ed for this file and expunged these words with his
own hand.

Sometimes, however, he was in lighter vein, and, indeed, I have known
him to betray a transient gleam of humour. One day a letter, the
envelope addressed to Blake, was left at 'Earnscliffe,' Macdonald's
Ottawa residence. The letter inside, however, as appeared later, was
addressed to Sir John Macdonald. Ignorant, of course, of this fact,
Macdonald sent it to Blake, who returned it with this note:

COBOURG, _June_ 28_th_, 1889.

MY DEAR SIR,--Thanks for the mysterious package, which, however, I
return, perceiving that in this, as in some other cases, if I have a
better title to the shell, you have the better title to the oyster.

It is a curious example of the workings {110} of the mind and of the
phraseology of a deaf mute. It is a sad sort of letter, and I intend
to write to Jones to enquire if anything can be done for the poor
creature.

Yours faithfully,
EDWARD BLAKE.

Here we get a glimpse of the really kind and generous heart that beat
under the chilling exterior of Edward Blake.

In the year 1875 there occurred in Montreal an event which caused a
good deal of ill-feeling between the English and French sections of the
population throughout the province of Quebec. This was the epilogue of
the famous Guibord case. Joseph Guibord was a member of a society
known as _L'Institut Canadien_. In 1858 the Roman Catholic bishop of
Montreal issued a pastoral letter exhorting the members of this
institute to purge their library of certain works regarded as immoral,
and decreeing several penalties, including deprivation of the
sacraments and refusal of ecclesiastical burial, in the event of
disobedience. The library committee returned a reply to the effect
that they were the judges of the morality of their books, and, further,
that there were no immoral works in their library. {111} The matter
appears to have lain dormant for some years. In 1865 several members
of the Institute, including Guibord, appealed to Rome against the
action of the bishop, but in vain. Shortly afterwards Guibord died,
and as he had adhered to his membership in the Institute despite the
bishop's _mandement_, ecclesiastical burial was refused. His widow had
recourse to the law, and ultimately the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council ordered the burial of Guibord's remains in the Roman Catholic
cemetery. The reasons upon which this judgment is based are that the
Ch