by Ray Argyle
Ambling down the street, Edward decided the time had come for him to have a look at one of the hostess houses. He still wasn’t exactly sure what went on there, but he thought that if they rented out rooms, he might get a better place than the tiny room he was living in at the Columbia Hotel.
At one of the houses, he saw a red-headed woman standing at the door. She must be Irish Nell, he thought. He’d heard she was tough as nails, but that she had a heart of gold.
“Good evening, young man,” Irish Nell greeted him. “Would you like to come in and look around?”
Why not, Edward thought. He followed her into a front room that was set out as a parlour.
There were easy chairs, a sofa, and gas lamps. A painting of a woman wearing very few clothes hung from one wall.
“Do you have rooms here?” Edward asked.
“Something better,” Irish Nell told him. “Follow me.”
In the next room, Edward saw two of the girls that he’d noticed on the street earlier that day. He saw that both had their faces painted and were wearing what looked like the corset that he knew his mother put on when she wanted to get all dressed up — except these girls weren’t wearing anything over their corsets.
Suddenly, Edward realized he’d been a fool. This was no rooming house: it was one of those places where men went to meet girls.
“Uhh, I don’t think so,” Edward muttered, his face reddening. He turned and fled.
As he rushed out through the front parlour, Edward noticed three men had come in and sat down while he’d been in the back room. It was the three who had held him up in Eagle Pass!
Edward hurried down the street to the North-West Mounted Police post. He was glad to see Constable Ruddick there.
“I just saw them! The three who held me up. They’re over at Irish Nell’s.”
Constable Ruddick told Edward to stay where he was. Five minutes later, gun in hand, he returned with the three men in tow. They were a sad sight. Gone was the bravado they’d shown when they’d held him up. They filed meekly into the only cell in the small building.
The “Hanging Judge” — or Was He?
Matthew Baillie Begbie was born on a ship but became famous in the gold fields of British Columbia for his stern administration of justice, which earned him the nickname, “the Hanging Judge.” But he may have been unfairly tagged: the death penalty was mandatory for murder in his day and, in several cases, he successful argued for clemency and got many killers off with life in jail.
Begbie’s parents were aboard a British ship off the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, when Matthew was born. Educated in England, he was sent to British Columbia in 1858 to be judge in the new colony. He arrived just as the great Cariboo Gold Rush brought thousands of miners to the British Columbia interior. Lawbreakers were intimidated by his reputation and his appearance. He was an imposing man at six feet five inches tall, with white hair and a black mustache, and carried himself with an air of authority.
When Native people in the Chilcotin District killed twenty-one White men who had devastated tribal communities while building a road, Begbie had five of them hanged. During his years as a judge he hanged a total of twenty-seven men for a range of crimes.
Begbie made his views clear when a man charged with murder was let off with manslaughter: “Had the jury performed their duty, I might now have the painful satisfaction of condemning you to death, and you, gentlemen of the jury, you are a pack of Dallas horse thieves.”
Begbie became chief justice of British Columbia when the new province joined Canada in 1871. He once jailed an editor who criticized him. The editor, John Robson of the New Westminster paper, the British Columbian, later became the premier of British Columbia. Begbie also wrote many of the laws for the new province.
Begbie spent a great deal of time in the interior of the province. He once walked from New Westminster to Lillooet and back, a distance of 563 kilometres, and in one year alone he rode more than 5,000 kilometres.
Despite his fearsome reputation, Begbie championed a lot of progressive legislation. He was highly critical of laws discriminating against Chinese people. He called such laws “an infringement of personal liberty and the equality of all men before the law.”
Matthew Begbie was knighted in 1875 and died in 1894. Today, the historic Cariboo district gold mining town of Barkerville, British Columbia honours Judge Begbie’s life by staging annual reenactments of his famous trials.
“You go along, Edward, and we’ll let you know when we need you.”
During the next week Edward made two trips to Eagle Landing, which were both agreeable and profitable trips. He witnessed a number of accidents, many fights, and all sorts of thrills every day — all of which kept the doctors very busy. He happened on an emergency case once, when he found a doctor tending to a worker whose leg had been crushed by a load of rails. Another time, he saw two Chinese men fall from a cliff while they were trying to plant dynamite. Their boss, a White man, ordered them to get up and go to their tents. But Edward couldn’t stop thinking about how he would have to testify in court when the robbers came up before Judge Begbie.
Judge Begbie, even though he was now head of the British Columbia Supreme Court, still liked to “ride the circuit” as he had done for years, visiting out of the way mining and railway camps to dispense his brand of rough and ready justice.
Edward found a note waiting for him when he got back to his room one night, telling him to be in court the next morning at nine o’clock. The lobby of the Columbia Hotel served as a courtroom whenever it was needed.
A crowd had already gathered when Edward came down the stairs. Judge Begbie sat behind a large table with Constable Ruddick at his side. The three prisoners waited against the wall, guarded by a man carrying a shotgun.
Edward found himself sworn is as the only witness to the men’s crime.
“Can you point out the men who robbed you?” asked Constable Ruddick, whose job it was to question Edward.
“Yes. They’re right there.” Edward pointed to the men lined up against the wall.
“How much did the men steal from you?”
“I think it was about two dollars. They took all my change.”
Edward went on to explain how he had slapped Blackie on the rear and the bandits had ridden off after the horse.
“How do you plead?” Judge Begbie demanded of the men.
“Not guilty,” they all replied.
“Nonsense!” the judge bellowed. “You’re as guilty as sin. Robbing the Royal Mail is a capital offence and you’re all going to hang.”
“Oh, Judge Begbie, please don’t hang them,” Edward pleaded. “They only stole my change. They didn’t touch the mail. I don’t want them to hang on my account.”
Judge Begbie looked startled. He stared at Edward, glanced at the prisoners, and beckoned to Constable Ruddick. They whispered quietly to each other. Judge Begbie cleared his throat, and spoke directly to Edward.
“Edward, you must understand I am obliged to enforce the law. I only hang when hanging is warranted. But … maybe you’re right. Maybe they didn’t know you were carrying the Royal Mail. So I am going to grant your wish.”
Turning to the men, Judge Begbie passed sentence.
“Five years in jail. And if you ever come before me again, it’ll be the rope for all of you.”
Edward let out a deep breath. He might even have been more relieved than the three men who had just escaped the noose.
CHAPTER 8
LORD LANSDOWNE
COMES CALLING
The second most exciting thing that happened to Edward while he was in Farwell — the most exciting being the time he was robbed, of course — was when the governor general, Lord Lansdowne, came to visit. He had been in Canada for two years as the personal representative of Queen Victoria. By all accounts, Lord Lansdowne had taken a great interest in the building of the railway to the Pacific. He was known to be a good horseman with a passion for fishing and all things outd
oors. The governor general and his wife got off the train at the end of the track east of Farwell. That night, Lord Lansdowne penned a letter to his mother:
We travelled from the summit of the Rockies (in railway parlance the point where the railway begins to go downhill) to the end of the track.
Breakfasted in the car at 7:20 and took ponies to resume the journey, rode about 18 miles over fearful ground, but thro’ the grandest possible scenery to a railway village called Farwell where we camped very comfortably in tents provided by the Ry. People.
Edward was there for Lord Lansdowne’s visit to Farwell in 1885.
Edward followed along with the governor general’s party the next day. He stayed just far enough back so as not to be questioned about what he was doing.
At about eight o’clock the regal visitors rode out of Farwell, bound for a First Nations reservation. They were met by a Native man, known as Red Crow, and his principal chiefs, all of whom were on horseback and wearing their finest leather coats topped by feather headdresses.
Lord Lansdowne was escorted to a chair where, surrounded by his staff and the North-West Mounted Police, he sat to receive Red Crow. Red Crow and his chiefs sat on the ground, in a semi-circle, while an interpreter put their words into English. It was mostly complaints about how the government was treating them. After a time, gifts were produced on both sides: a pair of field glasses were handed to Red Crow and pipes, knives, and tobacco were given out to the others.
The Lord Who Loved Canada
Lord Lansdowne was governor general from 1883 to 1888, when the British Empire was at its glory and Queen Victoria’s new Dominion of Canada faced many challenges.
Born to an important family, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice came to Canada at a time when public confidence had been shaken by the Pacific Scandal over the building of the railway, and the country was in a recession. Then along came the North-West Rebellion.
As he travelled about Canada, Lord Lansdowne developed a great fondness for the outdoors, became an avid salmon fisherman, and took part in winter sports. His journey to Farwell (now Revelstoke) in 1885 gave him the opportunity to meet First Nations chiefs and visit outlying points by horseback and boat. He returned to British Columbia after the completion of the railway to travel all the way to Port Moody, which was the end of the line at the time.
Lord Lansdowne inherited a vast estate and was a man of great wealth. He served the British government in many capacities: he was the viceroy of India, then considered the jewel of the British Empire, and returned home to serve as secretary of state for war, and later as Foreign Secretary. He died in 1927 and left an estate worth over one million pounds Sterling (CDN$5 million; today worth about $60 million).
The governor general, Lord Lansdowne, met with the First Nations chiefs of the Shuswap and other tribes in the area when he visited British Columbia.
After the ceremony everyone stood while a bugler sounded “God Save the Queen” and people sang along to the Royal anthem. Edward’s chest filled with pride: he’d been brought up to admire Queen Victoria. As a good British boy, he was proud of his connection with the great Empire and the fact that he lived in a place named after his queen.
Then something happened that Edward could never have expected.
Colonel Sam Steele was in charge of the escorts who cleared the way for Lord Lansdowne. When he saw Edward, he pulled up his horse, ordered the procession to halt, and turned to the governor general.
“Your Excellency, I want you to meet a fine young man. Typical of the kind of brave young boys we’re bringing up in this country.”
Edward was stunned. He didn’t think Colonel Steele knew about him. He could only stand and stare as the governor general trotted his horse his way.
“This is the boy who carries the Royal Mail over Eagle Pass. He was held up the other day, but had the presence of mind to send off his mount before they could get at the saddlebags. We caught the ruffians, and they’re in the penitentiary by now.”
“I see they start them young in Canada,” the governor general said. “You’ve done well, young man. Keep that up and you’ll have a bright future. I could use somebody like you in the Horse Guards. Always need good men at my place in Wiltshire, Bowood House.”
Bowood House was one of the most stately homes in England, situated amid a two-thousand acre estate, but Edward couldn’t have known this.
After Lord Lansdowne’s brief word, he spurred on his horse, and the official party rode on.
Edward travelled back to Farwell that night, happy that he would have an exciting tale to tell about his encounter with the governor general in a mountain valley beyond Farwell.
But the governor general wasn’t the only remarkable person Edward met during his remaining days in Farwell.
Edward liked to watch the men building the railway. He would stare transfixed, as fifty or sixty men hung on ropes above Summit Lake while they drilled holes in the rock face of the mountain. Their job was to fill the holes with dynamite sticks that had been laced together with a long fuse, which was lit twice a day by the man charged with setting off explosions. When it went off, a tremendous blast would shake Eagle Pass. Hundreds of tons of rock hurtled through the air, coming to rest along the shore of Summit Lake. Sometimes the rock tumbled right into the lake.
Building tunnels through solid rock was always a challenge for the railway builders.
After each blast, swarms of men with shovels and carts moved the loose earth and rock: they were all Chinese and looked like ants, slaving away for the good of the railway.
Edward was riding Blackie the day he met Dukesang Wong, and was anxious to get through before a storm struck. But the blasting held him up, and he noticed that one of the Chinese workers seemed to be giving directions to the work gang. When Edward heard the man speaking in English to the foreman, he decided to ride over and listen to what was being said.
“Gold Mountain is not as kind to us as we expected. Why can White men go unpunished, when we are punished for no reason and forced to work in the cold, with little food or clothing?”
Edward didn’t understand what they were arguing about. When the foreman rode off, he asked the Chinese man where he learned to speak English.
“My teaching master spoke excellent English, and he passed on to me, his poor, stupid student, whatever my small brain could absorb.”
Edward decided to choose his words very carefully, since he’d heard that the Chinese were very modest.
“My name is Edward. My poor horse and I ride twice this way every week.”
The man’s face lit up at Edward’s attempt to match the humility and reticence that were distinguishing characteristics of cultivated Chinese conversation.
“I am called Dukesang Wong. I have worked with the railway all the way from New Westminster. It has been hard and terrible work that my countrymen have been given. We will be happy to see the end of the building of this railway.”
Edward told Dukesang that he had watched the Chinese workers and thought they were very brave, and eagerly accepted Dukesang’s invitation to share a meal.
As Edward followed Dukesang into his tent, he thought back to the days when he ran from Chinese in the back streets of Victoria. I know better now, he thought.
“Here, here, sit,” Dukesang pointed to a folding chair inside the tent. There were two other men in the tent, who got up and quickly went outside. Dukesang called after them in Cantonese, and one of them came back with a plate of food for Edward. It contained part of a baked fish, rice balls, and a baked bun. Edward ate with his fingers, since he didn’t know how to use the chopsticks Dukesang offered him and there was no sign of a knife or fork. Dukesang held his plate close to his face, and expertly used chopsticks to transfer his food to his mouth.
After eating, Dukesang poured cups of tea for himself and his guest. Feeling more relaxed, Edward asked what it was like working for the railroad. He wanted to know how long Dukesang had been in Canada, and what he planned to do when t
he railway was finished.
“I’ll tell you my story, if you’d like to hear it,” Dukesang said.
“Oh, yes, I do. Tell me everything.”
CHAPTER 9
COURAGE ON GOLD
Dukesang took a deep breath and began talking.
“The worst part was last winter. There was no work for me and my gang of thirty. All the construction stopped for the winter, along with our pay, and we were all hungry. Every morning when I awoke, I wondered if I would have to bury another of my men.”
Dukesang told Edward that he was the youngest and strongest of the workers, but even he was beginning to suffer from beriberi. It was a terrible disease that the Chinese called black leg; it came from subsisting on a diet of just rice. Dukesang and his men seldom got to eat any vegetables or meat. As the spokesman for his crew, he often complained to the White foreman but it did no good.
One day early in 1885, with the ground still frozen, Dukesang went over to his friend Wing Sun’s bed mat. Wing’s legs were swollen, and he complained of terrible pains in his chest and his head. Dukesang felt bad that he had no more bok choy, which he had grown in a small wooden box. The leafy green vegetable would have made a good soup to serve his dying friend.
Later that day, Wing breathed his last. The few pennies he had managed to save weren’t enough to send his bones back to Saltwater City — the Chinese name for New Westminster — let alone China. Dukesang had to put his body in the forest and wait until the ground thawed enough to bury him.
“So many of us suffered and died, I cannot count them all. My dying countrymen prefer to spend their last days in the opium shacks. The delirium of the opium at least releases them from their awful hardships. What else could they do? What hope did they have?”
Railway building stopped during winter, but warmly dressed surveyors pressed on.