reader,” he could “talk intelligently on many topics which interested him,” and in the circles which he frequented he was admired, that is it was thought that he was “quite a bright man.”  Who would not feel in this sympathetic record of his goodly span something of the charm of the modest nature of this man?  Again, there was the recent intelligence concerning William Jackson, “a coloured gentleman employed as a deck hand on a pleasure craft in this harbour,” who “met his demise” in an untimely manner.  Clothes do not make the man, nor doth occupation decree the bearing.  This is a great and fundamental truth very clearly grasped by the country obituary, and much obscured elsewhere.

On the other hand, positively nowhere else does the heart to dare and the power to do find such generous recognition as in the obituaries of country papers.  The “prominence” of blacksmiths, general store keepers, undertakers, notaries public, and other townspeople bright in local fame has been made a jest by urban persons of a humorous inclination, who take scorn of merit because it is not vast merit.  Pleasing to contemplate in contrast to this waspish spirit is the noble nature of the country obituary, inspiration to humanism.  Here was a man, to the seeing eye, of sterling stamp:  “He attended public grammar school where he profited by his opportunities in obtaining as good an education as possible, etc.”  Later in life, be became “well and favourably known for his conservative and sane business methods,” and was esteemed by his associates, it is said, “fraternally and otherwise.”  He was “mourned,” by those who “survived” him, as people are not mourned in cities, that is, frankly, in a manner undisguised.  Country obituaries are not afraid to be themselves.  In this is their appeal to the human heart.

They are the same in spirit, identical in turn of phrase, from Maine to California, from the Gulf to the Upper Provinces.  That is one of the remarkable things about them.  You might expect to come across, here or there, a writer of country paper obituaries out of step, as it were, with his fellow mutes, so to put it, one raising his voice in a slightly off, or different key, a trace, in short, of the hand of some student of the modes of thought of the world beyond his bosky dell or rolling plain.  But it is not so in any paper truly of the countryside.  And, perhaps, that is well.

A type of obituary which very likely is read rather generally in cities is that of slow growth and released from the newspaper-office “morgue” as occasion calls.  One such timely and capable biographical account is waiting for each of us that is a Vice-President, King, lord of great dominions, high commander of armed forces, intellectual immortal of any kind, recognised superman in this or that.  Big Chief anywhere, or beloved popular idol, nicely proportioned according to our space value.  Of course, if we are a very great Mogul indeed we get a display head on the first