land.

[Illustration: THE FOURTH DUKE OF RICHMOND, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA,
1818-1819]

It is sad to write of two such high-minded, well-intentioned rulers,
that the worst acts of misgovernment in Canada took place in their
regime.

Richmond's death was as unusual as his life. Two accounts are given of
the cause. One states that he permitted a pet dog to touch a cut in
his face. The other account has it that he was bitten by a tame fox at
a fair in Sorel, and the date of Richmond's death, late in August of
1819, exactly two months from the time he was bitten at Sorel,--which
is the length of time that hydrophobia takes to develop in a grown
person,--would seem to substantiate the latter story. He was traveling
on horseback from Perth to Richmond, on the Ottawa, and had complained
of feeling poorly. A small stream had to be crossed. The sight of the
stream brought the strange water delirium to Richmond, when he begged
his attendants to take him quickly to Montreal. It need scarcely be
explained here that hydrophobia {420} is not caused by lack of water,
but by contagious transmission. The feeling passed, as the first
terrors of the disease are usually spasmodic, and the Governor was
proceeding through the woods with his attendants, when he suddenly
broke away deliriously, leading them a wild race to a farm shed. There
he died during the night, crying out as the lucid intervals broke the
delirium of his agonies: "For shame! for shame Lenox! Richmond, be a
man! Can you not bear it?"

Public affairs are meanwhile passing from bad to worse. William Lyon
MacKenzie has become leader of the agitators in his newspaper, _The
Advocate_, of Toronto. A band of young vandals, sons of the ruling
clique, wreck his newspaper office and throw the type into Toronto Bay,
but MacKenzie recovers $3000 damages and goes on agitating. Four times
he is publicly expelled from the House, and four times he is returned
by the electors. What are they asking, these agitators, branded as
rebels, expelled from the assembly, in some cases cast in prison by the
councilors, in others threatened with death?

Control of public revenues.
Reform in the land system.
Municipal rights for towns and cities.
The exclusion of judges from Parliament.
That the council be directly responsible to the people
rather than the Crown.

Since 1818 the reformers have been agitating to have wrongs righted,
and for nineteen years th