the Liberal
campaign fund. On Senator Simpson's application, Wilkinson, the editor
of the paper, was called upon to show cause why a criminal information
should not issue against him for libel. The case was argued before the
Queen's Bench, composed of Chief-Justice Harrison, Justice Morrison,
and Justice Wilson. The judgment of the court delivered by the
chief-justice was against the editor in regard to two of the articles
complained of and in his favour in regard to the third. In following
the chief-justice, Mr. Justice Wilson took occasion to refer to
Senator Brown's letter and to say that it was written with corrupt
intent to interfere with the freedom of elections.

Brown was not the man to allow a charge of this kind to go unanswered,
and in this case there were special circumstances calculated to arouse
his anger. The publication of his letter in the Bowmanville paper had
been the signal for a fierce attack upon him by the Conservative press
of the province. It appeared to him that Justice Wilson had wantonly
made himself a participant in this attack, lending the weight of his
judicial influence to his enemies. Interest was added to the case by
the fact that the judge had been in previous years supported by the
_Globe_ in municipal and parliamentary elections. He had been
solicitor-general in the Macdonald-Sicotte government from May 1862 to
May 1863. Judge Morrison had been solicitor-general under Hincks, and
afterwards a colleague of John A. Macdonald. Each of them, in this
case, took a course opposite to that which might have been expected
from old political associations.

A few days afterwards the _Globe_ contained a long, carefully prepared
and powerful attack upon Mr. Justice Wilson. Beginning with a tribute
to the Bench of Ontario, it declared that no fault was to be found
with the judgment of the court, and that the offence lay in the
gratuitous comments of Mr. Justice Wilson.

"No sooner had the chief-justice finished than Mr. Justice Wilson
availed himself of the occasion to express his views of the matter
with a freedom of speech and an indifference to the evidence before
the court and an indulgence in assumptions, surmises and insinuations,
that we believe to be totally unparalleled in the judicial proceedings
of any Canadian court."

The article denied that the letter was written with any corrupt
intent, and it stated that the entire fund raised by the Liberal party
in the general election of 18