The Canadian Portrait Gallery Part 10

Duffy, in conjunction with Thomas Davis and John Dillon, had several years before this time established the _Nation_, at Dublin. The _Nation_ was written with that brilliancy of genius and that absence of judgment which are not unfrequently found allied. It numbered among its contributors many of the brightest young spirits in Ireland. It went far beyond Mr. O'Connell and the _Freeman's Journal_ in its demands, and notwithstanding the ability displayed in its columns, it was neither more nor less than a disseminator of sedition. With the fortunes of this paper, and of the "Young Ireland" Party whose platform it advocated, Mr.

McGee now a.s.sociated himself. His excuse, as well as that of most of his collaborateurs, is to be found in the attributes of youth. He himself had not completed his majority, and very few members of the party were ten years older. They were chiefly composed of briefless but brilliant young barristers, fiery journalists, and hot-headed students. Their scheme, in course of time, developed into an a.s.sociation which was grandiloquently styled "The Irish Confederation," towards one of the wings whereof Mr. McGee occupied the position of secretary. He contributed spirit-stirring ballads and editorials to the _Nation_, delivered vehement harangues to the committees, and went about as deep into the insurrection as Smith O'Brien himself. He was necessarily brought into intimate relations with Charles Gavan Duffy, who, in his recent work ent.i.tled "Young Ireland," thus describes the effect produced respectively upon himself and Davis by a first acquaintance with young Thomas D'Arcy McGee: "The young man was not prepossessing. He had a face of almost African type; his dress was slovenly, even for the careless cla.s.s to which he belonged; he looked unformed, and had a manner which struck me as too deferential for self-respect. But he had not spoken three sentences in a singularly sweet and flexible voice till it was plain that he was a man of fertile brains and great originality: a man in whom one might dimly discover rudiments of the orator, poet and statesman hidden under this ungainly disguise. This was Thomas D'Arcy McGee. I asked him to breakfast on some early day at his convenience, and as he arrived one morning when I was engaged to breakfast with Davis, I took him with me, and he met for the first and last time a man destined to influence and control his whole life. When the Wicklow trip was projected, I told Davis I liked this new-comer and meant to invite him to accompany me. 'Well,' he said, 'your new friend has an Irish nature certainly, but spoiled, I fear, by the Yankees. He has read and thought a good deal, and I might have liked him better if he had not obviously determined to transact an acquaintance with me.'"

The French Revolution of February, 1848, rendered these misguided young men more impulsive and less discreet than ever, and they wrote, published and uttered the most bloodthirsty diatribes against the legitimate authorities. They held meetings at which motions of congratulation to the Provisional Government of France were pa.s.sed. At one of these meetings Thomas Francis Meagher advocated the immediate erection of barricades and the invocation of the G.o.d of battles.

Everybody knows the sequel, which would have been tragical had it not been so inexpressibly ludicrous. The Confederation appointed a formidable War Directory, and the redoubtable O'Brien himself took the field at the head of his troops. It was a perilous time for the hated Saxon, but somehow or other the hated Saxon did not seem to realize his danger. When the insurgents broke out into open rebellion, a few policemen were sent out against the portentous Confederacy, which was soon scattered and dispersed to the four winds. O'Brien himself was arrested in a cabbage garden near Ballingarry. He was tried on a charge of high treason, convicted, and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to transportation for life, and as soon as the Government could do so with any show of decency, it permitted him and his fellow-rebels to return to their native land. The subsequent history of some of the leaders in this insurrection is instructive, as showing how little unanimity of sentiment there was among them, and how little fitted they were to be entrusted with the management of a great enterprise. O'Brien had already shown by his unconst.i.tutional conduct in Parliament that he was lamentably devoid of self-control and common sense. A man labouring under such deficiencies may very safely be left to destroy his own influence in his own way. While in exile he fretted and fumed, but, unlike some of his colleagues, had the manliness to keep his parole. It must be confessed, however, that his motive for keeping it was not of the highest. He kept it, according to his own admission, merely because he did not want to do anything that would render it impossible for him to return to Ireland. When the American Rebellion broke out, in 1861, he issued a manifesto from Ireland--whither, by the clemency of the Government which he had sought to subvert, he had been permitted to return--on behalf of the Confederacy. John Mitchel, another leading spirit in the fiasco of 1848, also became a fanatical champion of the slaveholders. Thomas Francis Meagher took a military command in the army of the North. Others headed the riots in New York, ma.s.sacred a goodly number of negroes and other peaceable citizens in the streets, and did their utmost to destroy all law and order. "These," says Miss Martineau, "are apt ill.u.s.trations of the spurious kind of Irish patriotism, which would destroy Ireland by aggravating its weakness, and by rejecting the means of recovery and strength."

Mr. McGee's share in the treasonable schemes of the Confederation rendered it impossible for him to remain in the British Islands without constantly encountering the danger of arrest. A few months before the collapse of the Ballingarry demonstration he had married, and his complicity in the insurrection thus brought trouble upon another besides himself. For some of his public utterances on the platform at Roundwood, in the county of Wicklow, he was seized by the police; but as all custodians of the peace were instructed to deal leniently with prisoners who had not actually been taken with arms in their hands, he was allowed to go his way. Nothing mollified by this mild treatment, he started for Scotland, to stir up treason among the Irish population there. During his sojourn in Glasgow he received intelligence of the bursting of the bubble which he had a.s.sisted to inflate, and of the capture of O'Brien.

Hearing that a reward was offered for his own apprehension, he skulked about from place to place in various disguises, and after some delay, crossed over to the North of Ireland, where he took refuge in the house of Dr. Maginn, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Derry. He had an interview with his wife, after which he sailed for the United States in the guise of a priest. On the 10th of October, 1848, he landed at Philadelphia, but soon made his way to New York, where, with the a.s.sistance of some of his compatriots he established a weekly newspaper called the _New York Nation_. This enterprise started with fair prospects of success, for the editor was well known to the Irish of New York and its vicinity, and was regarded by them with a high degree of favour, as a man of strong anti-British proclivities. The contents of the paper realized the most sanguine antic.i.p.ations of its readers, so far as their tone of fanatical hostility to England was concerned; but the editor's want of judgment once more involved him in difficulties. In commenting editorially on the causes of the failure of the Irish insurrection in which he had borne a part, he threw the blame on the Roman Catholic hierarchy, whose influence, as he truly alleged, had been put forward to dissuade their paris.h.i.+oners from joining the ranks of the insurgents. Bishop Hughes, of New York, felt aggrieved on behalf of the Irish priesthood, and took up their cause in the local press. It was, of course, not difficult for him to show that the clergy had acted wisely in discountenancing an insurrection of the success of which there had never been even the most remote possibility. There were rejoinders from Mr. McGee in the columns of the _Nation_, and surrejoinders by the Bishop in various newspapers.

The former must surely have seen that he had made a false move, but he had not the good sense to profit by the knowledge by either withdrawing from his position or holding his tongue. The religious sympathies of his compatriots, and their profound reverence for the priesthood, were forces against which he contended in vain. He lost caste with the better cla.s.s of his fellow-countrymen in America, and came to be regarded by them as an unsafe mentor. According to their view of the matter, a Roman Catholic who set himself up to criticize the clergy of his Church was little better than an atheist. He was a man to be shunned, and, if necessary, to be put down. The upshot of the controversy was the ruin of the prospects of Mr. McGee's journal, the publication whereof was soon discontinued.

He had meanwhile been joined by his young wife and infant daughter. His prospects during these months were exceedingly problematical. In 1850, however, he removed to Boston and began to publish the _American Celt_, a paper which was of precisely the same cast as the defunct _New York Nation_ had been. It was full to the brim of hatred and rancour against Great Britain, and its "mission" seemed to be to influence all the evil pa.s.sions of the Irish race in America. By degrees, however, Thomas D'Arcy McGee began to feel the influence of the civilized atmosphere in which his life was pa.s.sing. He figured conspicuously on the lecture platform, and was necessarily brought into contact with men of good intellect and high principles. These persons felt and expressed respect for his abilities, but declined to sympathize with, or even to discuss, the merits of English rule in Ireland. They tacitly refused to consider that subject as an absorbing theme for discussion on this continent. He received much wise counsel, the tenor of which led him, for the first time in his life, to reflect seriously upon the errors of his past career. He was apt enough to learn, and gradually the idea began to dawn upon his mind that all the wisdom and justice in the world are not confined to Irish bosoms. He began to perceive that there are n.o.bler pa.s.sions in the human heart than revenge, and that if a man cannot make circ.u.mstances conformable to his mind, the first thing in his power is to conform his mind to his circ.u.mstances. "The cant of faction," says Mrs. Sadlier, "the fiery denunciations that, after all, amounted to nothing, he began to see in their true colours; and with his whole heart he then and ever after aspired to elevate the Irish people, not by impracticable Utopian schemes of revolution, but by teaching them to make the best of the hard fate that made them the subjects of a foreign power differing from them in race and in religion; to cultivate among them the arts of peace, and to raise themselves, by the ways of peaceful industry and increasing enlightenment, to the level even of the more prosperous sister-island."

This radical change of opinion was not brought about in a day, nor in a year. The progress of the mental revolution was slow, but certain, and by degrees the past of Thomas D'Arcy McGee stood revealed to him in all its insufficient barrenness. He fought against his steadily-strengthening convictions as long as he could, but his judgment and good sense at last won the day. In the month of August, 1852, he liberated his mind in a letter published in the _Celt_, and addressed to his friend Thomas Francis Meagher. In that letter he unfolded with much frankness the process by which he had been led to modify his opinions, and referred to the scheme of the past as "the recent conspiracy against the peace and existence of Christendom." His emanc.i.p.ation was complete, and from this time forward there was an entire revolution in the tone of all his writings and public speeches. Instead of writing diatribes against the irrevocable he adopted "Peace and good will among men" as his motto. Amicable relations were restored between him and the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and erelong, at the request of the late Bishop Timon, of Buffalo, he removed the office of publication of the _Celt_ to that place. He continued the publication for about five years after the removal, during which time he made many friends and achieved a fair share of worldly prosperity. He was a diligent, albeit rather a fitful student, and ama.s.sed a considerable fund of political and general knowledge. His paper was regarded as the chief exponent of Irish Catholic opinion on this continent, and as a standard authority on all matters connected with Irish affairs. Some of his ablest lectures were composed and delivered during this period, and some of them were the means of greatly extending his reputation. Among those which evoked the most flattering criticism from the press, those on "The Catholic History of America," "The Irish Reformation," and "The Jesuits" occupy the foremost place. The many demands upon his time did not prevent him from engaging in various laudable enterprises for ameliorating the moral and social condition of his countrymen in America, and from putting forth many valuable suggestions for their guidance. It was his special object, says one of the most sympathetic of his critics, to keep them bound together by the memories of their common past, and to teach them that manly self-respect which would elevate them before their fellow-citizens, and keep them from political degradation. He strove to make them good citizens of their adopted country, lovers of the old cradle-land of their race, and devoted adherents of what to them was "the sacred cause of Catholicity." Among other schemes vigorously propounded by him for their material advancement was that of colonization--"spreading abroad and taking possession of the land; making homes on the broad prairies of the all-welcoming West," instead of herding together in the tenement houses of the large cities. In furtherance of this project he organized a Convention at Buffalo at which he addressed the a.s.sembled representatives with great eloquence.

He began, however, to experience the pecuniary difficulties inseparable from the conduct of a newspaper which declines to ally itself with any political party, for he had persistently held aloof from the troubled sea of party-politics in the United States. These difficulties increased, and were sometimes so great as to occasion serious embarra.s.sment. His future prospects were not bright, and he looked forward with some anxiety. When matters had reached a pretty low ebb with him he was advised to change his base of operations. His journalistic pursuits and his platform experiences had brought him into contact with many prominent Irish Canadians, with some of whom he had formed warm personal friends.h.i.+ps. By these gentlemen he was urged to take up his abode in Montreal, where, as he was informed, the want of a ruling mind such as his was sensibly felt by the rapidly-increasing Irish population. It was further represented to him that the appreciation he had met with in the United States had been by no means commensurate with his deserts, and that his compatriots in Canada stood in urgent need of his services. To such representations he was not disposed to turn a deaf ear, more especially as the pecuniary outlook in Buffalo was far from encouraging. After careful deliberation he a.s.sented to the proposal which had been made to him, disposed of his interest in his newspaper, and removed to Montreal with his family early in 1857.

The manner of his reception in Montreal was such as could not fail to be highly gratifying to his feelings. His fellow-countrymen vied with each other in doing him honour, and in affording him material support. He established a newspaper called the _New Era_. His acquaintance with Canadian affairs at this date was not very wide, and he was compelled to take a somewhat non-committal stand on many questions which the public had at heart. On one subject, however, he spoke with no uncertain sound.

He advocated with great energy and eloquence the scheme of an early union of the various British colonies in North America. The _New Era_ did not realize, in a pecuniary sense, the expectations of its founder, but as matters turned out, its success or non-success was a matter of little importance. At the next general election Mr. McGee, after a close contest, was returned to Parliament as the representative of Montreal West. The publication of the newspaper was discontinued, and he devoted himself to his duties as a legislator.

From the time of first taking his seat in Parliament he was a conspicuous figure there; but it must be confessed that during the earlier sessions of his Parliamentary career he did little to inspire the public with any belief in his profound statesmans.h.i.+p. He arrayed himself on the side of the Opposition, and attacked the then-existing Cartier-Macdonald Administration with all the fiery eloquence at his command. "It was observed," says Mr. Fennings Taylor, "that he was a relentless quiz, an adroit master of satire, and the most active of partisan sharpshooters. Many severe, some ridiculous, and not a few savage things were said by him. Thus from his affluent treasury of caustic and bitter irony he contributed not a little to the personal and Parliamentary embarra.s.sments of those times. Many of the speeches of that period we would rather forget than remember. Some were not complimentary to the body to which they were addressed, and some of them were not creditable to the person by whom they were delivered. It is true that such speeches secured crowded galleries, for they were sure to be either breezy or ticklish, gusty with rage, or grinning with jests.

They were therefore the raw materials out of which mirth is manufactured, and consequently they ruffled tempers that were remarkable for placidity, and provoked irrepressible laughter in men who were regarded as too grave to be jocose. Of course they were little calculated to elicit truth, or promote order, or attract respect to the speaker. Mr. McGee appeared chiefly to occupy himself in saying unpleasant and severe things; in irritating the smoothest natures, and in brus.h.i.+ng everybody's hair the wrong way." The personalities in which he permitted himself to indulge were frequently in the worst conceivable taste, and he raised up for himself many enemies. It began to be suspected that this brilliant Irishman, whose advent into Canadian political life had been heralded with so loud a flourish of trumpets, was no heaven-born statesman, after all. He said some clever things in the course of his speeches, and a good many other things that were neither clever nor sensible. There was an evident desire on his part to attract attention to himself, and his self-consciousness was sometimes so marked as to be positively offensive. It was difficult to say why he had joined the ranks of the Opposition. Of the local politics he, at the time of his entry into Parliament, knew little or nothing, and there was not much in common between him and the leaders of the Party to which he had attached himself. The latter could not feel as though their ranks had been very powerfully strengthened by such an accession. As the years pa.s.sed by, however, D'Arcy McGee became more tractable, and--be it said--more sensible. He never entirely overcame his fondness for displaying his Irish wit on the floor of the House, but he taught himself to be more amenable to certain rules of debate which are tacitly recognized among the members of all grave deliberative a.s.semblies. To put the matter in plain English, he less frequently transgressed the bounds of decorum and sober good-breeding. With increase of years came increase of knowledge as to the needs of the country, and as to the proper functions of a legislator. His intellectual vision became keener, and his views acquired breadth. It began to be apparent that there was a serious side to his character, and that he could rise to a high level upon a great occasion. No one had ever doubted that he possessed a goodly share of genius, but he began to show that he also possessed more practical qualifications for a statesman. Though largely endowed with the poetical temperament, he did not disdain to interest himself in such prosaic matters as statistics, and could make an effective speech of which figures formed the main argument. His oratory, though florid and discursive, began to exhibit symptoms of a genuine manly purpose. He studied law, and in 1861 was called to the Bar of the Lower Province, though he never seriously devoted himself to the practice of that profession. He continued to fight in the Opposition ranks until the downfall of the Cartier-Macdonald Ministry in the month of May, 1862. In the Administration which succeeded, under the leaders.h.i.+p of John Sandfield Macdonald and Louis Victor Sicotte, he accepted office as President of the Council. After the resignation of the Hon. A. A.

Dorion, he also acted for some time as Provincial Secretary. Upon the reconstruction of the Administration in the following year he was not invited to take a portfolio, and his dissatisfaction at the cavalier treatment to which he had been subjected soon began to make itself apparent. He crossed the House, and voted against the new Government, accompanying his votes with remarks the reverse of complimentary to the Premier. Upon the formation of the Tache-Macdonald Government, which was nothing if not Conservative, in March, 1864, Mr. McGee became Minister of Agriculture; a position which he continued to hold until the accomplishment of Confederation. He had thus completely changed sides, though it does not appear that his party convictions had undergone any material modification, and it was alleged, with some show of truth, that he was actuated more by pique than by principle.

In the proceedings which resulted in Confederation Mr. McGee took a conspicuous and an honourable part. The union of the British North American Provinces, as we have seen, had been advocated by him from the time of his first arrival in the country. Independently of his speeches in the House, which were among the most brilliant efforts evoked by the occasion, he did good service by his writings in the public press, and by lectures and addresses delivered by him in various parts of Canada and the Maritime Provinces. In order that he might be relieved from pecuniary cares by which he was sometimes beset, his friends throughout the country organized a fund on his behalf, and purchased and presented him with a comfortable, well-appointed homestead in Montmorenci Terrace, St. Catherine Street, Montreal, wherein he and his family found a resting-place during the remaining years of his life. He was thus enabled to address himself to his cherished projects with comparative freedom from anxiety.

In 1865 he repaired to England as a Member of the Executive Council to confer with the Imperial Government upon the great question of Confederation. During his absence he, after an interval of seventeen years, once more set foot on his native land, and paid a visit to Wexford, the home of his boyhood, where he was the guest of his father.

During his sojourn at Wexford on this occasion he delivered an eloquent speech on the condition of the Irish race in America. He publicly deplored the part he had played in the troubles of 1848, and enlarged upon the demoralized condition of his countrymen in the United States as compared with those resident in Canada. He proclaimed his conviction that the time for fruitless attempts at insurrection was past, and that he for his part should regard traitors to Great Britain as the enemies of human progress. This deliverance gave grievous offence to the Irish citizens of the United States, by many of whom D'Arcy McGee was thenceforward denounced as a renegade to his principles. This sentiment was strengthened by McGee's righteous denunciations of the Fenian horde who menaced our sh.o.r.es in the summer of 1866, and who shed the blood of some of our promising young men. At the general election of 1867 these utterances were called into requisition as an election cry. Mr. McGee had not accepted a portfolio in the first Government under Confederation, which had just been formed, but had waived his claim to office in favour of another Irish Catholic, Mr. Kenny, of Nova Scotia.

McGee, however, though he was thus complaisant, had no intention of retiring immediately from public life, and once more offered himself to his const.i.tuents in Montreal West. That const.i.tuency was the abode of the local "Head Centre" of the Fenian Brotherhood, and the Fenian influence there was considerable. Mr. McGee's utterances had made him the object of the inveterate hatred of that body, and it was determined that he should be ousted from the seat which he had held ever since his entry into political life in Canada. Mr. Devlin, an Irish Catholic, and a prominent member of the Montreal Bar, was brought out as an opposition candidate, and the most shameless devices were resorted to to secure that gentleman's return. "Every vile epithet calculated to rouse ignorant Irish Catholics,"--says the author of "The Irishman in Canada,"--"was hurled at McGee. He had, as his manner was, gone right round from denying the existence of Fenianism in Montreal, to exaggerating the extent of it, and denouncing it, not in undeserved terms, but in terms which seemed violent from a man of his past history.

He won his election, but by a majority which convinced him that his power had greatly waned. He had, however, the consolation that if he had lost popularity, he had lost it in enlightening his countrymen." He had felt it to be his duty to place Fenianism in its proper light before his fellow-countrymen in Canada. He knew that the order was powerless for good, and that it would entail pecuniary loss, if not absolute ruin, upon many well-meaning but ignorant and misguided persons. So far as the Fenian scheme contemplated an invasion of Canada, he regarded it with all the scorn and abhorrence of a loyal subject. For this he was denounced by the Fenians, and held up to execration as one who had sold himself to the spoiler.

Before the opening of the first session of the Dominion Parliament he was attacked by a long and severe illness, which brought him to death's door, and from which he only recovered in time to attend at the opening of the session. It was noticed that there was a decided change, not merely in his physical appearance, but in the workings of his mind. He had formerly been addicted to frequent indulgence in strong drink. He had now become rigidly abstemious and regular in all his habits. He seemed to be pervaded by a seriousness which almost amounted to melancholy. His friends believed these characteristics to be something deeper than the temporary humours of convalescence. His serious indisposition had made him reflect, and his situation was one which afforded ample food for reflection. Ever since the delivery of the Wexford speech he had been in receipt of frequent anonymous letters in which he was anathematized as a traitor, and warned to prepare for death. Some of these came from Ireland. The envelopes of a few of them afforded evidence of their having been posted in Montreal; but by far the greater number came from the United States. He affected to console himself with the proverb that "threatened men live long," but he could not bring himself to regard these truly fiendish communications with indifference. He knew the desperate character of the cla.s.s of Irishmen from whom they emanated, and he shuddered as he reflected that he had at one time been the idol and fellow-worker of such as they. The shadow of his impending doom was upon him. During the interval between rising from his bed of sickness and the opening of the session in November he had determined to retire from public life in the course of the following year, and to devote the rest of his days to literary pursuits. His determination was not destined to be carried out. He took a part in the debates while the session was in progress, and some of the most statesmanlike utterances that ever pa.s.sed his lips were delivered during this, the last winter he was ever to see. On the evening of the 6th of April he occupied his usual place in the House, and made a brilliant and effective speech on the subject of the lately-formed Union. A little after two o'clock on the following morning he left the House in company with two of his political friends, and proceeded in the direction of the place where he lodged--the Toronto House, on Sparks Street, kept by a Mrs. Trotter. When the three had arrived within a hundred yards of Mr.

McGee's destination they separated, each betaking himself to his own lodging-house. Mr. McGee, having reached his door and inserted his latch-key, was just about entering, when the sound of a pistol-shot was heard by his landlady, who was awaiting his arrival. She hurried to the door, and opened it, to find Mr. McGee's body lying p.r.o.ne across the sidewalk. The alarm was given, and a crowd soon collected on the spot.

The body was raised, but the a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet had done its work. The ball had entered the back of the head and pa.s.sed through the mouth, shattering the front teeth, and producing what must have been instant and painless death.

The miscreant at whose hands D'Arcy McGee met his fate was a Fenian named Patrick James Whalen. He was subsequently arrested, tried, found guilty, and hanged at Ottawa.

Had Mr. McGee lived another week he would have completed his forty-third year; so that he was still a young man, and had his life been spared there is good reason to believe that he would have made an abiding mark in literature. During his lifetime he published many volumes, but they were for the most part written under disadvantageous circ.u.mstances, and merely afford indications of what he might have achieved in literature.

His poems have been collected in various editions; but the work by which he is best known is his "Popular History of Ireland," originally published in two volumes at New York in 1863, and since reprinted in various forms.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DAVID ALLISON, signed as David Allison]

DAVID ALLISON, M.A., LL.D.,

_SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION FOR THE PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA._

Doctor Allison was born at Newport, Hants County, Nova Scotia, on the 3rd of July, 1836. By both lines of descent he belongs to that thrifty Scoto-Irish stock to which the central counties of Nova Scotia are largely indebted for their progress. On the paternal side he belongs to a family which has displayed much apt.i.tude for public affairs, his grandfather and father both having occupied seats in the Provincial Legislature. His brother, Mr. W. Henry Allison, after occupying a seat in the same Body for several terms, at present represents the county of Hants in the House of Commons.

His preliminary education was received at the Provincial Academy at Halifax--since re-organized and developed into Dalhousie College--and at the Wesleyan Academy, Sackville, N.B. His school-boy days at Halifax were contemporaneous with a period of great political excitement, and a race of orators rarely surpa.s.sed in any colonial legislature--Howe, Johnston, Young, Uniacke--enlivened the a.s.sembly room of the Province with their eloquence. Frequent attendance on the discussions waged by these masters of debate gave to the young student's mind a strong and permanent leaning towards political and const.i.tutional studies. At Sackville, where he studied four consecutive years, the basis of a broad and liberal training was firmly laid. Twenty-five years ago, inst.i.tutions of learning really doing educational work of a high order were not so numerous in the Maritime Provinces as they now are, and the Academy at Sackville, distinguished for its high standard and energetic methods, attracted patronage, not only from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but from Newfoundland and "the vexed Bermoothes." During his connection with this school, he was thus brought into contact with many young men who have since won distinction in Provincial life. His academic career ended, he was determined (we suppose) by denominational proclivities to seek University training and honours at the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., U.S., where his career was in a high degree successful and brilliant. For some years after graduation, in 1859, he filled the post of cla.s.sical instructor at Sackville, first in the Academy, and from 1862 to 1869 in the Mount Allison College, an inst.i.tution organized in that year under charter obtained from the Legislature of New Brunswick. The resignation of the Presidency of the College by the Rev. Dr. Pickard, in 1869, gave its Board of Governors an opportunity of showing their appreciation of his scholars.h.i.+p and character. He was unanimously elected President, and thenceforward for nine years devoted himself with a.s.siduity and success to the duties of that position.

The work of a cla.s.sical teacher, especially in a country college, does not attract much public attention, and however effectively performed cannot furnish much material for biographical remark. It is enough to say that Professor Allison taught the cla.s.sics with great efficiency, illuminating the otherwise dull page with the ill.u.s.trative light of history, philosophy and literature. On his accession to the Presidency of the College he exchanged the Chair of Cla.s.sics for that of Mental Science, and his lectures on that subject as delivered to successive cla.s.ses would, if published, secure for their author no mean reputation as an acute and independent thinker. During the nine years of his Presidency at Sackville he bore a heavy load of responsibility. The work of endowing the College and generally improving its financial condition was no light one. The intense intercollegiate compet.i.tion of the Lower Provinces rendered it necessary to infuse new vigour into the teaching staff. The unsettled condition of the "higher education" question, and the somewhat feverish state of the public mind regarding it, obliged one occupying his position to be on the alert, ready with pen or voice to attack or defend as circ.u.mstances might require. It is sufficient to affirm, that when in 1878 he resigned his office for a new sphere of responsibility, no College in the Maritime Provinces had for its years a better record than his, and no college officer a wider or more enviable reputation for varied scholars.h.i.+p and progressive tendencies of mind.

On a vacancy arising in the office of Superintendent of Education for the Province of Nova Scotia in 1877, all eyes were turned to him.

Enjoying to a flattering extent the confidence of the friends of the Sackville Inst.i.tution, he naturally hesitated, but finally yielded when appeals from the leaders of public opinion on all sides were joined to the independent attractions of the offered post. The two years during which he has administered the educational affairs of the Province show clearly that he possesses a delicate appreciation of the elements of the problem which he is required to solve. Reforms should, if possible, follow one another in logical sequence. If the new Superintendent is moving too slowly for some and too fast for others, he is probably moving as all his really sincere and well-informed critics would wish him to do, were their opportunities for taking in the whole situation as good as his. Since his appointment he has aroused throughout the Province a fresh interest in the cause of popular instruction, not only by his masterly reports, but by the vigorous use of his abundant gift of public speaking.

On a.s.suming office as Superintendent, Dr. Allison found the important sphere of intermediate education out of proper relation to the higher and lower departments of instruction. A system of self-terminated common schools of an elementary type, and a system of colleges mainly without a trustworthy source of supply, he refused to believe adapted to the wants of his Province and the genius of the age. His efforts to secure a better distribution of educational appliances, and better inter-working of educational forces, have already, we believe, been crowned with some success. Though not without apt.i.tudes for other departments of public service, he has. .h.i.therto refused to listen to all propositions involving departure from the strict path of educational effort and usefulness.

Dr. Allison is a man of broad political sympathies. Residing in the United States during those years of intense feeling which immediately preceded the great Civil War, and having abundant opportunity of hearing those pa.s.sion-stirring appeals by which fiery orators accelerated the awful crisis, his early prepossessions towards political and historical studies were greatly strengthened. The reading and thought spent in this direction have no doubt resulted in the formation of strong, well-developed opinions. If, as some suspect, these opinions are somewhat radical, they are held in judicious equilibrium by the practical conservatism of his conduct. The liberality of his religious sentiments admirably qualify him for a position in relation to which the distinction of creeds is ignored. He is a member of the Methodist Church of Canada, and as a lay representative has taken a prominent part in the two General Conferences of that influential denomination, and has been appointed a delegate to the General Congress of Methodism to be held in London in 1881. This is the sphere of private opinion and action, but even in that he has always thrown his influence in favour of fraternity and peace. As regards public relations, the universal confidence in his impartiality is a prime element of his strength.

He received the degree of B.A. in 1859, and of M.A. in 1862, in due course from the Wesleyan University, and in 1873 the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Victoria College, Cobourg, Ont. In 1876 he was appointed by the Executive Government of Nova Scotia a Fellow of the Senate of the University of Halifax. In the hope of unifying and improving the higher education of the Maritime Provinces Dr. Allison had given the scheme for establis.h.i.+ng such a University, modelled on that of London, an earnest, and at a critical juncture, most valuable support, and still vigorously sustains the experiment of an Examining University as under the circ.u.mstances of the case contributing to the satisfactory solution of a difficult problem.

That the proposed scheme was open to some of the objections vigorously urged against it by the Rev. Mr. (now Princ.i.p.al) Grant and others he did not attempt to deny. But who could propose any measure directed towards the improvement of advanced education in Nova Scotia which was not open to objection? The existing Colleges, five or six in number, were feeble and ill-equipped, but they had become strongly entrenched in the affections of religious denominations, whose unwillingness to surrender real or seeming advantages in connection with these inst.i.tutions was proportioned to the sacrifices by which these advantages had been secured. a.s.suming this unwillingness of the Colleges to surrender their chartered privileges, as the first and indeed fundamental condition of the establishment of a genuine Provincial University to be inexpugnable, the projectors of the University of Halifax sought to give a steady and appreciable value to Collegiate degrees conferred in the Province, to reduce to something like order the chaos of divergent systems, and to send down into the strata of primary and intermediate education an uplifting influence from above. Should even these more limited objects be unattained through the failure of the Colleges to practically aid a measure designed at least in part for their benefit, it may in the end appear that the indifference of these inst.i.tutions was not dictated by the highest wisdom even as regards their own interests.

THE HON. THOMAS GALT.

Judge Galt is the second son of the late John Galt, who was for some time the Canadian Commissioner of the Canada Company, and who was the author of numerous dramas and works of fiction which once enjoyed great popularity. Some account of the life of the late Mr. Galt has been given in the sketch of the life of his youngest son, the Hon. Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt, which appeared in the second volume of this series.

The subject of this sketch was born in Portland Street, Oxford Street, London, England, where his father at that time resided, on the 12th of August, 1815. His early life was pa.s.sed alternately in England and in Scotland. He received his education at various public and private schools. He was for about two years a pupil at a private establishment at Musselburgh, a small seaport town in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.

The late Hon. George Brown was also a pupil at this establishment. Mr.

Galt was removed from Musselburgh in 1826, and placed under the tuition of Dr. Valpy, a cla.s.sical scholar of high reputation. In 1828 he came out to Canada, and was for two years a pupil in the establishment of Mr.

Braithwaite, at Chambly, where he had for fellow-pupils, the present Bishop of Niagara and the late Thomas C. Street. In 1830 he returned to Great Britain, where he spent three years, when, having nearly completed his eighteenth year he emigrated to Upper Canada, and settled in what was then Little York. This was in the autumn of 1833, and in the month of March following, Little York became the city of Toronto, with William Lyon Mackenzie as its first mayor. Mr. Galt has ever since resided in Toronto, and has thus had his home in our Provincial capital for more than forty-seven years.

Upon his arrival at Little York he entered the service of the Canada Company, of which his father had been one of the original promoters, and most active spirits. He remained in that service about six years, when, having resolved upon studying law, he entered the office of Mr.--afterwards the Hon. Chief Justice--Draper, where he remained until his studies had been completed. During a part of this period he occupied the position of chief clerk in the office of his princ.i.p.al, who was then Attorney-General for Upper Canada. In this capacity it fell to his duty to prepare the indictments, which required not merely an accurate knowledge of the criminal law, but a close familiarity with the highly technical system of criminal pleading which prevailed in those days. In Easter Term, 1845, he was called to the Bar of Upper Canada, and immediately afterwards settled down to the practice of his profession.

He was possessed of excellent abilities, a fine presence, and a remarkably prepossessing manner, which qualifications combined to place him in a foremost position before he had been long engaged in practice.

He became solicitor for numerous corporations and public companies, and had always a very large business.

In October, 1847, when he had been at the Bar somewhat more than two years, he married Miss Frances Louisa Perkins, youngest daughter of the late Mr. James W. Perkins, who had formerly held a position in the Royal Navy. By this lady he has a family of nine children. In 1855 he became a Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada, and in 1858 he was appointed a Queen's Counsel, simultaneously with the Hon. Stephen Richards. He from time to time formed various partners.h.i.+ps, one of which was with the late Hon. John Ross. Another was subsequently formed with the late Hon.

John Crawford, who some years later became Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario.

While at the Bar, in addition to a very extensive and profitable civil practice, he took a front rank as a criminal lawyer, for which distinction his past experience in the office of Attorney-General Draper had eminently fitted him. He was engaged in the celebrated case of _Regina_ vs. _Brogden_, which many readers of these pages will not fail to remember. The prisoner was a well-known lawyer of Port Hope, who was tried at Cobourg for shooting one Anderson, the seducer of his wife. A year or two later he represented the Crown in another historical criminal case which was tried at Cobourg, wherein the prisoner, Dr.

King, was convicted of poisoning his wife. In 1863 he appeared for the Crown at Toronto against that well-remembered malefactor William Greenwood. There were three indictments against the prisoner, two for murder and one for arson. On the first indictment for murder the prisoner was acquitted. On that for arson, which was prosecuted by Mr.

Galt, he was convicted. With the other indictment for murder Mr. Galt was not concerned. The prisoner, however, was convicted, and sentenced to be hanged, but committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell.

Mr. Galt was appointed to his present position, that of a Puisne Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Ontario, on the death of the late Judge John Wilson, in 1869. His sixty-five years seem to sit very lightly upon him, and he is still distinguished by a fine, dignified, and most kindly presence. In addition to the attainments properly belonging to him as an eminent lawyer, he is known as a master of style, and his judgments are marked not less by their depth of learning than by the stateliness of the diction in which they are written.

The most important criminal case over which he has been called upon to preside since his accession to the Bench was that against Mrs. George Campbell, who was tried at the a.s.sizes held at London, in the autumn of 1872, for murdering her husband under most revolting circ.u.mstances. She was convicted, and suffered the extreme penalty of the law.

THE RIGHT REV. WILLIAM BENNETT BOND,

_M.A., LL.D., BISHOP OF MONTREAL._