Always Have Proof
It is always advisable to have positive proof of your assertions, no matter how respectable you may be. I learned this when on a trip on Lake Manitoba in the 80’s. Our party, which consisted of Hon. C. P. Brown, Minister of Public Works, in the Norquay government, Hon. Alex. Sutherland, provincial secretary, F. H. Mathewson, manager of the Merchants Bank, George B. Spencer, the venerable collector of customs at Winnipeg—the two latter being prominent in Episcopal church matters—George Dennison Taylor, who wore a plug hat, and myself. We had gone to the White Mud river by train, then took Pratt’s big tug-boat to the upper end of the lake, where we overtook His Lordship Archbishop Machray and his party, who had been nearly a week longer than we had in reaching Partridge Crop river by driving and canoeing. After the customary greetings, His Lordship casually asked Mr. Brown when he had left Winnipeg. “Yesterday,” promptly answered C. P. The Archbishop looked incredulous, as from his own personal experience, that was impossible. So he turned to Mr. Sutherland and to Mr. Mathewson and to Mr. Spencer and individually made the same enquiry, which evoked the same reply. His Grace could scarcely believe his ears, although he had every confidence in their veracity, and especially of his co-workers and fellow churchmen. So in despair he turned to me, and satirically asked, “Well, then, Mr. Ham, when did you leave Winnipeg?” “Oh, I came with this party and”—producing it—“here’s a copy of yesterday’s Free Press I brought along for you.”
The good prelate was greatly relieved for my positive proof as to the time we left the city had assured him that all men were not liars—as he had really begun to believe the others were. I sat in a front pew the next Sunday in St. John’s Cathedral, and His Lordship preached a thoughtful sermon on the sin of bearing false witness against one’s neighbors and the beneficial advantages of making your statements full and clear.
It had nothing to do with the above incident, but George Dennison Taylor, (who recently passed away in Montreal, deeply lamented), while we were on the tug-boat, persisted in speaking of “Nee-a-gare-a.” We couldn’t make out what on earth he was talking about, and he finally told us it was about the great cataract. He was informed that in civilized and Christian countries, it was pronounced “Niagara,” but he persisted in calling it “Nee-a-gare-a,” until he was threatened with being thrown into the lake if he didn’t give it the proper pronunciation. When he again persisted in his aboriginal pronunciation of the Falls, Aleck Sutherland and I—both husky chaps—grabbed George and threw him overboard. Down he went into the depths—all but his shiny plug, and when he came up we yelled at him, “Niagara or Nee-a-gare-a?” and he answered “Nee-a-gare-a.” Down he went again, but when he came to the surface, submissively announced that the proper pronunciation was Niagara. He was then hauled aboard, and so was the plug, and when he learned that the lake was about forty miles long and only seven miles wide, and goodness knows how deep he cheerfully admitted that “Niagara” was a more picturesque and poetical word than “Nee-a-gare-a.” And so it is.