The Montgomery tribune., 1910-04-22
cOpHHGHT BY PEARSON
PUB. e

...s...........--s.4 ..rv....--s.4 after that?
&C -|1H11o" Their work is done
The spirit of adventure
which brought the men of 1874 to Red River Set.
tement willlure the hardest to still more dis
tant fields. The scarlet tunic will be no
longer except in the pages OF some historical
source book but the work of these silent, steady
eyed men will live forever. record OF tireless-
ness fearlessness, un1inching courage and pa
tience--the making Of new and great empire.
Change has already come to the mounted. The
days when a scant 500 men were magistrates, doc.
tors, coroners, explorers. surveyors, mining re.
corders. crown-timber agents, revenue and Gus
toms officers telegraphers. scouts, riders. drivers,
boatnlen. canoemen marines and sailors. dog-dri-
vers mail-carriers. courlers pubchealth and AMI.
mal-quarantine officers, prairie and forest-fire
guardians, constables and soldiers for one'third
of the British Empire are passing with every
new mile of railroad The border "wolfer," the
cattle "ruster." the whisky trader the fighting
Indian, the whole band Of staggering ruffans who
used to give zest to life in the Territory" has
largely passed away, or been crowded norhward
and westward toward the mining camps Of Alas
ka and the Yukon. The reckless daring. the
bust hardihood and picturesqueness of the force
necessarily have somewhat changed in the de-
velopment of the thoroughly civilized new north
west. Now the young fellows are getting their
breaking-n among the settled districts, while the
old stagers stationed TO the north and west
where there is still the frontier" on the edge of
untraversed wilderness
For the purposes of the new order OF things
it is a thoroughly competent and efficient force
it in the days of the Territory. The mem
bers must pass physical and mental examination
which guarantees that. came upon one Of them
In moment of leisure studying textbook on the
common law, and he showed me some eXamina
tion questions which implied that he must know
how to conduct cross-examinaton in open court
so as to avoid what are known in the law as
leading questions" And any lawyer will be i'm
pressed when say that every mounted policeman
must know how to take murdered mans dying
declaration in such manner that 1t can be pre-
sented as evidence in court. The reason for this
Is that he combines the functions OF policeman
with those of petty magistrate.
And this arrangement, whereby the same man
could arrest you, and then try you himself and
finally put you in prison and be your keeper was
an ideal arrangement in the days when Justice
was justice of the saddle and all the more de-
sirable for being summary Although there are
regular civil courts in the southern portion Of
Canada now, in the far north the duties of the
mounted policeman are still as varied as those Of
Gilbert and Suivan's Pooh Bah. Primarily he
keeps order. After that, he does everything that
ought to be done. and that 1t isn't any one elses
duty to do. And when some one else leaves his
duty undone. the mounted policeman takes 1t up
and finishes it. When the mail-carrier, who GOV.
ers the North Country on dog sedges, reaches the
most northern limit of his route. the mounted po-
liceman takes the bags. and goes 500 miles
farther north with them. Not long ago letter
came to my hands from the Lefingwell polar ex-
pedition in which the writer stated that he would
take five dogs and companion and travel 300
miles over the ice to mail the letter. When the
letter reached its destination, the envelope bore
the stamp of the Royal Northwest Mounted Po
lice who evidently had received 1t at of their
posts in the arctic, and then had carried II by dog
train from the ice fields to railway connection.
1t is all in the days work to them. They will
undertake anything, from minding the baby to
hanging man. with equal placidity, and put II
through without hcking an eyelash. They have
done their part to demonstrate that the one
thing on this earth longer than The equator Is the
arm of English Justice Less than three years
ago mounted policeman tracked a Yukon mur
derer 5000 miles, caught up with him in
Mexico brought him back by way of Jamaica
and Halifax, avoiding United States soil to pre-
vent extradition complications, and hanged him
within sight of the scene of his crime.
There has never been lynching in Canada. Pu
that down to the credit of the mounted police who
administered justice successfully that there
was never any temptation for the work to be ia
ken up by private enterprise. There was never
any parallel for the experience OF Bismarck Norti
Dakota where 1t is said the first "a graves were
those of men who had died by violence. Toware
the Indians, the mounted police maintained a ira
dition of stern vigilance which prevented anything
like the costly Indian wars which the United
States waged up to few years ago There wal
never in the history of Canada traia robber.
such as still feature the headlines of Unitet
States newspapers from time to time. The des
perado of every type had healthy respect fs
the mounted policeman and preferred to conduc
his little enterprises south of the border
Canadians are particularly fone of telling tn
newly arrived American about the troop of Amer
icnn cavalry-a whole troop. mind Sou--who ter
derly escorted band OF bad Indians" bent O
crossing the border, to the Canadian boundar
line. They were met by single mounted polics
man