a. The two volunteer regiments, the Quebec and Ontario battalions,
were quartered for the winter, the former in Lower Fort Garry, the
latter in Fort Garry. The new Governor took up his abode in Fort Garry,
in the residence with which our story is so familiar. The organization
of his government began at once. The first Government Building stood
back from the street in Winnipeg on the corner of Main Street and
McDermott Avenue East, of the present-day. The Legislative Council--a
miniature House of Lords--of seven members, was appointed, and electoral
divisions for the election of members to the Legislative Assembly were
made to the number of twenty-four--twelve French and twelve English. The
time for the opening of Parliament was the spring of 1871. It was a
notable day, for the citizens were much interested in scrutinizing those
who were to be their future rulers. The opening passed off with eclat.
During the first session certain elementary legislation was passed
including a short school act. There was yet no division of parties, and
a sufficient cabinet was chosen by the Governor. Thus, institutions
after the model of the mother of Parliaments at Westminster were evolved
and Manitoba--the successor of our Red River Settlement--had conceded to
it the right of local self-government.

In the year of the first parliament of Manitoba it was the fortune of
the writer to take up his abode here. Winnipeg, a village of less than
three hundred inhabitants was in that year, still four hundred miles
distant from a railway. From the railway terminus in Minnesota, the
stage coach drawn by four horses with relays every twenty miles, sped
rapidly over prairies, smooth as a lawn to the site of the future city
of the plains.

Since that time well-nigh forty years has passed away. The stage coach,
the Red River cart, and the shaganappi pony are things of the past, and
several railways with richly furnished trains connect St. Paul and
Minneapolis with the City of Winnipeg. More important, the skill of the
engineer has surpassed what we then even dreamt of in his blasting of
rock cuttings and tunnels through the Archaean rocks to Fort William, and
this has been done by three main trunk lines of railway. The old
amphibious route of the fur traders and of Wolseley's Expedition has
been superseded, the tremendous cliffs of the north shore of Lake
Superior have been levelled and the chasm bridged. To the west the whole
wide prairie land has b