More than once, realizing the awful effect of this dread traffic upon the natives, the Missionary felt impelled to take the law into his own hands in dealing with this illicit trade.
WITCH DOCTOR.
[p. 119]
CROSBY TEACHING
INDIAN CHIEF.
“COAL TYEE.”
[p. 127]
WITCH DOCTOR’S WIFE.
[p. 119]
One fine day in Victoria, another preacher and myself, crossing the bay on the old ferry boat, saw a canoe coming from under a wharf with boxes in it. I said to my friend, “That looks like whiskey.” We hurried the ferryman up, watching at the same time where this canoe would land. Leaving my friend, I ran over the hill, shouting as I passed the chief’s house, in his own tongue, “Give me an axe, an axe I must have.” Jim, the chief, successor to old King Freezee, ran out of his house with an axe in his hand. Seizing it I ran towards the canoe, and just as the men landed their cases of “tangleleg,” as it was called at that time, I smashed them open with the axe, sending the blade through the five-gallon coal oil cans full of this terrible stuff. Much of the liquor then sold to the Indians was a vile combination of camphene, coal oil and other fiery material, which seemed to set the natives wild when they drank it. The men by this time had run away, one up the hillside and the other some distance down the beach, looking back to see what would be done. I do not know whether they thought I was an officer of the law or not, but at any rate we got rid of that much of the abominable stuff—“chain lightning” it was sometimes called—which might have caused much trouble and loss of life in the camp.
“Oh, Let Me Have Just a Little, Sir!”
On a journey down the east coast of Vancouver Island my Indian boy, Charlie, and I, having travelled about twenty-five miles in a small canoe, touched at a little village on a beautiful island where I had often visited and preached before.
Just as our canoe struck the beach, on the north point of the island, a young man by the name of Jacob, who was already “half seas over,” called out, “Mr. Crosby, whiskey, whiskey!”
I jumped out and ran across the point of land, and here was a big fellow, named Comox Tom, with a large canoe, just pushing off.
Too late to reach them, as they paddled away as quickly as possible, I turned around through the village and found they had had a “whiskey feast.” And, oh! what a sight! nearly all drunk—men, women and children.