Policing the plains : $b being the real-life record of the famous Royal North-West Mounted PoliceMacBeth, R. G. (Roderick George)
History
Policing the plains : $b being the real-life record of the famous Royal North-West Mounted Police
MacBeth, R. G. (Roderick George)
Northwest, Canadian -- History; Royal Canadian Mounted Police
This same Grant when he got into Dawson started the Good Samaritan
Hospital with his own funds and became a large factor for the physical
and moral well-being of the place. And his tribute to the Mounted Police
is unstinted, for once he wrote me saying, "Canada owes to these men a
debt of lasting gratitude. A true history of the West will say much
about the self-sacrifice and heroism of this body of men. Many of their
noblest deeds will remain unknown but they will be registered in a
higher type of civilization expressed in a truer type of citizenship.
Many of these deeds will find register only in the writing of the
recording angel."
The official reports of the officers of that period as of others are
full of self-suppression. For instance, that able and unassuming officer
Superintendent Z. T. Wood, says in one place, "I received orders to take
the money of the Government in customs, licences, fees, etc., to be
deposited in the bank at Victoria. I accordingly left Bennett going out
by the Chilcoot and Dyea and took $150,000 in gold and bills. I reached
Victoria in due course and handed over the money." That is all, but in
fact it was a very dangerous journey. He had the stuff in police
kitbags, but those were the days of "Soapy Smith's" gang of ruffians.
Going from Dyea to Skagway, Wood had to threaten to fire on a boat that
was following. Soapy Smith and his toughs were on the wharf at Skagway,
but the determined bearing of Wood and his few men, together with the
presence of the crew of the C.P.R. boat _Tartar_, got them through. It
was a ticklish situation.
A word should be added here as to the famous gold escorts. The practice
was to turn the gold into ingots and send these to the coast under care
of the Mounted Police in small detachments of from two to six men. The
amounts thus carried often ran into tens of thousands and the care of
these valuable loads of gold could only be given to men of the highest
trustworthiness such as these guardians of law and order had always
proven themselves to be. Not a mite ever went missing. It is a fine
thing to quote this as a testimony that strengthens our faith in
humanity. And this splendid incorruptibility was shown by men serving
amidst difficult conditions in trails and rivers in all sorts of weather
for a mere pittance a day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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