ing the Port Whitby Harbour Company; to provide that persons charged with common assault shall be competent as witnesses; to grant relief to the Canada Agricultural Insurance Company; to incorporate the Missionary Society of the Bible Christian Church in Canada; to amend the law respecting Deck Loads; respecting the duty on on Malt; to provide.for the crection and registration of Homestead Exemption Estates in the Territories of Canada; to amend section sixty-eight of the Penitentiary Act of 1875;" respecting persons imprisoned in default of giving securities to keep the peace; to make provision for the winding up of insolvent incorporated Fire or Marine Insurance Companies; to amend "An Act respecting conflicting claims to lands of occupants in Manitoba;" to grant certain powers to the Agricultural Mutual Assurance Association of Canada, and to change its name; to amend the Acts incorporating the Brockville and Ottawa Railway Company, and to provide for the amalgamation of the said Companies; to confer certain powers on the Montreal Building Association by the name of "The Montreal Investment and Building Company;" to authorize the Stadacona Fire and Life Assurance Company to reduce its Capital Stock and for other purposes; to amend the Act thirty-seventh Victoria, chapter eight, intituled: "An Act to impose license duties on compounders of spirits; to amend the Act respecting the Inland Revenue, and to prevent the adulteration of Food, Drink and Drugs;" to authorize the advance of certain sums to the Province of Manitoba, in aid of the Public Schools therein; to amend the Act respecting the Election of Members of the House of Commons; respecting the Ontario Express and Transportation Company; to amend the Law respecting Building Societies, carrying on business in the Province of Ontario; to amend the Law relating to Stamps on Promissory Notes and Bils of Exchange; to provide for the better Auditing of the Public Accounts; respecting the traffic in Intoxicating Liquors; further securing the Independence of Parliament; for the better prevention of crimes of violence in certain parts of Canada, until the end of the next Session of Parliament; and for granting Her Majesty certain sums of money requisite for defraying certain expenses of the Public Service.

The following Bills were reserved for the signification of Her Majesty's pleasure thereon:

To repeal Section twenty-three of the Merchants' Shipping Act, 1876, as to Ships in Canadian Waters; for the relief of Hugh Hunter; for the relief of Victoria Elizabeth Lyon; for the relief of George Frothingham Johnston.

After which His Excellency closed the last Session of the Third Parliament of the Dominion with the following speech:

"Honorable Gentlemen of the Senate:

"Gentlemen of the House of Commons:

"I am glad to be able to relieve you from further attendance in Parliament after a somewhat long and laborious Session.

"I shall take the necessary steps, at an early day after the close of the financial year, to give effect to the measure you have passed for the better auditing of the Public Accounts.

"I shall call the attention of Her Majesty's Government to your Address

praying that all of British America, except Newfoundland, shall be, by Imperial action, declared to be within the Dominion of Canada.

"I rejoice that during the term of my administration, this final step to consolidate British interests on the continent of America has been taken with so much unanimity, and that henceforth the Dominion Government will, under Her Majesty, exercise undisputed sway over the northern half of this continent.

“I am happy to be able to state that, pending the final settlement of the question of boundary, a conventional line has been adopted by my Government and the Government of the United States, between Alaska and British Columbia on the Stickine River.

"The large sums you have appropriated for the great works of internal improvement will be expended with the most rigid regard to economy, and in the expectation that the principal canals under construction may be nearly completed within the next financial year.

"The settlement of Manitoba and the North-West Territories has been proceeding this year with unexampled rapidity, and if the efforts of my Government to obtain a railway communication with Winnipeg, at a very early day, should be successful, I anticipate next year a still larger increase to the population.

"It is specially gratifying to find so many Canadians who had in former years emigrated to the United States now returning to the newly organized territories of their native land.

"Gentlemen of the House of Commons:

"I thank you for the supplies which you have granted for the various public services.

"Honorable Gentlemen of the Senate:

"Gentlemen of the House of Commons:

Nothing could have given me more gratification than the joint Address with which you have honored me on the eve of my departure.

"My interest in Canada shall not cease when my mission as Her Majesty's Viceroy shall have terminated, and I am glad to know that you have taken so favorable a view of my efforts to fittingly represent our most gracious Queen in this the most important of Her Majesty's Colonial possessions.

"I now bid you farewell, and earnestly trust you may find in the future the manifold blessings which I shall ever pray may be continually showered upon you."

CHAPTER VI.

JACQUES CARTIer and CharleVOIX CONTESTED ELECTION CASES JUDGMENT OF THE SUPREME COURT.-THE PREMIER AND THE SARNIA "CANADIAN"-ACTION FOR LIBEL. THE GOFF-STEWART-BAKER LIBEL CASE.-CANADIAN MILITIA OFFICERS TENDER THEIR SERVICES TO GREAT BRITAIN.-RUMOURED FENIAN INVASION.THE QUEEN'S BIRTH-DAY IN MONTREAL-SPEECH BY LORD DUFFERIN.-THE VICE-REGAL FAREWELL TO OTTAWA.-THE TWELFTH OF JULY IN MONTREALTHE ORANGE PROCESSION STOPPED BY THE MAYOR.-THE LIEUTENANTGOVERNORSHIP OF NEW BRUNSWICK.-THE MARQUIS OF LORNE APPOINTED GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA.-THE DOMINION ADMITTED TO THE POSTAL UNION. BOUNDARY OF ONTARIO ON THE NORTH AND WEST.-AWARD OF THE ARBITRATORS

On the 13th April, the Supreme Court gave judgment in the Jacques Cartier contested election case. In November, 1876, on the resignation of Mr. Felix Geoffrion from long continued ill-health, the vacant portfolio was tendered to Mr. R. Laflamme, Q.C. (Jacques Cartier), who had occupied a prominent posi tion in the Liberal party; and the offer was accepted. Mr. Laflamme accordingly became a member of the Government, in the capacity of Minister of Inland Revenue, and had in the usual course to seek the endorsation of his constituents. He was opposed by Mr. D. Girouard, Q.C., of Montreal, but succeeded in retaining his seat by a small majority. The election, however, was protested, and tried before Judge Wilfrid Dorion, who dismissed the petition. Mr. Girouard's friends carried the case to the Supreme Court on no less than seventeen charges. With respect to sixteen of these, the Court unanimously sustained Judge Dorion's decision. On the remaining charge, in respect of which an elector named Robert swore that he was promised an office for his vote, the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Strong were of opinion that agency had been proved, and that the seat should be declared vacant. On the other hand, Mr. Justice Taschereau, Mr. Justice Fournier, and Mr. Justice Henry thought that agency had not been proved, that the seat should not be vacated, and therefore the appeal was dismissed with costs. Mr. Justice

Ritchie, having been absent when the case was argued, refused to take any part in the proceedings.

On the same day, judgment was also rendered in the Charlevoix contested election case. Mr. H. L. Langevin, who had been unseated on petition during the previous year, was reelected, the election protested, and Mr. Routhier, the Superior Court judge before whom the petition was tried, threw it out on a preliminary objection. The reference to the Supreme Court was for the purpose of having that decision overruled, and the case proceeded with on its merits. The appeal was met by a plea on behalf of Mr. Langevin that judgments on preliminary objections were not appealable, and that the decision of Judge Routhier was a good one. Mr. Justice Strong delivered an elaborate judgment, sus. taining the plea, and affirming that decisions of preliminary objections were final and not appealable. Chief Justice Richards and Mr. Justice Henry concurred in this judment, Mr. Justice Taschereau and Mr. Justice Fournier dissenting. Mr. Langevin was therefore also confirmed in his seat.

On the 19th April, Mr. Justice Armour and a jury, at Sarnia, Ontario, tried the case of Regina vs. The Proprietors of the Sarnia Canadian. This was a criminal prosecution by the Crown of the proprietors of the newspaper named-Messrs. McVicar & Co.for an alleged libel on the Prime Minister, Mr. Mackenzie. The libel consisted in the publication of a report that Messrs. Charles and John Mackenzie, of Sarnia, brothers of the Premier, had withdrawn iron tubing from bond just previous to the readjustment of the tariff, having been induced to do so owing to special information received with respect to the intentions of the Government.

His Lordship, in charging the jury, after pointing out that there were two questions for them to consider,-whether the defendants did publish the article which was alleged by the Crown to be a libel, and whether the article was a libelexplained the reasons which led to the introduction of Mr. Fox's bill in the Imperial Parliament in 1790, and defined libel as being, according to an old writer, "a malicious defamation expressed in writing, prints, signs, pictures, or figures, tending to blacken the memory of one who was dead or the reputation of one living, whereby he was exposed to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule." As was well known, the meetings of the Privy Council were strictly secret, and if an increase in the duty on any article was proposed it would be a grossly corrupt act on the

part of a member of the Privy Council to give that information for the benefit of a friend trading in the particular article affected. If any Privy Councillor so far forgot his obligations to his country and to his sovereign as to inform any person of the secret, he would be liable to the contempt of every person; he ought to be impeached and prevented for ever from holding any office of emolument from the Crown, and to be driven from public life for ever. Any man would infer from the article that some member of the Privy Council had divulged the secret of the proposed duty on iron tubing. No attempt to prove the article to be true had been made; therefore he asked them to fully and honorably consider whether the article did or did not contain a libel. the jury found the article was published by the defendants, and was libellous in its character, then they should have no hesitation in bringing the defendants in guilty. But if the defendants did not publish the article, or if there were doubts as to the libellous character of the article, they must acquit the defendants. It was to be regretted that there were libellous publications; also that politicians themselves were not sufficiently careful as to what they said about their opponents. The jury's duty was not to consider that state of affairs, but to determine whether the defendants were guilty or not guilty.

If

After an absence of little more than an hour, the jury returned and declared their inability to agree. The defendants afterwards, however, on further proceedings being taken, published a full retractation and apology to Mr. Mackenzie, which was accepted, and the case dropped.

On the 20th April the Montreal Herald published a letter signed by Mr. Edward H. Goff, in which Mr. G. B. Baker, formerly Provincial Solicitor-General, was charged with having, when a member of the Government of Quebec, endeavoured to black-mail Goff to the extent of $10,000. Mr. Goff was then President of the Montreal, Portland & Boston Railway, which was granted a subsidy of $4,000 per mile by the Government of which Mr. Baker was a member, and it was affirmed by Mr. Goff that Mr. Baker demanded the $10,000 in return for the subsidy. Mr. Goff further alleged that in the same connection he had paid Mr. Baker $1,000 in cash, and that he had presented him with a horse and buggy, and a diamond ring worth $250. Mr. Baker at once publicly and indignantly denied the whole accusation, declared the statement of Goff to be wholly destitute of truth, and at once invoked the protection of the courts. Both Mr. Goff and Mr.