HISTORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND MICMACS 225 



until he received word from Sydney that he must abandon 

 the habit on being elected, which he has done. It will give 

 the reader some idea of the fearful mortality which prevails 

 arriongst these people from the above-mentioned causes, when 

 it is stated that Steve Bernard, my hunter in 1906, was the 

 sole survivor of eleven strong children. Drink, consumption, 

 strains, measles, and carelessness had killed them all except 

 Steve before they came to the age of twenty-one. 



I am well aware that nothing one man can say, however 

 true, will have the smallest effect on the Government of a 

 country when that Government has to listen, as it always 

 does, to the "Vox populi " and to regard it as the "Vox 

 Dei." Such a voice, however, is often only the cry of cruelty 

 and oppression. But at the same time I consider that the 

 Indians have "rights" — rights which have come to them by 

 custom and inheritance, just as much as to the white man, 

 and that within reason these should be respected, before 

 a tribe has been completely exterminated by war, disease, 

 and rum. English and other Governments always become 

 sentimental and kind-hearted when a race is nearly extinct, 

 since then there is no fear of future political complications. 

 But is not this the very essence of selfishness? and would it not 

 be better to try and make the original owners of the soil our 

 friends instead of our enemies, by treating them with a little 

 consideration, a little common sense, and a little knowledge of 

 their manifest weaknesses ? By so doing we might show them 

 that there is some force in the arguments of Christianity over 

 the Totem Pole. The half-breed Micmacs of Newfoundland 

 are the most amiable and law-abiding of the North American 

 tribes, and it should be the duty of the Government to know 

 more of these people, to understand their rights in the different 

 trapping areas, to keep in close touch with their chief, and 



