with her youngest boy "not to leave her sonless." The mother's tears and persuasions prevailed. Relinquishing his ambition he entered the church and lived to the age of 77, being for over 50 years the Rector of Nately-Scures OTTAWA, Aug. 1st, '99.

(Hants), the burial place of Guy, 1st Lord Dorchester and 1st Governor-General of Canada; of his brother General Thomas Carleton, 1st Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick, and their descendants.

George Johnson.

SIR, I have neither the ability nor the desire to enter into a controversy with Dr. George Stewart about the works of the late Francis Parkman, which form the subject of a very eulogistic article from his pen in your July number. Dr. Stewart admits of Parkman that "he has his critics, chief among whom is the Abbé Casgrain, whose notes are entitled to respect. I question, however, whether any of the Abbe's criticisms equal in gravity the severe arraignment of Parkman and his methods contained in Mr. Edouard Richard's "Acadia," of which Dr. Stewart makes no mention. Richard's book was written during Parkman's lifetime, but unfortunately, for reasons mentioned in an explanatory note in the Appendix, it was not published until after Parkman's death. This Richard regretted, as he desired that it should be read by Parkman, so that he might make such reply as he could to the serious charges against him, contained in the book. These charges are outlined in "The Introductory Remarks" at pages 9 to 13, and are more fully dealt with in Chapter XXXIII. and in the explanatory note above referred to. I shall not cumber your pages with quotations, as the

Ottawa.

English edition of Richard's book is available to your readers who care to look into the matter for themselves. I may say, however, that he unhesitatingly charges Parkman, when writing of the Acadians, with "systematic attempts, unmistakably and continually renewed, to falsify history"; and he adduces what he at least considers indisputable proof in support of his accusations. He charges, in particular, that Parkman knew of, but ignored, the valuable information contained in the voluminous collection of documents made by the Rev. Andrew Brown during his residence in Halifax, from 1787. to 1795, the originals of which are in the British Museum, but copies of which have been in the archives of the Historical Society of Halifax for several years.

I have never seen an adequate reply by any of Parkman's friends to Richard's indictment, and I was disappointed that such an appreciative reviewer as Dr. Stewart did not even allude to it in his article. Perhaps he might be induced to take the matter up in another article, and deal with it as such a serious accusation deserves. If he can show that Richard's charges are unfounded, he will be doing a friendly act for Parkman's reputation.

As might have been expected, the Southern lack of faith in the ordinary processes of law, which took the form of the lynching of negroes, has extended itself in other directions. It was solemnly asserted that this violent form of justice was only awarded for one crime-and this in spite of the fact that incidents were constantly occurring that belied the plea. Wholesale lynchings took place where the accusation was robbery unaccompanied by violence and where there was not a scintilla of evidence against some, at least, of the victims. One negro was shot dead, and members of his family wounded, because he dared accept a postmastership from the Federal Government, and the Government does not appear to be strong enough to protect its official or secure the punishment of his murderers.

Canadians may very well pray

to be saved from a Pharisaical holier

than-thou attitude towards our neighbours across the border, but even the more courageous of their own prints in the North deplore the condition of affairs of which these are the symptoms. It is singular that among a people whose fathers declared in the instrument that gave the States birth that among the inalienable rights of man were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the former should be held so cheaply. The fourteenth amendment to the constitution, passed in the days succeeding the rebellion, provided among other things that no State should deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The shocking incidents which we are considering are completely subversive of these fundamental laws. The fifteenth amendment reads: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or

abridged by the United States or by any State, on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude." This provision has been virtually erased from the constitution by the action of all the Southern states and attempts are now being made by some of them to practically embody the disfranchising principle in their State constitu

tions.

In a score of smaller ways all over the great Union this weakness of the law, and defiance of it, is manifested. The idea seems to be abroad that it would be a sign of pusillanimity in a community if any crime that rouses its indignation were left to the regular operation of the law. The writer of these pages was in Ottumwa, Iowa, three or four years ago. The day before, a white man had been lynched in broad daylight for a crime that roused the wrath of the citizens. It was the subject of general conversation, and on

all hands it was evident there was a feeling of pride that Ottumwa had not lost its spunk, as it was called. Had they left the wretch to the due execution of the laws there can be little doubt that the whole community would have hung its head in shame. They would have deemed that their citizenship had lost all its virility. The fact is that in many parts of the United States the individual carries his dispenser of justice in his hip pocket, and, metaphorically speaking, it may be said of the communities that they are provided with a hip pocket too.

Why is it that railway trains are “held up” in the United States; that small towns are captured by bands of mounted robbers and their banks or stores looted; that the members of two rival families go gunning for each other, while law and order look on with merely a spectator's interest in the little unpleasantness? It cannot be imputed to sparseness of population or any special geographical conditions, for all these are reproduced in Canada without any of the same consequences. Compare Dawson City with Skagway, the one under Canadian law, the other under American. In the former, the biggest gold camp on the continent, painfully remote from the seat of authority, we have order as perfect as in the streets of Toronto. Skagway,

for many months, was terrorized by a ruffian known as Soapy Smith, and his suppression seems to have been too arduous a task for the ordinary law, so it was necessary for a citizen to shoot him through the head. Had Mr. Smith tried his escapades in Dawson City, he would have found himself in a jail inside of twenty-four hours, with a certainty of a somewhat steady job cutting cordwood for the police barracks after his interview with justice. That would have taken all the romance out of it.

Without inviting comparisons for the sake of exalting our own self-righteousness, it can surely be said that here is a weakness. Whence does it

arise? Is it inherent in democratic institutions? Has the rage for popular acclaim and the fear of running counter to the stream strangle the civic virtues? Where is that one on God's side, which Wendell Phillips declared was a majority? No voice is raised in the South against these enormities, and only a few far-off protests in the North. The Governor of Georgia addresses the people of the State in a document which is one-half condemnatory and the other half exculpatory.

There is no desire to minimise the appalling nature of the problem with which the white South has to deal, but barbarism has never yet been put down by barbarism. Talk about higher civilization! How can we distinguish a crowd of white men gathered about a human being, slowly slicing and hacking him with their knives from the Red Indian torturing his victim at the stake. What Georgia and other Southern States need is a profounder faith in the efficacy and majesty of the law. Let the law be enforced against negro and white if it needs an armed and mounted officer patrolling every mile of road throughout the South. Expense should not stand in the way of getting these States back into civilization.

General de Gallifet, M. WaldeckRousseau's Minister of War, appears to be a martinet on a large scale and, perhaps, in the better sense of the word. He is acting on the principle that if you must seize the nettle the only way to escape stings is to seize it firmly. Gen. de Negrier forced the issue whether the military or civil authority should be paramount in France and the Minister of War accepted the challenge with a promptitude that must have astonished the challenger. De Negrier's influence and popularity with the army might well have made a less daring Minister pause, but la vieille moustache probably felt that if the army is supreme in France it would be just as well to know it at once and a better opportunity than that offered by Gen. de Negrier's utter

It is a question whether Canada, as a nation, possesses the quality of appreciating literature, at least Robert Barr considers it an open question. He will discuss the subject in two articles in the November and December numbers. We venture to predict that these contributions will be the talk of the whole country, and because of our faith in their power we venture to speak of them some time in advance. *

The spelling of the term "coureur de bois" in Mr. Johnson's article in this issue is not what the readers of this magazine are accustomed to, "des " being used instead of "de." Mr. Johnson thus explains his preference :

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
OTTAWA, July 24th, 1899.

MR. J. A. COOPER :

DEAR SIR,--In answer to yours of 21st inst. asking my authority for using des instead of de in the phrase Coureurs de[s] bois I have to say: Ist. Undoubtedly the authorities who first used the expression used de. This they did because they desired to express to the Sovereign the idea that some Frenchmen on the banks of the St. Lawrence were getting into the habit of going off to the woods, not merely for the purpose of hunting and securing peltrie, but also with the intention of adopting the nomadic life

and marrying Indian women. They wished to stigmatize these Frenchmen as runners into the woods rather than praise them as runners or rangers through the woods. In fact, they wanted to stop all the fur-hunting indulged in by the young fellows, as it was against their interest to have any but themselves dealing with the Indians.

2nd. When, subsequently, things changed, and the Frenchmen left their wives and children and went into the woods with the one specific object of securing furs and returning with them to their homes, the use of the form des conveyed the new change better than de.

3rd. Many persons cling to the old form as they find it in the ordinances of the early days. So great a purist as Dr. Taché invariably employs the form de. But the younger generation use des and do so because if they are writing the expression for readers in France, they wish, above all things, to be precise, and coureur de bois might mean a figure of wood dressed up to represent a traditional character-a wooden man in fact, just the opposite of the extremely active individual intended to be brought before the mind's eye by the phrase coureur des bois. They wish to discriminate and they find that the form des enables them to do so.

4th. I think that both forms are right, but that the new form, for the reasons given, is gradually superseding the old.

Those who like to see the phrase exactly as it was originally will use de. Those who wish the form to have that preciseness which it is the boast of Frenchmen their language supplies beyond other languages, will abandon with more or less of reluctance, according to temperament, the de and adopt the des.

Yours faithfully,
GEORGE JOHNSON.