f being
'rebels to their constitution and country.' In a rage Sir Allan MacNab
gave him 'the lie with circumstance,' and the two honourable members
made at each other. Only the prompt intervention of the
sergeant-at-arms prevented actual assault. The two belligerents were
taken into his custody. Some of the excited spectators who {120}
hissed and shouted were also taken into custody; and the debate came to
a sudden end that day. Those were the days of 'the code,' and why a
'meeting' was not 'arranged' and why Sir Allan did not have an
opportunity of using his silver-mounted duelling pistols is not quite
clear. The tempers of our politicians have much improved since that
violent scene occurred. No slur on the word of an honourable
gentleman, no imputation of falsehood, would now be so hotly resented
in our legislative halls.

The violence and the excitement which prevailed in parliament were
repeated and intensified throughout the country. Everything that could
be effected by public meetings, petitions, protests, was done to
prevent the bill from passing, or, if it passed, to prevent the
governor-general from giving his assent to it, or, as a last resource,
to induce the Queen to disallow the obnoxious measure. The whole
machinery of agitation was set in motion and speeded up, to prevent the
bill becoming law. 'Demonstrations'--in plain English, rows--took
place everywhere. Sedate little Belleville was the scene of fierce
riots. Effigies of Baldwin, Blake, and Mackenzie were paraded through
the streets of Toronto {121} on long poles 'amid the cheers and
exultations of the largest concourse of people beheld in Toronto since
the election of Dunn and Buchanan.' Finally the effigies were burned
in a burlesque _auto-da-fe_. This ancient English custom was a milder
method of expressing political disapproval than the native American
invention of tar-and-feathers; but it seems to have been equally
soothing to the feelings. An outside observer, the _New York Herald_,
expected the disturbance to end in 'a complete and perfect separation
of those provinces from the rule of England'; but in those days
American critics were always expecting separation.

No clearer mirror of the crisis is to be found than in the words of the
man on whom lay the heaviest responsibility, the governor-general
himself. This is his private opinion of the bill: 'The measure itself
is not free from objection, and I very much regret that an