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Show MOUNTED POLICE. The people of western Canada view as something tragic tho official dropping of the name of the Eoyal Northwest Mounted Police, a name interwoven with the history of the Canadian west as a synonym of honor, courage and service and crowned with the thrilling traditions of one of the greatest bodies of co'nstabularyi'n the world. By an act of parliament the famous scarlet riders of the plains have been merged with the Dominion police under tho title of the "Royal Canadian Mounted Police." With human nature the same yesterday, yester-day, today and forever, why was the settlement of the Canadian west unattended unat-tended by the lawlessness that marked the frontier in the United States? Why wero there no counterparts in western Canada of Abilene, Tombstone, Dead-wood Dead-wood and other classic type towns of the American west, w-hose early history was written with a six-shooter dipped in whisky and blood? Why did not the Canadian west produce men like "Billy the Kid," Doc Holliday, "Wild Bill" Hikok, Luke Shortt'and their kind? Bandits like the James brothers and the Youngers? Read the answer in the Royal Northwest Mounted Mount-ed Police. When the Union Pacific pushed its way across the American continent they killed a man every morning before be-fore breakfast in the construction camps along the line. There were enough men murdered to serve as mile posts from Ogden to Omaha. When the Canadian Pacific stretched its steel bands across the plains and mountains of Canada there was no such murderous accompaniment to railway enterprise. Again the efficiency of the Northwest Mounted Police. Organized in 1S73, the Royal Northwest North-west Mounted Police carried law into the west when the. plains were covered with buffalo and Indians. From the Great Lakes to the Rockies and from the international boundary to the Arctic Arc-tic ocean they enforced the law and made the settlement and development of western Canada a long, but peaceful, peace-ful, process. For four years the Royal Northwest Mounted. Police held in cheek Sitting Bull and his Sioux warriors who had sought sanctuary on Canadian soil after the Custer massacre on the Little Big Horn. They had full share in saving western civilization in the Kiel rebellion. They failed to get overseas as a unit in the world war, but the famous fa-mous " Ilell-for-Lealher " Fort Garys who charged into the fight at Cambrai, the Strathcona Horse, the Royal Canadian Cana-dian dragoons and the Canadian mounted rifles were filled w-ith rankers rank-ers who had worn the red tunic of the old corps. This veteran constabulary have not been empire builders, but they smoothed the road for empire and kept it smoothed. Wes;?ru Canada is western Canada today largely because of their work. Though the old name undor which they won fame and glottis glott-is discarded, it will endure in the history his-tory of the Canadian west, in the building build-ing of which these riders of the plains held no mean place. |