are sent
down to look after the interests of that denomination on our North
coast, came to inform me that the only other magistrate on the coast,
the pillar of the Church of England, and shortly to be our
stipendiary, who had many political friends of great influence in St.
John's, was keeping a "blind tiger," while many even of his own people
were being ruined body and soul by this temptation under their noses.

"Well," I replied, "if you will come and give the evidence which will
lead to conviction, I will do the rest."

"I certainly will," he answered. And he did. So we got the little
Strathcona under way, and after steaming some fifteen miles dropped
into a small cove a mile or two from the place where our friend lived.
In the King's name we constrained a couple of men to come along as
special constables. Our visit was an unusual one. To divert suspicion
we dressed our ship in bunting as if we were coming for a marriage
license. When we anchored as near his stage as possible, we dropped
our jolly-boat and made for the store. The door was, however, locked
and our friend nowhere to be seen. "He is in the store" was the reply
of his wife to our query. We knew then that there was no time to be
lost, and even while we battered at the door, we could hear a
suspicious gurgle and smell a curious odour. Rum was trickling down
through the cracks of the store floor on to the astonished winkles
below. But the door quickly gave way before our overtures, and we
caught the magistrate _flagrante delicto_. We were threatened with all
sorts of big folk in St. John's; but we held the trial on board
straightaway just the same. When court was called, the defendant
demanded the name of the prosecutor--and to his infinite surprise out
popped the youthful aspirant to the Methodist ministry. When he
learned that half of his fine of seventy dollars had to be paid to the
prosecutor and would be applied toward the building of a Methodist
school, his temper completely ran away with him; and we had to
threaten auction on the spot of the goods in the store before we could
collect the money. We left him breathing out threatenings and
slaughter.

[Illustration: THE INSTITUTE]

Only once was I really caught. Two mothers in a little village had
appealed to me because liquor was being sold to their boys who had no
money, while people were complaining simultaneously that fish was
being stolen from their stages. No one would tell who was selling