sented any parliamentary majority. It was formed after the seventh parliament of Canada had expired. It no longer represented the people. Even Sir Charles Tupper had admitted, in newspaper interviews, his defeat at the polls on the 23rd of June. It is the utmost folly to pretend that Lord Aberdeen should have been officially ignorant of this fact, or to assume that Sir Charles Tupper had neglected to inform him of so important a fact. Baghot remarks what is universally acknowledged, that the first minister "is bound to take care that the Sovereign knows everything which there is to know, as to the passing politics of the nation." It cannot be presumed that Sir Charles Tupper had neglected to inform the Governor-General of the defeat which he publicly acknowledged on the 25th June, in one of his party newspapers.

Under the special circumstances, Lord Aberdeen's characterization of the acts of the Tupper administration as being "in an unusual degree provisional" certainly seems to be fitting and accurate.

Subsequent to the defeat of Sir Charles Tupper at the polls, the Governor-General approved of over two hundred recommendations of the beaten ministers, but laid down the rule that the ministers should avoid "any acts which may embarrass the succeeding government." Of such acts the Governor-General deemed the filling up of the four vacancies in the Senate, a legislative chamber in which the victorious Liberal party had infinitesimal representation. If Lord Aberdeen had not intervened and reserved these Senate seats for the incoming administration, the Laurier cabinet could not have been constructed in its present form.

Lord Aberdeen limited the defeated Tupper ministry to the transaction of necessary public business. He sanctioned over 200 orders in Council, and temporarily withheld his approval from

a large number of others, until it could be ascertained if they involved:

I. The creation of new offices or appointments.

2. The filling of vacancies for which no provision had been made by parliament, and which had existed for more than one clear fiscal year.

3. Superannuations (and the consequential appointments) for which applications had not been received.

These limits still left large scope for the exercise of patronage by the Tupper cabinet, and the public records show that they took ample advantage of their opportunities.

Calmly reviewed, there can be no doubt that Lord Aberdeen exercised his constitutional functions wisely and in the interests of the people of Canada, and in furtherance of their wishes as expressed at the polls on the 23rd June last.

The responsibility for his actions was assumed by the Laurier administration, which was sustained by the House of Commons. It is worthy of note that Sir Charles Tupper, the ex-Premier, though, as leader of the defeated party, he made a long speech in the House of Commons, on the constitutional issues now under discussion, did not dare to propose and press to a division any motion on this subject. It is a fair inference to make, that he felt that he would not be supported in so doing by his political partisans in the House and in the country.

As to Sir Charles Hibbert Tupper's remarks about Lord Aberdeen "being the head of the Liberal party in Canada," and the general tone of offensiveness in his article, while much might be said about their propriety, it is better to hope that the author already regrets their utterance. Of the abiding respect and esteem felt throughout Canada for Lord Aberdeen, no doubt whatever exists in the mind of any unbiased citizen of this great Dominion.

H. A. Weir.

the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council with a Canadian judge to decide Canadian cases and to saddle Canada with the salary of this representative. Both saddles are ill-fitting, and will gall. Both acts are unwarranted, unnecessary and positively harmful. The plea advanced for such an appointment is that it requires a Canadian-bred jurist to understand the Canadian cases brought before this the mightiest and most widely-embracing of all human tribunals--and, I may add, the most respected. It is stated by the promoters of this Colonial representative scheme that without it bad law and injustice is and must be the result of this court's judgments. But is it so?

The late Hon. Rudolph Laflamme, Q.C., told me that when he pleaded before this committee he was astonished at the perfect knowledge of the Roman and French law and language possessed by its members. The law found in Canada is either behind-thetimes English law, or rusty-with-age French law. The British judges are are up-to-date in both laws. It is true that these English judges are not microscopically acquainted with the physical and political conformations and divisions, and the localities and public personages, of Canada. But this very ignorance of persons, places and localities in Canada constitutes, I think, their strongest claim to our respect and confidence. No man is a hero to his own valet. No man will, if he is wise, seek counsel and judgment from his family-circle or his intimate friendsthey will prove but Job's comforters. The most deadly enemies a man possesses are often found among his brothers and sisters, his kith and kin. Nations when they arbitrate invariably choose as arbiter another nation foreign to both. Bacon, in his Novum Organum states one of the chief sources of error in

ket-place or those flowing from language and social intercouse. Let the broad Atlantic continue to roll between Canada and her highest court of appeals, and then we shall continue to obtain unwarped judgments. Let the judicial committee continue to be composed of none but British jurists, unknowing the colonials except as

through the law they administer, and unknown to them except as to the judgments they deliver.

Shakespeare writes:- "To offend and judge are distinct offices, and of opposed natures." How often do judges offend in Canada by being corrupted by the idola fori, and then proceed to judge one of the parties or his lawyer. My own personal individuality being very strong, outspoken and denunciatory, it has often been my fortune as a practising lawyer in the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario, to have adverse judgments given against me or my client, by judges and magistrates biassed by personal motives towards me. They were influenced by something which I had done or said outside the court-room, hurting their susceptibilities or the sensibilities of their friends; and the judges avenged their wounded feelings or injured pride by acting and judging unjustly towards me or my client. These magistrates were both offenders and judges in the same breath-which, according to Shakespeare, cannot be--and Shakespeare is right.

Justice is represented on our courthouses as a stern, majestic female, with bandaged eyes and a pair of scales; but are the judges in the rooms beneath her sufficiently blind and deaf to gossip and argument and suasion in the market-place? How just are the remarks of the eminent Guyot, in his Repertoire :-"Une des qualités les plus nécessaires à un juge, c'est l'impartialité. Avant d'opiner

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dans une affaire quelconque, il doit être assuré qu'il n'existe au fond de son cœur ni passion ni affection particulière pour aucune des parties. On est si porté à trouver bonne la cause de celui qu'on affectionne; on a tant de penchant à croire injuste ou coupable celui pour lequel on a de l'aversion, qu'en prenant sur soi de les juger, on court souvent le risque de commettre une injustice sans le vouloir. Le juge doit, par cette raison, être très-delicat, et sonder profondement son cœur avant de donner son opinion dans une affaire dont les parties lui sont connues."

Among the early Greeks, the historian Tytler tells us, the judges determined all causes during the night; for these two reasons, as Athenæs informs us, that neither the number nor the faces of the judges being known, there might be no attempts to corrupt them; and that, as they neither saw the plaintiff nor defendant, their decisions might he quite impartial. I have read also

that, among the ancient Persians, I think, the judges were blinded by bandages, for the same reason as lastly given by Tytler.

The judicial reform we want in Canada is to compel the judges to imitate those of the ancient Greeks, and see and know nobody coming as suitors or lawyers before them; and also to provide that neither the suitors nor the barristers shall be able to ascertain what judge will try or is trying their suit at law. Neither of these remedies is impossible to exact or carry out. Finally, we want no change in the personnel of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of Great Britain. The conclusion of the whole matter is, let us keep our judges and judges' salaries at home in Canada, and be very thankful that we enjoy in the judicial committee the advantages of an ancient Athenian court at a very small cost to ourselves.

Richard J. Wicksteed.

Reuben Butchart.

HE

E entered into possession of his kingdom on the twenty-fourth day of October, 1890, and from the first moment of his reign showed himself to be the most autocratic and exacting of monarchs, wielding his sceptre by the divine right that no one thinks of disputing.

A gesture of his tiny fist would set his subjects a-quaking; a tear in his round blue eye, and a mottled purple in his royal countenance, rendered the Queen-mother distracted, and deeply depressed her husband, the Prince Consort, who had been lowered in rank since King Baby began to reign. It was not until he had ruled for eighteen months that King Baby began to properly realize his own power. He then noticed for the first time that loud screams produced instant food; that, if it were not food time, these same screams, discreetly employed, brought forth a rapid succession of wooden horses, woolen balls, stuffed kittens, and jingling bells. It was about this time, too, that the King's education began. He had previously had a vocabulary absolutely and entirely his own, and was only prevented from continuing its use by observing that even the Prince Consort and the Queenmother could not understand him in his native tongue. With a sigh he realized that he must employ the language of his subjects, stupid and long-syllabled as it appeared to him to be. Hitherto he had said "Ga-ga" when he particularly wished for something, were it a leaden soldier or a basin of milk, but now he found that grown-up people used different words for different things, doing away entirely with the necessity of pointing at the desired object. And he marvelled greatly at the wonderful stupidity of the arrangement.

About this time the Monarch was taught to shake hands with his sub

jects. He could not distinctly pronounce the phrase, "How do you do?" but he said 'Ow-da" in his most gracious manner, and was considered a very great and clever king. This habit, from constant use, became a mania with him. He said "Ow-da " to every animal he met in the road, from a pig to a donkey, when he was out for an airing in his royal carriage; and even at night custom would prevail so strongly that he would roll over sleepily towards the Queen-mother in the small hours and say "Ow-da," with one warm, drowsy little hand extended in an imaginary greeting. was taught all the time-honored rhymes with which the ears of similar monarchs have been duly tickled from time immemorial, "Ba, ba, black sheep," and "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man." The latter evidently pleased him most, but he considered it inconsistent with his royal dignity to repeat it before his subjects. The Queen-mother resorted to hiding behind a curtain to watch, when she observed the King pat-acaking away with his small, fat hands, all by himself in his little cradle, sleep hanging in his blue eyes like snow in the clouds, ready to fall.

He

mense tunnels, round large mountains and down endless valleys. These several obstacles, to grown-ups, were known separately as passages, boxes, and stairs. The King was never allowed to go down the ladders without a stupid grown-up hanging tightly on to his unkingly-looking, grey overalls.

One day the King escaped from his subjects to enjoy a little stroll of complete privacy, such as all monarchs are wont to do.

He paddled down his tunnel with suspicious quickness, well knowing that his escape partook of the nature of a crime. He crawled rapidly round the mountains, and attacked with a crow of triumphant joy the precipitous ladder. He started at the top with immense enthusiasm, which gradually lessened, as, by a series of resounding bumps, he reached the bottom, so breathless that he could not even scream. The largest bump of all was reserved for his little golden head, which the Prince Consort afterwards compared, with melancholy pride, to the rainbow, for the unequalled brilliance of its different colours.

After this accident the King was confined to his crib for some time, and a wooden gate barred the entrance to the ladder. When he was better, His Majesty would creep to the bars, and, gazing wistfully through at his lost paradise, wonder why the ladder should want to hurt him so. These mysteries were not solved until he had reigned many years in the land.

There was great rejoicing in the royal household when the King once rose to his royal feet, unaided, and hung on to a chair with a somewhat uncertain and imbecile smile. It is true, His Majesty sat down again with an unexpected suddenness which partook of the nature of a collapse, but the fact remained that the feat

had been performed. In this, as in many other things in life, ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute, and the King began to make really rapid strides. Nothing was too great for his soaring ambition; no obstacles too difficult to be overcome. He was one day found completely buried beneath a table-cloth (on which was reposing the Queen-mother's best dinner-service of Crown Derby china), having pulled the same down in a frantic attempt to help himself to some cold roast beef-a feat which he had often seen the Prince Consort successfully perform. His Majesty received a severe reprimand for this exploit. It was the first thing he had done which his chief ministers did not consider clever.

Presently he grew old enough to be taught his catechism, and learn various simple prayers in the vulgar tongue. He always objected strongly when the Queen-mother began the former with the question, "What is your name?” He replied, with indignation at the futility of the query, "You know that just as well as I do." And no amount of argument would induce any modification of his ideas.

In the sixth year of his reign, King Baby's kingdom suddenly tottered and crumbled away from beneath his feet, a catastrophe that history assures us is not an entirely unknown one in the lives of unfortunate monarchs. The sceptre that he had held so firmly in his chubby little hand was wrested from him by a being mightier than he, by reason of his very feebleness, and his fickle subjects (now transposed for him into a commonplace father and mother and uncle and aunt), worshipped at a new shrine.

King Baby was not gathered to his fathers. He was merely deposed. And King Baby the Second reigned in his stead.

E. Laetitia Phillimore.