Canada and NewfoundlandCarpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
History
Canada and Newfoundland
Carpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
Canada -- Description and travel; Newfoundland and Labrador -- Description and travel
“Each hotel and road house is required to keep a daily record of all
who stop there,” he replied, “and I may say that we know about where
every man in the territory sleeps every night. We are informed of all
the passengers who start up or down river, and get reports from every
telegraph station they pass on the trip. When a steamer leaves White
Horse for Dawson the purser hands in the names of his passengers and
they are telegraphed here. If any one gets off on the way his name is
wired to us, and we check up the list when the boat comes in. If three
men set off in a canoe, the report on that canoe as it passes the next
telegraph station will show us if one of them is missing. The patrols
also send in reports of the names and business of all newcomers in
their districts.”
“Give me some idea of the amount of crime committed in your territory.”
“Our record is fairly good,” replied the inspector of the Mounted
Police. “Last year we investigated forty-two cases, only eight of
which were under the criminal code. Out of this total of forty-two, we
secured thirty-seven convictions. Remember that this is for an area as
big as France, and for a population made up largely of frontiersmen,
miners, Indians, and Eskimos. Most of the time we have so few bad
characters in jail here that it is difficult to keep our barracks in
order and the lawn properly mowed. Just now we have two women serving
terms for picking the pockets of men who were drunk. They work in the
jail laundry, so we are sure of help in our washing for the rest of the
year.
“We have had but few murders in our territory,” the inspector
continued. “The average was less than one a year for the first twenty
years after the big rush to the Klondike, and in every case, without
exception, the guilty were caught and executed. There are some
interesting stories connected with crimes in this part of the world.
Take, for instance, one that occurred in Alaska. The murdered man was a
miner who had been killed by an Indian at the close of the season when
the miners were about to leave for the winter. They had not time to
follow the Indian, but they went to the chief of his tribe and told him
that he must catch the murderer and have him ready for them when they
returned in the spring. When the spring came they went to the chief and
demanded the man. He replied:
“‘Me got him all right. You come see.’ He thereupon took them to the
back of the camp and showed them a dead Indian frozen in a large block
of ice. As they looked, the chief continued:
“‘We got him last fall. We know you kill him in spring, so we shoot him
in fall. What use feed him all winter?’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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