DO PEOPLE LIVE IN LABRADOR? 65 



are ill, men work on till a trifling ailment becomes 

 a matter of life and death. A slight accident with 

 no " first aid " at hand, permanently cripples a limb 

 or destroys a valuable function, such as sight 

 Bleeding unchecked from a simple wound deprives 

 a dependant family of the father and breadwinner. 

 Many are the piteous stories I have learnt of such 

 cases since first, in 1892, the Gospel Hospital-ship 

 Albert was sent out by warm hearts in Old England 

 to their brothers and sisters in this "region be- 

 yond." 



After all this description of Labrador, do you ask, 

 as I do, why do people stay here, when the fair farm 

 lands of Canada are offered free to all? There is 

 a story that a solitary old woman in the wilds of 

 North America was one day visited by a gentleman 

 from that "hub of the universe," Boston city. She 

 asked him, " Where do you live ? " " Oh, hundreds 

 of miles away in Boston." " How do you manage 

 to live so far away ? " was the reply. To begin 

 with, every one has a lingering belief in his "ain 

 countree." The wild life to which these people are 

 born has a certain charm to other^ besides them- 

 selves. Sailors they are born and bred. What else 

 can they do ? Some have been taken by the Canadian 

 Government to the southern side of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence the Arcady of Longfellow and yet have 

 found eventually their way back. The fact remains 

 here is an increasing English-speaking colony. 



