Plainfield High School - Milestone Yearbook (Plainfield, NJ)

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14 TEEORACEE pecting and illiterate as they are, they are readily fleeced by unscrupulous traders, who practically own them before many years. After a hard winter they start handicapped. In order to secure the wherewithal to begin work, they must needs mortgage the prospective catch, and thus, living from hand to mouth, they are obliged to continue as long as there are fish to sell. Such was the state of the Labrador coast before Dr. Grenfell’s arrival. There was but one physician to be had—and his visits were few and casual, —a brutal creature, who as often as not refused to attend the people, suc- cored them or left them to die, as the spirit moved him. Here was a con- dition of affairs sadly in need of reformation. And the man was not want- ing. Dr. Grenfell came and immediately set to work, with an energy and precision which foreshadowed great things. In a short time there was a hospital established at St. Anthony on the coast of North Newfoundland, and the new doctor was known over some two thousand miles of sea-board. All his efforts were directed to the extermination of the race-plague— tuberculosis—which the insufficient nourishment and hard lives of the folk rapidly produced. To gain his end, Dr. Grenfell must in some way better the physical con- dition of the people, else his work would be totally useless. As a first step, he determined to release them from the bondage in which they were held by the traders, and to abolish the iniquitous “truck” system, as it was called. So he started a co-operative store. This succeeded so well that now there are eight or ten more scattered along the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland, and the people are in much happier circumstances than ever before. 3ut the assistance of the fishers during the winter was a matter of much concern to the missionary. Little could be done for them, as they scattered as soon as the cold weather fell, in the hope of being able to trap a few fur- bearing animals. Thus widely separated as they were, nothing could be done to educate the children. The problem then was, to provide for the men em- ployment which would bring the families together into a small community. But what problem could Dr. Grenfell not solve? Taking up a large grant of government land, he had soon built a saw-mill, gathered the people about it, giving them plenty of work for the terrible winter time, and provided a school for the children. | But quite as important as these medical and missionary stations are the movable ones in which Dr. ‘Grenfell patrols the coast, bearing with him health and cheer. In summer he carries on his work by means of his little steamer, the “Strathcona;” in winter he visits every accessible corner of his territory in his dog-sleigh, dubbed the “Lend-a-Hand.” The “Strathcona” sails up and down the coast from St. John’s to Cape

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LHE. GRACE 13 Thus indifferently are we prone to relegate to the remote past heroism, self-sacrifice and uncomplaining service of our fellow men. But even this romantically unfruitful century may produce men worthy of a place beside any ardent Elizabethan or zealous sea-king. There are still wrongs to be righted and sufferings to be relieved, and there are still men fitted to under- take such tasks for the betterment of mankind. We need not look so very far for illustrations to prove our text. Upon the desolate coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland a young Englishman is living out his life among the deep-sea fishermen and sparsely scattered settlers of those waste regions. For fourteen years Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, Oxford graduate and physician, has been ministering, summer and winter, to the destitute inhabitants of a bleak land. Summer and winter he has labored among them, striving to allay their suffering, to cheer and uplift them, and to give them a “fair chance” in life. And how well he has suc- ceeded, only Dr. Grenfell and his people can fully appreciate. Years ago, while still a medical student in London, Dr. Grenfell became interested in the work being carried on among the deep-sea fishermen of the western coast of England. He joined the staff of the Royal National Mission, and worked as only he can work to establish it firmly among the fishermen. When everything was running smoothly, and there were no more obstacles to overcome, his attention was drawn to the necessity for similar work in Labrador, and in 1892 he left England for Canada. Labrador is a large country—larger than all England, France, and Austria put together. The interior, however, is practic ally uninhabitated ; along the sea-board is scattered the constantly increasing population. In the summertime these settled members are increased by some twenty thous- and fisher folk from Canada and Newfoundland. They, of course, must be cared for, too, when the “catch” is small, or an epidemic breaks out, and their. attendance through the short but strenuous season. sensibly increases the burdens of the physician-missionary. Fortunately, or not, as we may regard it, the season is short,—barely four months in duration. For the remaining eight months of the year Labrador is shut off entirely from the outside world. Then come the hard times; before the winter is over, most of the people are starving to death. For they are desperately poor, these Labrador fishers. To have enough tea, flour, and molasses,—their staple articles of food,—is, with them, to be in flourishing circumstances. In the summer, at least, they have enough to maintain existence ; but ir the winter they have little or no employment by which they may earn a living, and their condition is pitiable. Even while the fishing is good, they never realize the half of what their labor should bring in to them. Unsus-

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THE ORACLE 15 Chidley, stopping at the various missionary stations, the three hospitals and the Orphan Asylum, and answers calls from all quarters. No weather is rough enough, no gale too strong to keep the “Strathcona” in harbor when a call comes for help. Seas that appall the staunchest of the Labrador fisher- men, tempests that fairly lift the ships from their anchorage—nothing is too formidable for this daring missionary. By the natives he has long been regarded with tolerant amusement as a gentle lunatic, whom Providence preserves miraculously from destruction. Mr. Norman Duncan, who visited him on board his little vessel during a most perilous trip says: “Doubtless he enjoyed the experience while it lasted—and promptly forgot it as being common-place. I have heard of him caught at night in a winter’s gale of wind and sleet, threading a tumultuous, reef strewn sea, his skipper at the wheel, himself on the bowsprit, guiding the ship by the flash and roar of breakers while the sea tumbled over him.” Mr. Duncan says of a friend who was with Dr. Grenfell on this trip: “If the chance passenger who told me the story, is to be believed, upon that trying occasion the Doctor had ‘the time of his life.’ “All that man wanted, I told the Doctor, was, as he said, ‘to bore a hole in the bottom of the ship and crawl out.’ “Why, exclaimed the Doctor with a laugh of surprise, ‘he wasn't frightened, was he?’ ” The “Strathcona” is the fifth boat which Dr. Grenfell has had since he began his work on the Labrador. All the others have succumbed to hard usage on “the worst coast in the world.” The Doctor’s disregard of storm and surf has given rise to a new proverb among the fishermen. When the wind blows an exceptionally stiff gale and the sea looks particularly hostile, they say, “This will bring Grenfell.” And it usually does. All through the long, desolate winter Dr. Grenfell makes his untiring trips on his sledge, the “Lend-a-Hand.” Drawn by a dog-team, over ice and snow, in bitter cold, he never hesitates for an instant to start out whenever he is called upon. In a letter written to a contemporary periodical, he says: “We have already been over six hundred miles with the dogs. I hada long trip to a place seventy miles away to set a broken arm. Fortunately, or, I may say, unfortunately, I had forty other patients along the route. Thus, on my second southern trip to a place about sixty miles distant, to fetch a person back for operation, we were away thirteen days and saw seventy sick folk.” In another article he tells most graphically of a typical trip which he made during the winter. Called to the bedside of a dying priest many miles away, he prepared to start immediate ly on his long journey. He was just