A Visit to Newfoundland

by Mary Lydia Branch

Bye and bye prices were not so good for fish, and now and then groceries went up a little. The people awoke too late to the situation. They had lost their markets. Simple as their wants had always been, they were now more pinched than ever before, and there was nothing to do but to go on fishing, always fishing, that they might get flour, molasses, clothing, coal, from the ever accommodating merchant.

Channel is a fair sample of the larger coast villages. Its merchant has a comfortable house and a well-filled store. His yard is well fenced, and there his only child, a little daughter, plays alone. She is not allowed the companionship of the fishermen’s children, and when she is older she will have a governess. Other children attend the Church of England school or the Methodist school, the Roman Catholic children remaining outside until after prayers.

The fishermen live in small, poor cottages, with the barest necessities of life. As you meet them on the road or shore and look at their weather-beaten, serious faces and their friendly, inquiring eyes, you are touched with the pathos of their condition.

The merchant is not the only well-to-do man in Channel. The government has its salaried officials there also, the stipendiary magistrate, who can offer his guests cake and wine, the constable, who has charge of the empty prison, patrols the paths, and takes command in cases of shipwreck, and the postmaster, who for thirty years has lived there comfortably and raised a large family of sons and daughters. He told us that it had been his custom at the beginning of each winter to lay in ten barrels of flour and a whole frozen ox. These men support the government policy and seek no changes. They are good in their place and earn their salaries, but their lot is immeasureably easier than that of the fishermen.

The school teacher gets a little pay from the government and a little from each family, probably not more than three hundred dollars in all. The doctor receives five dollars annually from each family, except the very poorest, and for this sum he treats them in all their illnesses. He is also the doctor for Codroy, Little River, and one or two other places, on the same terms.

There is no dentist or barber in Channel, and not one saloon. It is a strict temperance place from force of circumstances, and the roads are as safe at midnight as at midday.

There are no lawyers there, but for the purposes of justice the circuit court visits the place at intervals, coming by boat. A curious case was being tried the day of our arrival, and a crowd of boys were in attendance. A certain boy had been made the subject of ridicule by the others, who jeered at him and nicknamed him the “Sheep.” The more he showed his resentment the more they tormented him, and one boy went so far as to call out “Ba-a-a! Ba-a-a!” when he met him on the road.

The boy who said “Ba-a-a!” was now on trial, his offense was proved, and he was sentenced to jail for thirty days.

The jail is in the constable’s house, and when I was calling there a few days later I was shown the cells, which are simply three neat little bedrooms, and I saw the jail yard, where the culprit was digging his bare toes in the ground, with an embarrassed air.

Public opinion was with him, because he was a poor and honest boy who had just got a place to work, while the “Sheep” was an arrogant boy home on a vacation from a St. John’s school.