”Ned”—Hon. Edward Farrer.
There had been no better known newspaper man in Canada than Ned Farrer, and none more popular with those who knew him. He was a brilliant writer, an interesting conversationalist with an unlimited fund of information and humor, and knew so many stories and told them so often that he actually believed them himself.
While Ned had been chief editorial editor of the Toronto Mail and the Toronto Globe, he was also on the Winnipeg Times, succeeding me as editor-in-chief in 1882, and in later years he became a free lance and wrote for many papers, chief amongst which was the London Economist, and he was also employed by large corporations on account of his grasp of subjects and the readiness of his pen. A better writer I never knew who could put a case more clearly and succinctly than he could, and his great mind could see both sides of a question, so that he could reply to his own arguments without any difficulty, and then controvert them to the Queen’s taste. His style was incisive and telling.
Once when Chief Justice Wallbridge, of the Manitoba bench, who had reached a good old age, fiercely denounced the reflections of the Winnipeg Times on the court, Ned made very brief reference to it, and concluded: “Senility has its privileges.” That repartee has been quoted to me many a time since. He had been in earlier years on the New York press, but wandered to Canada where his services were always in demand.
So greatly were his talents appreciated, and so esteemed was he by Sir John Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier that, it is said, he wrote the platforms for both political parties on one occasion. While we were most intimate for more than forty years he never admitted it to me, but what he didn’t tell of himself was monumental. No one except his wife and myself knew that he was the Honorable Edward Farrer, and that he was a nephew of Archbishop O’Donnell of Cork.
Many is the story he has told me of how he was the intermediary between the Archbishop and the chief of the Irish Constabulary in dealing with the Fenians when they were the disturbing element in Ireland. If the suspect was a pretty decent, harmless fellow the Archbishop would arrange for him to be freed and sent home; if he was a dangerous character and an undesirable, he would be shipped to America, with passage paid and sufficient money to give him a fair start in the new world.
How he himself happened to come to America is a queer story and has never before been told in print, for I promised not to tell it until he had passed away. While at college in Rome where he was studying for the priesthood, he, with a brother student, as remarkably clever as Ned, were taking a stroll the afternoon before the day of their ordination.
One asked the other: “Do you want to be a priest?” and both agreed they didn’t. Just then, a little breeze blew a piece of an Italian newspaper against Ned’s leg and picking it up he read an advertisement for two interpreters—English and Italian—applications to be made to the captain of a ship, then in port. They hastened to the vessel, but the captain seeing their student’s garb at first refused to engage them on the ground that the college authorities missing them would search and find them before they could get away. They, however, persuaded him that they could hide in the forecastle until the ship sailed, which they did. Shortly before the advertised time of departure, the captain saw the searching party heading for the ship, and, although the tide was unfavorable, immediately cast off ropes and started—landing the two young men in New York almost penniless.
They, however, quickly procured employment, and later Ned became one of the most powerful newspaper writers in Canada, sought after by prominent politicians of both parties. Besides Sir John and Sir Wilfrid, Sir Richard Cartwright was a close personal friend, and many members of the different cabinets sought his sound advice and pleasant company. At Washington, he had many friends in high political positions, Jas. G. Blaine, Senator Hoar and Congressman Hitt being amongst those most intimate with him.
Ned was a good cricketer in his earlier days, and later an enthusiastic baseball fan. He played in cricket matches in England against some noted players, and would travel long distances to see a league baseball game in Canada or the United States. And he dearly loved a game of cards—Black Jack or Catch the Ten, an old Irish game, being his special favorite. He used to wire me Saturday mornings to come up sure—the first one being that Clifford Sifton wanted to see me. When I reached his home in Ottawa that evening, I naturally asked what Sifton wanted to see me about. And he looked apparently amazed, and asked:
“What Sifton?”
“Why, the Minister of the Interior.”
“Never heard of him,” he replied.
“But,” I said, handing him his dispatch, “here’s your telegram.” He took it, scrutinized it carefully, and returning it casually remarked:
“Can’t you see that’s not my handwriting—it’s a forgery.”
And then we would play Black Jack until three or four in the morning and important visitors would be told that “Mr. Farrer was very busily engaged, and could not see them.” He was very busy—trying to beat me, which he usually did.
I couldn’t tell you all the rich stories about Ned Farrer, but one will suffice. The two of us with Mrs. Farrer were on a westbound C.P.R. train. Ned was an early riser, so I asked him to awaken me when he got up as I was very tired.
He and Mrs. Farrer were in lower 11 and I was in lower 7. After they had retired a young lady from Yale, B.C., whom I knew, entered the sleeper and after a few minutes’ conversation told me that she didn’t know where she was going to sleep that night. I told her that I did—in lower 7. She said that she had no berth secured, and I explained that lower 7 was her’s, although it had been mine but I had another. In the middle of the night Mrs. Farrer had occasion to visit the toilet, and on her return accidentally got into the berth of our Mr. Cambie, of Vancouver. Then trouble commenced. She told him to lie over, and he told her to get out of the berth. “Don’t be a fool, Ned, get over farther,” was followed by Mr. Cambie saying, “My name is not Ned.” Then came a half-suppressed shriek, and the flitting of a female form to lower 11. All this I enjoyed from the upper berth in which I was supposed to repose. In the morning, I heard Ned pattering down the aisle, and saw him pull aside the berth curtains and give the poor innocent occupant a well-directed slap in the proper part of her anatomy, accompanied by: “Get up, you old devil, you.”
I think I put nearly all of one of the pillows in my mouth to silence the laughter that was racking my body.
“George,” the porter, having been duly instructed, explained to the lady that a lunatic had escaped from the day coach, but had been recaptured and handcuffed—and the rest of the day I held Ned in awed subjection by threatening to point him out to the lady as the person who had committed the assault, and in dire fear, the well-known editor spent most of the day and part of the night in the baggage car, occasionally sending to the rear to find out if the female was still vengeful, or if she had got off the train, receiving emphatic assurances of “Yes” and “No” with the necessary verbal frills each time.
I breakfasted with the lady and then afterwards told E. F., who sat at the extreme end of the diner, that she had been informed that “the big florid-faced man at the end table was the guilty party” and that “she was laying for him” when he went into the sleeper. Which he did not do until I finally explained matters and then dove-like peace reigned once more.
One Good Friday night, while in Toronto, I got a wire from Mrs. Farrer to come to Ottawa at once for Ned was dying. I stayed with him to the end, and when he passed away, one of the brightest minds and one of the greatest journalists of his time was lost to the world.