2oi 



THE BEE-KEEPERS ' Ht ML .. . 



gets an idea into his head (right or wrong) 

 a battering-ram would not dislodge it. The 

 general tenor of this man's letter is local 

 and personal and if met he must be met on 

 these narrow grounds ; but in it there are 

 one or two references of a broader char- 

 acter. 



Mr. Priagle gave my objections to the pro- 

 posed amendment to the law in the order of 

 their importance, as viewed by me, and as 

 pressed by me. Mr. Fettit d itly coutradicts 

 him in this, when he says " Here Mr. Prin- 

 gle's memory fails him again for Mr. Mc- 

 Kuight's greatest obj;?ction to the bill is, he 

 claims, that the penalties are too high. My 

 greatest objt?ctiou to the bill was that it was 

 needless, as bee- keepers already possessed, 

 auder existing laws, all the protection the 

 bill atforded them, apart from the increased 

 pen:ilties proposed. I objected to the pen- 

 alties as being extreme and out of harmony 

 with the spirit of justice and modern legis- 

 lation against crime. It ought to be suf- 

 ficient evidence to this ardent advocate of 

 bee-keepers' rights, that I was right and he 

 was wrong : when the Commons of Canada 

 struck the penalties he prepared oat of his 

 amendment altogether. Modern legislators 

 aim at making laws intlicting penalties upon 

 criminals in proportion to the crime com- 

 mitted. Wlieu he asked the parliament of 

 Canada to inflict a tine of .s;4(K) upon the 

 min who mixed his honey withsugar-syrop, 

 he made an nureasotiable request. We al- 

 ready had a law that made the fine for this 

 offence ^.')0, which, in my judgment, is suf- 

 ficient punishment, and this is the law at 

 the present time. Mr. Fettit came into the 

 world too late — he ought to have been born 

 when old decript women were burned as 

 witches, and men were gibbeted for clip- 

 ping coin. 



I objected to the phrase " That which is 

 gathered by bees from natural sources," as 

 being unhappily chosen as the lejal defini- 

 tion of tioral honey. I c«intended, and still 

 contend, that this phrase includes honey dew 

 and " Bag .Juice " and legalizes their pro- 

 da ction and sale, because both are gathered 

 by bees from natural sources. The promo- 

 ter of the amendment says such is not in- 

 tended to be included ; but a judge on the 

 bench when deciding a case of this kind 

 does not take into consideration the inten- 

 tion of the law maker — he interprets the law 

 by the language in which it is framed and I 

 feel sure no conviction coald be secured un- 



der this so called " pure honey bill " against 

 tile production and sale of these products. 



As for " honey dew " (which this gentle- 

 man wants to discuss) 1 have no particular 

 objection to its production and sale, if sold 

 for what it is. I believe it to be (when un- 

 mixed with bug juice wiiich is seldom the 

 case) a pure aud healthy sweet, possessing 

 most, if not all thd propdrties of honey — 

 except floral aroma. Bug juice, on the oth- 

 er haud, is vile stuff, unfit for human food. 

 It is the voidiugs of the aphis — creatures that 

 delight to revel on the sweet liquid exuded 

 through the pores of the leaves aud stems 

 of plants and trees. Bug juice bears the 

 same relation to honey dew that the excreta 

 of an infant bt-ars to its mother's milk. 



Mr. Pettit admits that there was " hon- 

 est (V) canvassing" to put me off the 

 Board, and his henchman, Holtermann, 

 accused me, in the columns of the paper he 

 edits, of resorting to a similar practice to re- 

 tain my position, but when I challenged 

 him ( Holtermann ) at onr last Aesociation 

 meeting, to name a man whom I ever ap- 

 proached with that end in view, he sat as 

 mute as a mummy, and "ate the leek" in 

 silence. It ill becomes the nian who dragged 

 his aged mother from her fireside, aud hus- 

 tled around to get her a vote with which to 

 help put himself in oliice, to charge others 

 with " canvassing." 



The most extraordinary charge, however, 

 that this extraordinary man makes in his 

 so called " rei«ly," is, when he charges the 

 late Allen Aringle with "inordinate ambi- 

 tion for place and power," whom he says 

 " will compare favorably with any one in 

 the Society in that line." Mr. Pringle was 

 a strange combination of modesty and ag- 

 gressiveness. Place and power he never 

 sought in the Society. I am free to say that 

 t barring the two I have named) no member 

 of the Association will say he ever knew Mr. 

 Pringle to canvass any one to secure to him- 

 self either place or power there — he seemed 

 rather to shrink from both than to press 

 himself forward. 



As for myself, the Association has noth- 

 ing left it can bestow upon me. It has al- 

 ready honored me with every ottice in Its 

 gift. I have been its Secretary, its Treas- 

 urer (both of which I voluntarily resigned), 

 I have been its President, a member of its 

 Board of Directors for a dozen years or 

 more, and its accredited delegate to every 

 meeting of the North American at which it 



