326 LABRADOR 
served us from national crippling or from absolute deletion 
from the roll of great nations, is in danger of being lost by 
the general increase of wealth and luxury. 
I shall here only suggest the debt that the Catholics of 
Europe owe the codfish. The vast amount they consume 
is the best proof of the value at which they estimate him. 
But I can suppose that the family circle on many a Friday 
night would sit around the table with blank faces if it were 
not for this additional virtue of our friend, viz. his gratify- 
ing faculty for passing muster as eligible for dinner before 
an ecclesiastical inquisition which has placed all our staple 
articles under the ban. And for this discernment the world 
in return owes the authorities of the Church a very real 
debt, inasmuch as they so directly encourage in this way a 
calling so invaluable to mankind. 
Thus it cannot be said that, in praising the codfish, we 
have exaggerated his virtues. Not only has he bred a 
healthy race; he has invigorated a weak one. His oil 
has enabled us to battle successfully with the subtlest en- 
emy of our race, the tubercle bacillus, even in the face of 
all the wonderful discoveries of modern science and the 
hoards of money lavished on other methods. A couple of 
years ago, when the supply of cod-liver oil was short, the 
crude article rose in value in a couple of months from forty 
cents a gallon to $4 a gallon direct from the barrel. 
May the men of Labrador never need the emasculating 
paternal legislation of our neighbours in Europe, or the 
bounty system of ‘presents for good boys that venture out 
to sea”! When the world beholds the spectacle of the Eng- 
lish, as a race that will not venture forth on the mighty 
waters without being stimulated by such adventitious aid, 
