from feeling any consciousness of shame or regret, to
openly court publicity for their proceedings. Jarvis was especially
culpable in this respect, and was not ashamed to write letters to the
papers on the subject, in one of which he avowed himself as the author
and originator of the outrage. He admitted having led on his band of
semi-official desperadoes, determined to "persevere, if resistance had
been made." As to the morality or immorality of the act, he professed
himself "easy on that head." Such language as this, coming, as it did,
from one who had shed the blood of a fellow-creature upon very slight
provocation; who had been tried for murder, and acquitted because the
crime was sanctioned by the usages of society; and who, moreover, in the
estimation of many people, richly deserved the hangman's noose--such
language, under the circumstances, was not merely injudicious and
unfeeling, but positively revolting. The only conceivable excuse that
can be made for it arises from the fact that Jarvis was at the time
irritated by a succession of attacks in the newspapers, in which his
conduct, bad as it had been, was held up in even a more odious light
than it deserved. The excuse may be taken for what it is worth. It is at
least certain that had the transgressor been imbued with feelings of
ordinary delicacy he would not have permitted himself to be goaded into
using such expressions as are to be found in his "Statement of Facts,"
published at York nearly two years after the type riot.[78] His
callousness stirred the hot blood of Francis Collins, of _The Canadian
Freeman_, to speak his mind editorially on the subject:--"We view it,"
he wrote, "as the greatest misfortune that could happen to any man in
this life to imbrue his hands in the blood of a fellow-man. But as this
barbarous practice has, by long usage, become familiar to the mind of
civilized society, we think it is a misfortune that might occur to an
otherwise virtuous and well-disposed man, and therefore ought not
(unless under aggravated circumstances) to be a reproach either to
himself or to his children; provided that, during the remainder of his
life he will show that caution which becomes his delicate situation, and
prove by his subsequent benevolence that he regrets his misfortune. But
if, after once having stained his hands with human blood, he will act
the desperado, and become a leader in such outrages as may end in a
repetition of his former act--then, w