e does not refer to it in that
connection, that the Police are expected to do work as mail-carriers,
postmasters and such like, outside proper police duty, because the
country could not get civilians to do it at the remuneration offered.
The whole thing troubles Wood, who was of a sensitive temperament and
very anxious to retain high-class men in the Force. And so he refers to
it again in the following year and says that a constable who was a
skilled mechanic and was saving the country great expense by looking
after the manufacture of stove pipes, tinware, etc., had been offered as
much an hour by town merchants as he was getting in a day in the corps
on the scale allowed by the Police Act. And Wood, who feels keenly for
the men, says, "Our poor circumstances are so generally known that it
has become usual to send members of the Force complimentary tickets for
entertainments and reduce the fees in clubs and societies for them."
Probably what was in the minds of those who sent tickets and reduced
fees was that it was an honour to have with them the men in scarlet and
gold who made human life and property safe on the frontier and whose
standards of manners and education made them most desirable company. But
the comparative poverty was there amidst abounding chances to be rich in
the gold country and elsewhere in a new land. Men who served through the
dangerous formative periods of Western history died poor in worldly
goods. It is a fine thing to know that all through the years these men
out of the sheer love of adventure and their high ideals of devotion to
duty did such service, but the facts should not be lost sight of when
the pensions of the "old guard" survivors are being considered from time
to time.

The quality of the non-commissioned officers and men is often brought
out in their detachment reports. These reports reveal not only men of
ability and insight, but throw light on the kind of people these Police
in the north had to guide. Sergeant Frank Thorne, for instance, was in
charge at a place called Tantalus. The man who gave that name to the
elusive mining prospects of the region had a sense of humour and the
fitness of things. Thorne says, "Hundreds of people landed at Tantalus
en route to the new White Horse diggings. Most of these people had been
misinformed as to the best place to start from. I informed some of them,
but found that a person with gold fever is very unreasonable and
stubborn. Those that retur