Bizarre Love Triangle

The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief

[J. E. Collins]

Toronto: Rose, 1885

Instant books, those slapdash things designed to capitalize on death and doom, nearly always raise a sneer. Still, I can't help but admire the industry involved. To go from standing start to published volume in nineteen days, as did the team behind 9/11 8:48 AM: Documenting America's Greatest Tragedy, demonstrates such energy and determination. Of course, the 9/11 8:48 AM folks, whose book was spewed forth by POD publisher BookSurge, had the advantage of 21st-century technology. Not so this relic from the days of stereotypes, electrotypes and composing rooms.

Transplanted Newfoundlander J. E. Collins wrote The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief in the spring of 1885, while the North-West Rebellion was being fought. In fact, he laid down his pen sometime in those few days between the Battle of Batoche and Riel's surrender on 15 May. The finished product, 176 pages in total, was available for purchase well before the start of the Métis leader's trial in late July.

How did they do it?

Collins does his part through overwrought prose, evident the the first sentence: 'Along the banks of the Red River, over those fruitful plains brightened with wild flowers in summer, and swept with fierce storms in winter-time, is written the life story of Louis Riel.'

Yes, look to the banks of the Red River because you'll find little of the Métis leader's life in this book. Collins fabricates events, characters and dialogue, creating a world that will seem to students of Canadian history like something from an alternate universe. Key is the relationship between Riel and Thomas Scott, the Orangeman executed during the Red River Rebellion. Collins portrays this unstable, violent eristic as a likable fellow, a whistler, with 'a very merry twinkle in his eye'. In this account, the true nature of the conflict between the two men has less to do with the future Red River Colony than it does with a beautiful Métis maiden named Marie. Her preference for the goodnatured adventurer over the uncouth Riel seals Scott's fate.

While historians refer to The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief as fiction, it wasn't always accepted as such. Blame falls squarely on the author, who pads the book with footnotes, including Riel's 'Proclamation to the People of the North-West' and Bill of Rights, lengthy excerpts from Alexander Begg's The Creation of Manitoba (identified incorrectly as 'History of the North-West Rebellion') and a comprehensive list of the non-Métis who had lost their lives or had been wounded in the conflict.

The Rose Publishing Company provided further padding with a dozen or so etchings. Only a handful have any relevance to the text – in fact, Riel appears in only one. Though captioned 'REBELS [sic] ATTACKING MAJOR BOULTON'S SCOUTS', a reference to the shared fate of men under the command of Charles A. Boulton, the final image has nothing at all to do with the Rebellion and everything to do with trouble in the republic to the south.

Collins later wrote that The Story of Louis Riel, the Rebel Chief held 'no historic truth', and that he chose to leave his name off the book because he was 'unwilling to take responsibility for the literary slovenliness.' Yet, the author demonstrated no hesitation in appending his monicker to his next book, Annette, the Metis Spy: A Heroine of the N. W. Rebellion (1886) Here Collins not only repeats the plot device that has Riel and Scott as romantic rivals, but lifts whole sections from his previous work. Of this second kick at the can, Collins writes, 'I present some fiction in my story, and a large array of fact. I do not feel bound, however, to state which is the fact, and which is the fiction.'

Trivia: It is said that after Collins' death from drink at age 36, he maintained contact with his mentor Sir Charles G. D. Roberts through the aid of mediums.

Object (and a curious link): Issued in dark green cloth, sans dustjacket, the first edition was published by the Rose Publishing Company, a wing of Toronto printers and bookbinders Hunter-Rose and Company. After Riel's 16 November execution, Collins' work was reissued to include 'The Trial and Execution of Louis Riel', a 16-page Appendix. Though this second edition was also printed by Hunter-Rose, the book bears the imprint of J. S. Robertson. The new publisher not only knew Riel, but as a journalist had been imprisoned by the Métis leader during the Red River Rebellion. Labeled a 'dangerous character', Robertson was later forced to leave the settlement; not that this prevented him from reporting on the rebellion for Toronto's Daily Telegraph.

Access: Our larger public libraries have copies of one edition or another, invariably housed in their history sections. The Rose first is scarce; even Fair copies sell for over C$300. The Robertson edition, with Appendix, can often be found for much less than half the price. In 1970, it was reproduced – in cloth and paper – as part of the Coles Canadiana Collection. Both can be had for under C$30. Coles reissued the work again in 1979 – this time in paper only – with a historically inaccurate cover that offends the eye.

More Dope, More Danger, Fewer Dolls

The Black Candle

Emily F. Murphy

Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1922

Returning to Dope Menace, I find that much of the most sensational writing featured comes not from the pulp and porn houses, but from religious outfits like the Pacific Press Publishing Association, owned and operated by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Its books, like Plain Facts for Young Women on Marijuana, Narcotics, Liquor, and Tobacco, were anything but. The press was, as Stephen Gertz writes, 'a great thorn in the side of anyone trying to rationally educate the public on drugs.' Perhaps the most outrageous of its publications was On the Trail of Marihuana: The Weed of Madness, published in 1939:

The marahuana user, freed from the restraint of gravitation, bumps his head against the sky. Street lights become orangoutangs [sic] with eyes of fire. Huge slimy snakes crawl through small cracks in the sidewalk, and prehistoric monsters, intent on his destruction, emerge from keyholes, and pursue him down the street. He feels squirrels walking all over his back, while he is being pelted by some unseen enemy with lightening bolts. He will thrill you with the most plausible accounts of desperadoes who lurk in the doorway ahead, waiting with long sharp knives to pounce on him and carve him to pieces.

Imaginative stuff, Pacific Press - but my favourite passage belongs to Fundamental Truth Publishers, who in 1943 issued a booklet, The Moloch of Marihuana, by the Reverend R. J. Devine:

An ordinary man or woman becomes in the eyes of the Marihuana addict, beautiful beyond compare. Marihuana, grown by trusties on prison farms unknown to prison officials, has been taken to the inmates. Under its influence the prisoners fall desperately in love with one another; as they would with members of the opposite sex outside prison walls. One can understand the debaucheries that take place.

It seems Canada's religious leaders didn't dwell nearly as much on the threats posed by drugs; we certainly had nothing comparable to Pacific Press (our own Pacific Press dispersed propaganda of a different kind). In this land of peace, order and good government, its not really so surprising that our single widely-read work of propaganda would come from a judge. There is much to admire in Emily Murphy, she was the first female magistrate in the British Empire and shares credit in the Persons Case. Still, I find her Historica Minute (née Heritage Minute), performed by the Kate Nelligan, cringe-worthy. Oh, it begins well enough - nice set, beautifully shot, with the attention to detail we've come to expect - but then comes the line: 'I, Emily Murphy, author of the Janey Canuck books, pioneer in the war against narcotics...'

And so, attention is drawn to the fifth of the Janey Canuck books, The Black Candle. Here we find similar panicked misinformation, such as these quoted words from Charles A. Jones, for all of six months the Chief of the LAPD:

Persons using this narcotic [marijuana] smoke the dried leaves of the plant, which has the effect of driving them completely insane. The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility. Addicts to this drug, while under the influence, are immune to pain, could be severely injured without having any realization of their condition. While in this condition they becoming [sic] raving maniacs and are liable to kill or indulge in any form of violence to other persons, using the most savage methods without, as said before, any sense of moral responsibility.

When coming from under the influence of this narcotic, these victims present the most horrible condition imaginable. They are dispossessed of their natural and normal will power, and their mentality is that of idiots. If this drug is indulged in to any great extent, it ends in the untimely death of its addict.

Judge Murphy then passes on some information from W. H. B. Stewart, Superintendent of London's Bethlehem Royal Hospital, that 'the drug is used for the purpose of inducing pleasurable motor excitement and hallucinations which are commonly sexual in character among Eastern races.' This is just one of many unreferenced statements in The Black Candle, presented in support of her xenophobic world view. The author writes of 'a well-defined propaganda among aliens of color to bring about the degeneration of the white race', she tells of 'Chinese pedlars' [sic] who boast that the 'yellow race would rule the world' and 'would strike a the white race through "dope"'. According to Murphy, threats come from all sides: 'Some Negroes coming into Canada - and they are no fiddle-faddle fellows either - have similar ideas, and one of their greatest writers has boasted how ultimately they will control the white men.'

Who, one wonders, is this great writer?

The Black Candle is not just another 'Janey Canuck' book; the author departs from her tiresome travelogues to become 'Judge Emily F. Murphy'. Her billing as 'Police Magistrate and Judge of the Juvenile Court' lends an air of authority and knowledge that Rev. Devine and the Pacific Press lacked. The Black Candle was read, reviewed and discussed. The following year, the author thought enough of the work to nominate herself for the Nobel Prize in Literature (not to worry, it was awarded to Yeats). It may be long out of print, but The Black Candle lives on - its considerable influence on our narcotics legislation would be acknowledged by the Le Dain Commission.

As one whose drug of choice is supplied by the Upper Canada Brewing Company, I write without bias that The Black Candle is the most destructive book yet produced in this country.

We honour the author with a statue on Parliament Hill.

Object and Access: Still found in our larger public libraries. The first edition, one of Thomas Allen's more attractive titles, appears to have been published without a dust jacket. Not nearly as rare as some booksellers claim, decent copies can be bought for C$75. The only reprint, the ugly 1973 Coles Canadiana Collection facsimile, features a top-notch Introduction by Robert Solomon, researcher for the Le Dain Commission. Do not pay more than C$20.