220 DR. MCLOUGHLIN TO SIMPSON
recruits you sent us this year are some of our old hands who have returned to this Department in preference to any other. However, you may depend that as heretofore our best en- deavour will be exerted to make the men as comfortable as the nature of the business will admit, and I am really astonished that you should have considered it necessary to write me on that point, as you have been several times here, since I am in charge of the Department and no man ever complained to you of ill usage. I beg leave to return my thanks through you to Mr. Keith for bringing Heroux's case forward as it has af- forded me an opportunity of proving its falsity; at the same time let us learn from this case to be cautious before we give credit to what these men say and recollect that the old proverb there are two sides to a story is true.
3. As you say the Boutes must be trained in the country, but the truth is the men are so miserably small and weak' for years past we cannot find men of sufficient physical strength among the recruits to make efficient Boutes to replace our old hands. At present we have some Boutes who ten years ago were considered old and so little attention is paid to the selec- tion of the men that in 1839 a man was sent here from Montreal who had only one finger and a thumb remaining on his hand ; in 1840 we received another who has one of his arms withered, and [an?] impotent arm, and among the recruits who have come here from 1839 to 1843 both inclusive, there is only one man who can serve for a Boute. The men are so weak that the least fatigue lays them up in hospital and the able men have to do their duty.
4. In your fourth para, [paragraph] you write there could have been no impropriety in your forwarding the statements referred to in your third paragraph to the president and council for their information and they did perfectly right in giving their opinion and making such observations as they considered proper. Every person interested in the business has an un- doubted right to express an opinion be that opinion right or wrong, and no person has a right to find fault with a person
