46 RUKAL LIFE IN CANADA 



wife again treatment more drastic would be meted out 

 to him. Here two grave crimes meet : wife-beating and 

 lyncb-law. What is the bearing upon our problem ? A 

 farmer of Canadian stock had sold and left that farm ; 

 he had been replaced by an immigrant of a stock mor- 

 ally lower than our Canadian farmers, among whom 

 wife-beating is unknown. 



In the home of another young man in that hamlet 

 two women were frequently left alone — his wife and 

 another. The public noticed with disapproval the occa- 

 sional coming of some men of leisure from a neighbor- 

 ing city, the nation's capital. One night, while one of 

 these was present, the men of the place turned out and 

 gave the house a " charivari," staining its walls with 

 broken eggs, and withdrew. Soon afterwards the prem- 

 ises were sold, and the household went away into obli- 

 vion. Again the bearing upon our problem is this : The 

 young husband, finding little occupation at his trade in 

 the neighborhood, sought employment away from home 

 in the town. ' 



Again, the township of Edwardsburg has, like all 

 other Ontario townships, been almost unstained by the 

 crime of murder. Yet we had one sad case in recent 

 years. A man who had purchased a farm raised his 

 hand against the man from whom he had bought it. 

 The verdict of the jury, with the full assent of the 

 Attorney-General, was " Insanity " ; and, what is more, 

 the verdict of our people, a community of whom the 

 great majority would never condone crime even to save 

 one of their number from death, unanimously acquiesced 

 in the verdict. But who was he who was thus acquitted 

 of responsibility for his deed? The trend citywards 

 had called away a son from that home to the city, for 



