2 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

in, as it were, between the former provinces of Nor-
mandy and Brittany. That region is dotted over
with old castles, some of which are still locally known
to have been in favour of the English intruders.
Although his family has not, so far, been traced back
to an earlier date than 1611, it is quite possible, that
it originated in an English soldier who settled in
France during his country’s domination of those
northern provinces.'

Whether or not he be distantly connected with
that illustrious family to which his New York cor-
respondent referred in his letters, and about which
he communicated to him so many copies of old
parchments, Father Morice, destined to become such
a faithful worker in the Pacific province and on the
Western plains of Canada, was born on August 27,
1859, at Saint-Mars-sur-Colmont, department of May-
enne, France. His father was Jean Morice, originally
of Parrigné, and his mother Virginie Seigneur, a native
of Grand Oisseau, though at that time a resident of
Saint-Mars. Their first child, the subject of these
pages, was baptized on the morrow under the names of
Adrian Gabriel Arsenius Mary, the two last of which
he was to drop from his signature.

We might perhaps deem it worthy of remark
that at an early date his intellect showed itself pre-
cocious, and his memory retentive. The mere mention
of the facts which prove this oftentimes provoke in-
credulous smiles on the part of such as are told of them.
He claims to remember some incidents connected with
the time when he was still unable to walk.2. He also

1 If weare not mistaken, there was, but a few years ago, a general of
that name in England.

? And he is issued of a family the members of which have always
been able-bodied and none of them of abnormally slow growth.