a remarkable case." He was taken to hospital and discharged
in February. Says Rouleau, "His mind and speech were as good as ever.
His life was saved." But the sequel is told in Commissioner Perry's
report, "Constable Pedley began his return trip to Fort Chippewyan. When
he left Fort Saskatchewan he was apparently in good health, but at Lake
La Biche he went violently insane as a result of the hardships of his
trip and _his anxiety_ for the safety of his charge. He was brought back
to Fort Saskatchewan and then transferred to Brandon Asylum." But we
rejoice that this is not the end. Perry goes on, "I am glad to say that
after spending six months there he recovered his mind and returned to
headquarters. He was granted three months' leave and is now at duty as
well as ever." And that this gallant man who was not conquered by cold
and danger was not going to be conquered by the recollection of the
breaking of a cord that had been subjected to too great a tension is
attested by Perry's closing reference: "In spite of all, he has recently
engaged for a further term of service." Comment on this is unnecessary.
It is like a flash which dispels the night in a prairie thunderstorm.