cook’s window. So M. Perrault had a margin for his prediction. This half-jocular condemnation of the legal profession was prevalent to a degree which made many believe that in a corner of the Protestant hell, which was separate from and hotter than the Roman Catholic one, was a place reserved for lawyers. “There they will have a little hell of their own, and even well lighted for them to see each other the better; and there, after having deceived their poor clients on earth, they will tear each other to pieces without the devil having the bother of helping them.”
In ’37, when three of the members had become judges, Perrault made his pun by saying, “I have often predicted that I should see some of you hanged (pendu); there are now three of you suspended (suspendu), which is nearly the same thing.” Those who were partners in guilt in the writings of this “seditious paper” were sent to gaol, and we learn that the article which gave chief offence was one entitled “Take hold of your nose by the tip.” Maladministration was evidently malodorous. Such proceedings naturally caused excitement, and the fears of those in power made them redouble the city guards and patrols.
But if Le Canadien had been conducted with animosity, it was also marked by much ability. Nor had it a monopoly of the former. The Anglo-Canadian papers, too, knew how to be bitter and violent. The press of those times indulged in wonderful prophecies. But the future is in the lap of the gods, so said the more knowing ancients; and if any of those ’37 prophecies had the flavour of truth it is to be found in those of the contemned Reformers.
Early in the century Judge Sewell had got into trouble. He was accused of usurping parliamentary authority, by undue influence persuading the Governor (Craig) to dissolve the House and also to address the members in an insulting manner; and later there were the Bedards’ affairs. Judge Monk was also accused. Judge Sewell went to London to defend himself, which he did to such good purpose, backed by the influence of Prince Edward, that he gained the ear and confidence of Lord Bathurst. His explanations were accepted, and fresh favours were in store for him from the incoming Governor Sherbrooke.
Although “each new muddler” blamed his predecessor for his own misgovernment, the tasks falling to the Governors were not easy. Under Kempt came up the question of giving legal status to Jews and Methodists, the question regarding the former going back some twenty years, when, under the administration of “little king Craig,” there was endless trouble over Mr. Ezekiel Hart’s presence in the House. Expelled and returned alternately, Hart was doubly obnoxious as a Jew and an Englishman. Methodism had an equally hard time since the First Gentleman in Europe had said that that faith was not the faith of a gentleman. The characteristics of the personnel of the House of Assembly in the years of the century prior to the Rebellion could doubtless fill volumes of humours. Most of the members from the Lower St. Lawrence arrived in schooners, sometimes remaining in them as boarders; or they put up at some Lower Town hostelry, content with their cowpacks and scorning Day & Martin. The members from down the Gulf were sure to be of the right political stripe, from a clerical point of view, or their constituents stood a chance of being “locked out of heaven.” One head of a house who dared to be a Liberal in those illiberal times, an educated man, and likely to have possessed weight in character as well as by his appointments in his native village, so locked himself out. His child of seven came home from school in tears one day, and after much coaxing to disburden his woe confided to his mother that in seven years his father, a parent much-beloved, would be a loup-garou. The end of this persecution was a removal over the border.
But there were not many who had the courage of their convictions in the face of the Church’s No—they were all too good Catholics then. Stories of their religious life provide material for a picture whose beauty cannot be surpassed. A niche was hollowed in a wall of most Canadian homes to hold a figure of the “Blessed Lord,” or His equally dear Mother; and it is recorded of one of the first of Canadian gentlemen of his time that he never passed a wayside cross without baring his head, saying once in explanation, “One should always bare the head before the sign of our redemption and perform an act of penitence.” The humbler sort began no dangerous work, such as roofing, without a prayer. With heads uncovered, the workers knelt down, while some one of the oldest of the company recited the prayer to which all made response and Amen. Nor was thanksgiving omitted when the harvest firstfruits were sold at the door of the parish church. Close by the housewife’s bedhead hung her chaplet, black temperance cross and bottle of holy water; from the last the floor was sprinkled before every thunderstorm. And nothing was done by natural agency. Even the old, worn-out curé, who met death by the bursting of the powder-magazine on board the ship in which he was returning to France, was “blown into heaven.”
But once the primitive ones left their village they were much at sea, and we have a member for Berthier, whom we shall credit as being both pious and Tory, arriving in Quebec with his wife one winter’s evening in his traineau. They drew up at the parliamentary buildings and surveyed the four-and-twenty windows above them, wondering which one would fall to their lot for the season. They descended, boxes and bundles after them, rapped at the door and presented their compliments to the grinning messenger. “He was the member for Berthier, and this was Madame his wife;” they had brought their winter’s provisions with them, and all in life needed to allow him to pursue his work of serving his country as a statesman was a cooking stove, which he looked to a paternal government to supply. When told that not one of the four-and-twenty windows belonged to him, and that family accommodation did not enter into the estimates, the member from Berthier stowed his wife and bundles back in the traineau, gave his steed a smart cut, and indignantly and forever turned his back upon the Legislative walls of his province.
What did he not miss? Within them Papineau was making rounded periods, holding men entranced by his eloquence; Andrew Stuart was defending British rights; yet another Stuart thundered against the tyranny of the oligarchy, the privileged few; and Nielson and other discreet Liberals sought to steer a middle course of justice without rebellion. No wonder that from this concert discords met the ears of the audiences without.
Peculiarities and eccentricities were not confined to the rural populace and members of Parliament. “Go on board, my men, go on board without fear,” was a magistrate’s dismissal to two evil-faced tars who had deserted their ship at sailing time because they thought her unseaworthy; “I tell you you are born to be hanged, so therefore you cannot be drowned.”
“If anyone has a cause,” said one dignified prothonotary, “let him appear, for the Court is about to close.” “But,” said the judge above him, “the law states we must sit to-morrow.” Turning to the public the prothonotary made further announcement: “The judge says he will sit to-morrow, but the prothonotary will not be here.” And in his Louis XIV. costume, cut-away coat with stiff and embroidered collar, knee-breeches of black cloth, black silk stockings, frills on shirt-bosom and cuffs, the silver-buckled shoes of the prothonotary bore their somewhat stubborn wearer away.
At the beginning of the century it was only occasionally that foreign news reached Canada. With time postal matters improved; but news was still only occasional. At the advent of a vessel at Father Point the primitive telegraph of the yard and balls was used, and at night fires were lighted to carry the tidings from cape to cape. The means of intercommunication depended upon the size of the post-bag, the fidelity of the carrier, and on the state of the storm-strewn paths or trackless wastes which had to be crossed. The bag for Gaspé and Baie des Chaleurs was made up once in a winter and sent to Quebec, dark leather with heavy clasps and strapped on an Indian’s back. The man travelled on snowshoes, and when tired would transfer his load to the sled drawn by his faithful Indian dog. There were others whose mode of transit was much the same, but whose beats were shorter and trips more frequent. “Do not forget,” would say a certain old Seigneur, “to have Seguin’s supper prepared for him.” Seguin was postman for that large country-side, and generally arrived during the night at the manor house. The doors, under early Canadian habit, were unlatched; Seguin would quietly enter, sit down, take his supper, and produce from his pockets the letters and papers which made the Seigneur’s mail, leave them on the table, then as quietly let himself out into the night again, to pursue his journey to the next point. Such latitude in trust was possible in a country where law in its beginning was a matter of personal administration aided by keep, and four-post gibbet whose iron collar might bear