a time that is forever gone. But even these
have ceased to appear—and if they did turn
up, they’d fetch a pretty penny. Nothing
now but the story is left of the old Beaver
Club of North Westers of Montreal.

There was a mysterious romantic flavour
to the old Beaver Club, an indefinable glam-
our that appealed to Sir George Simpson,
then merely George Simpson, Governor of
Rupert's Land for the Hudson’s Bay Com-
pany, who possessed a keen sense of the
value of councils, inner circles of control,
and the privilege of privacy in occasional
unbending and fraternizing among one’s
own colleagues, and this without any loss
of dignity with the general rank and file—
something that has become artificial, and
finally lost entirely, in the modern rush for
profits for shareholders at all costs and to
the detriment of many other nobler things
far more worthwhile in the ultimate. Gov-
ernor George Simpson made several suggest-
ions for a revival of the old Beaver Club in
1827, but apparently the old-time zest was
gone. Whatever may have been the deter-
ring factor, the Governor’s suggestions did
not take concrete form, and the Beaver Club
became merely a chapter in Fur Trade
history,

And so to finish, almost where we started
—the telling of the founding of Fort Vic-
toria; of Sir James Douglas and other early
fur traders; of Victoria's early names; of
“Made Beaver’; the steamship “Beaver,” the
Beaver Club of the famous Nor Westers,
and all these signify; of Potatoes, Interna-
tional squabbles, of Empires in the making—
in short, of “Cabbages and Kings.”

WEARY DAYS

“DAD. What’s the longest period of time?”
Dad (a Constable): “From one pay day
to the next.”

MARINE DRIVE SERVICE
STATION

GAS. OILS. EFC.

NANAIMO, B.C.

QUEEN’S HOTEL

Bury and Loukes, Proprietors

LICENSED PREMISES
@

Nanaimo, B. C.

FRATERNAL ORDER OF
EAGLES HOME

Bastion Street
NANAIMO, B. C.

Visiting Brothers Welcome

WINTER EDITION

PRISONER'S SONG

By Ist Class Clerk P. H. BROWN, “A” Divisional Headquarters

WHILE RUMMAGING through a
box of old papers, I recently came upon
a memento of my period of service at
Penticton, B. C. It consists of a rhyme I
found scribbled on the whitewashed wall
of the lock-up following the release of a
prisoner, and, with the exception of a few
details, is self-explanatory.

During the winter of 1932-33, one of the
fuel dealers at Penticton complained that
he was steadily missing coal from his stor-
age yard, and in spite of our vigilance,
the thefts continued.

One night, great soft flakes of snow be-
gan to fall and soon the town was blank-
eted white. By all appearances the fall
should have continued until moring, but
about an hour after midnight it gradually
grew less. Just at this time, Pete Minnich,
who maintained a watchman’s patrol in
the pay of the local merchants, and who
was vested with the authority of a special
constable, chanced to pass the fuel yard.
He noticed fresh foot-prints in the snow
that gave the imprints of rubber boots.
Following the clearly marked trail, he
came upon a lump of coal, then another,
and another. Realizing that he was in a
position to possibly track down the party
responsible for the thefts, he enlisted the
aid of the constable on patrol, and toge-
ther they traced the footprints to a small
shack in one of the back alleys. Through
one of the lighted windows a number of
men could be seen in a poker game. In
one corner of the room, near the heater,
was a box of coal shining with a moisture
that indicated melted snow.

Knocking at the door, the constable ex-
plained his mission, inspected the footgear
of the party, and found that the imprints
in the snow had been made, without ques-
tion, by the owner of the shack and one of
the other men. Confronted with the evi-
dence, they broke down, admitted their

guilt, and were promptly marched off to
gaol.

The following morning they were ar-
raigned before the magistrate and each
sentenced to serve two weeks’ imprison-
ment. I thought the “poetic” version of
the case as left by one of the prisoners
worthy enough to save, and made a copy
of the following lines before the walls
were washed clean.

“In all the history of crime

There’s no more sorrowful plight than mine.
For on one cold and wintery night,

I stole some coal called anthracite.

The snow was falling thick and fast,

And we, poor mortals, thought it would last
To cover up our homeward trail. . .

And then and there our luck did fail.

The snow it stopped . . so did the gale,
And left our tracks a sure tell-tale

Of where and how the coal had strayed,
And in the act, the ones who'd played.

At half past ten the following day,

We heard the magistrate gruffly say,

‘For you two guys I have a plan,

You can spend two weeks in the city can!’

And there, my friend, is my pitied plight,
While outside the world is shining bright,
We stay within this dismal hole,

And all because of a piece of coal.”

WHOM IT WAS FOR
THE recruit was disappointed with his
uniform. It seemed to fit nowhere.

He was still trying to make the buttons
of his tunic meet when he passed the
colonel on the parade ground. And in his
preoccupation, he forgot to salute.

‘Pull yourself together,” said the colonel.
“Don’t you know you're wearing the
King’s uniform?”

“Oh, that’s it,” said the recruit. “I
knew it wasn’t meant for me.”

Off Parade—Caught in a moment of relaxation at Victoria, B. C. Const. W. C. Murray, Const.
E. Holm, Const. L. Begalie, Ist Class Clerk P. H. Brown, Const. L. P. Buxton, Insp. Robt. Owens,
S/Sergt. G. A. Johnson, Const. H. J. Parsley.

Page Twenty-one