The Insurrection in Canada.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5084, 4 May 1885, Page 2

The Insurrection in Canada.

An. ex-sergeant of the north-west mounted police, who spent fire years ia the comparatively unknown country where the rising in Manitoba, fomented by Riel, the half-breed,. has taken place, has communicated the following information respecting the state of society there, to the Melbourne Argus:—Fort Saskatche* wan, where the rebellion is said to hare culminated, is a small mounted-police post, a few miles down the north Saskatchewan Hirer, from Fort Edmonton* house, a large Hudson Bay . Company trading post, situated in about 53deg. north latitude, and about. 112deg. west longtitode, and about 900 miles west from the Bed Hirer of the north, where the last rebellion took place. The garrison at Eort Saskatchewan has nor or been orer 25 men, which for 10 years hat alwayi been found sufficient... The police posts are scattered about the immense northwest territories at various places. The force consists of only about 350 men of all ranks, and has te look after the whole territory from the borders of the Province of Manitoba to the Rocky Mountains, and from the boundary of the United Slates to the Great Bear and Great Slare Lakes—a territory as large as the whole of the United Kingdom and France combined; and in that immense district there are fully 10,000 Indians (amongst whom horse stealing and other crimes arc a virtue), and many half breeds, who are a slippery lot, belored neither by the arerage white man nor the natires. The half-breeds are the descendants of the Canadian-French royageurs' trappers, &c, brought up to the country in the old palmy days of the Hudson Bay Company, but who now find their occupation gone. They are too idle to-Work, and tire by hnnting—feast when they hare plenty, and like the Indians are often rery hungry and distressed, especially in the winter; and winter in that country, often, being 30deg. and 43deg. below zero. . Formerly there were millions of buffalo in the north west. As long as the buffalo lasted the Indians and half-breeds were in clorer; but now they hare disappeared, they hare nothing to fall back on, except to steal and kill the white settlers' cattle. Being toe lazy to work, they, hare no doubt been reduced to greats straits, and so bare tried their hand' in the west, at forming, so to speak, a Gorernment of plunder ; but their reign must necessarily be a short one, as the Canadian Pacific Bailway can bring men from Canada within a little orer 103 miles from them in a few days, and the mounted police force can be concentrated at Fort Saskatchewan, or anywhere else, in 4*o or $hree weeks. , * .""■