more a sign of prosperity than the growth of a tumour that absorbs the strength of the body is a sign of health; and he was, of course, held up as the enemy of his native city. He demanded that the Provincial Government should have the regulation of the Post Office. It was gravely answered that if that were done we might stop the mails! He claimed that political offices should not be held in defiance of the will of the people; and "they said" that all he wanted was an office for himself. He declared that the people were dissatisfied because the executive was not responsible to them; and he was accused of being the author and fomenter of the dissatisfaction. When he and his friends proved that everything they asked for was in strict conformity with British precedents and the British constitution, the serious arguments they got in reply were that what might be granted with safety in Britain could not be granted in colonies, that colonists were too democratic for British institutions, and that they must be content if it was thought necessary that they should not enjoy some of the legislative privileges of the mother country. But the favourite cry against him all these years was that he was a rebel. It was the most telling, for many good people believed it, and believed that he had infected the farmers of the country until, as Howe said, "they wouldn't buy eggs from the Chezzetcookers, lest the very hens had also been infected." I would not exaggerate the bitterness felt against him by the official class of the day, nor revive memories that all are willing to let die, but it is necessary to refer to these things to illustrate his character and environment. After all, these people did as most of us would probably have done. They were taught, and they believed easily, that this printer Howe was bad, that he spoke evil of dignitaries, that he was a red republican, and a great many other things equally low. The dignitaries could not control themselves when they had to refer to him; to take him down to the end of a wharf and blow him away from a cannon's mouth into space was the only thing that would satisfy their ideas of the fitness of things. Their women, if they saw him passing along the street, would run from the windows shrieking as if he were a monster whose look was pollution. Their sons talked of horsewhipping, ducking in a horsepond, fighting duels with him, or doing anything in an honourable or even semi-honourable way to abate or demolish the nuisance. And they did not confine themselves to talk. On one occasion, before he became a member of the House, a young fellow inflamed by drink mounted his horse and rode down the street to the printing office, with broadsword drawn, declaring he would kill Howe. He rode up on the wooden sidewalk, and commenced to smash the windows, at the same time calling on Howe to come forth. Howe was in, and hearing the clatter rushed out. He had been working at the desk, and had on only a pair of trowsers, all bespattered with ink, and a waistcoat half-buttoned. Appearing on the doorstep with shirt sleeves partly rolled up, just as he had been working, and bare head, he took in the situation at a glance. A madman on horseback and sword in hand must be always an unpleasant antagonist. Howe did not delay a minute nor say a word. His big white face glowed with passion, and going up to the shouting creature he caught him by the wrist, disarmed, unhorsed, and threw him on his back in a minute. Some years after, another young gentleman challenged him. Howe went out, received his fire, and then fired in the air. He was a dead shot, but had no desire to have murder on his soul. He was challenged afterwards by at least two others, but refused to go out again. He had gone once to prove that he was not a coward, but he had no intention of being made a target of. And he was no coward. There was not a drop of coward's blood in his body. Even a mob did not make him afraid. Once when the young Ireland party had inflamed the Halifax crowd against him, he walked among them on election day as fearlessly as in the olden time when they were all on his side. He knew that any moment a brickbat might come, crushing in the back of his head, but his face was cheery as usual, and his joke as ready. He fought as an Englishman fights; walking straight up to his enemy, looking him full in the face, and keeping cool as he hit from the shoulder with all his might. And when the fighting was done, he wished it to be done with. "And now, boys," said he once when he was carried home in triumph, "if any of you has a stick, just leave it in my porch for a keepsake." With shouts of laughter the shillelaghs came flying over the heads of the people in front till the porch was filled. The pleasantry gave Howe a stock of fuel, and sent away the mob disarmed and in good humour. We can see the true grit that was in such a man, but we must excuse those who fought hand to hand with him, if they could not see it. He was the enemy of their privileges, therefore of their order, therefore of themselves. It was a bitter pill to swallow when a man in his position was elected member for the county. The floodgates seemed to have opened. Young gentlemen in and out of College swore great oaths over their wine, and the deeper they drank the louder they swore. Their elders declared that the country was going to the dogs, that in fact it was no longer fit for gentlemen to live in. Young ladies carried themselves with greater hauteur than ever, heroically determined that they at least would do their duty to Society. Old ladies spoke of Antichrist, or sighed for the Millennium. All united in sending Howe to Coventry. He felt the stings. "They have scorned me at their feasts," he once burst out to a friend, "and they have insulted me at their funerals. He There was too much of human nature in Joe Howe to take all this without striking hard blows back. He did strike, and he struck from the shoulder. He said what he thought about his opponents with a bluntness that was absolutely appalling to them. went straight to the point he aimed at with Napoleonic directness. They were stunned. They had been accustomed to be treated so differently. There had been so much courtliness of manner in Halifax before; the gradations of rank had been recognised by every one; and the great men and the great women had been always treated with deference. But here was a Jacobin who changed all that; who in dealing with them called a spade a spade; who searched pitilessly into their claims to public respect, and if he found them impostors declared them to be impostors; and who advocated principles that would turn everything upside down. For a time things went from bad to worse. In his first Session in the House of Assembly, he got twelve Resolutions passed against the Council, as constituted, that laid the axe at the foot of the tree. He carried himself with a wariness as well as strength that gave him the leadership of the popular party at once. The first great step gained in the political contest was the separation of the Ex ecutive from the Legislative Council and the quasi acknowledgment of at least some responsibility to the Assembly. The next was the enforced retirement of four of the old Council, and the substitution of Howe and three others in their places. At the age of 36, the printer's boy became at the same time Mr. Speaker, and the Honourable Mr. Howe. But any one of the four who had been obliged to make way for him was considered by society worth a hundred Howes. They were rich, influential, able men. their eyes he was a nobody, a political mendicant. Could they forgive him? They could not. The coalition of the new with the remanent members of the Council did not work well. New cloth on old garments is at the best a temporary makeshift. The college question then came up, and leading Baptists thought that Howe did not use them well. He was for one free unsectarian college for Nova Scotia, just as he was for free unsectarian schools whenever he could get them; whereas they declared that they had been forced, by the injustice shown to Mr. Crawley by a rump board of Governors of Dalhousie College, into the policy of a college for their own denomination. The Baptists are a strong body in Nova Scotia, and they threw a heavy sword into the scale against him. And there were other reasons that made him feel uncomfortable in the Executive Council. Two of his defects were brusqueness of manner, and an egotism that craved the appearance as well as the reality of power. The first made him disagreeable to the Governor, Lord Falkland; the second made him intolerable to colleagues who disliked him from the first, and regarded him as an intruder. His retirement from the Council and resumption of the editorial chair followed. Then clamor rose. Personalities formed the staple of newspaper articles all over Nova Scotia, and of the discussions in the House. That was the epoch of thirteen or fourteen days' debates, followed by divisions with majorities of one, two, or three. Lord Falkland declared in public despatches that he would take any other members of the Liberal party into his Council, but that Joseph Howe he could not and would not take. Poor Lord Falkland! he was very angry, and as we must judge men according to their light. I do not wonder much. He was a man with a handsome face, had been a Lord of the Bedchamber and what not in England, and he looked upon colonists as a kind of semi-savages that he had come out intending to be very kind to. Social equality he had never dreamed of. Yet here was an Orson, very strong, but a perfect brute, who would perhaps walk up the street arm-in-arm with a truckman, shake hands with him, and next minute enter Government House, and calmly offer the same hand to a Lord of the Bedchamber, husband of a king's daughter, as if a Lord was not very different from a truckman, and was on a level with Orson himself. And when Orson left the Council he was worse. He went back to his printing business, and set people laughing at the Lord's anointed. It was a terrible time in Nova Scotia. use," would very likely be the reply, "he's He loved, too, to keep open house in Such a style of living and of spending About the same period, the year 1845, money left him not only without a dollar, but Howe was penniless. When he went into in debt to his friends; and though they said the House of Assembly, eight years before, nothing about it, the ugly fact always does he was making money. His paper circu- leak out, and was made the most of by lated all over the Province, and brought his opponents. It injured his self-respect No man, least of all he him in an increasing revenue every year. and moral tone. who aspires to be a statesman, should ever In 1836 his profits were £1,500. A wise friend then advised him to stick to his own forego "the glorious privilege of being independent." Let no high-hearted young man business, and to keep out of the House. Had he taken the advice he might have enter the political arena with the intention lived longer and died as rich as Horace Gree- of running for the blue ribbon, unless, like Money is Francis Deak, he has made up his mind to ley. And I do not know. yet not made," a Halifax millionaire used to live on something like potatoes and salt, and is saved." Joe Howe never unless he previously owns enough money to say, money had the faculty of saving; and when he be- buy the potatoes at least. Never did political came the man of the people and kept open friends act more liberally to a leader than house in Halifax, it was simply impossible Howe's friends acted, but well for him had for him to save. He would toss a half-crown he reflected that the future of the country was bound up with his, and that prudence, to the boy who held his horse for a few minutes at a roadside inn, when the little chap therefore, was a duty he owed to the future. expected a halfpenny. A poor fellow who The man that has to pass round the hat or had perhaps voted for him would write to put his hand in his pocket for a politician is inclined to feel that he has bought him. him from the jail, and Howe would say to a young relative in whom he had confidence, The cords may be silken but they are none "Go and get him out; if there is no other the less real. The feeling may slumber while way, pay what he owes, and take his note, the two are on the same side; but should if he is worth anything." But usually he duty compel the politician to take an indewasn't worth anything, or the note wasn't. pendent course, the friend feels not only Or a warm-hearted Irishman, with an inde-angry but injured. In Howe's case, those finite number of children, would come and explain to him that from bad luck he had laid in nothing for the winter, and that no work was to be had; and Howe would give him an order on a friend's provision store for a barrel of pork. The friend would take him to task when they met: "I say, Joe, look here! barrel of pork you know costs "Oh! what's the £4. It will never do." who aided him behaved with rare generosity, because they not only loved him, but felt that they owed much to him. On one occasion it was necessary for him to find £1,000 when he was not worth £100. He went to two friends and told them the circumstances. They advanced the money, he insisting on their taking from him obligations that covered all he was worth. Many years after, 1 one of the friends fell sick. Alone in his bedroom, and believing that he would not recover, he remembered Howe's note for £500. If he died, his executors would count it among his assets. This would never do. The sick man staggered out of bed and across the room, rummaged among his papers, found the note, burnt it, and then staggered back to bed prepared for death. It is only right to add that the angel of death was so satisfied that he left the room and the man recovered. A politician must have had rare qualities who inspired men to do such things for him. It was well that they did such things. It was not well that they had to do them. Let it not be forgotten that Howe meant to pay everything he ever owed or ordered. He had faith in himself, in his resources, in his star, and felt that it would come all right. In the meantime he could not deny himself the pleasure of giving to the needy, even though the beneficence was sometimes like that of Mr. Skimpole, who invariably left Mr. Jarndyce to pay the bill. Creditors of his have told me that in settling with them he was always scrupulously correct; and that he would insist on their taking interest as well as principal, even when they were unwilling to do so. Still, would that he had kept out of debt! school gives. In the intervals of farm work he went through the Province electioneering, and firing the Nova Scotian heart. He did the work of three men and as many horses. One summer he addressed 60 meetings in 90 days, many of the meetings being in the open air, and lasting the whole day, as able opponents had to be met and answered. He could feel the pulse of a crowd in five minutes, and adapt himself to its sympathies. He was equally at home with the fishermen of Sambro, the farmers and shipbuilders of Hants, the coloured folks of Preston, and the Germans of Lunenburgh. He would ride 40 or 50 miles, address two or three meetings, talk to those who crowded round him after the meeting, and spend the night at a ball or rustic gathering as light of foot and heart as if he had been idling all day. The winters were spent in Halifax in the discharge of his duty as a member of the House. The Musquodoboit people were delighted to have him among them, and chuckled hugely when they found the great Joe Howe ignorant of some detail of the farm, or little matter they knew all about. One evening he was mowing on the intervale, when he noticed a beautiful creature not much bigger than a large rat, regularly striped with black and white stripes on the body, and a fine little bushy tail curved round on its back. "What a charming creature for my little girls!" thought the unsuspecting town-bred farmer, and gave chase at once. Getting near, he was about to clap his hat on the pretty thing, when it lifted its tail a little higher, and, whew! he smelt a Tartar. However, not being sure of the cause, he carried the pet home in the waggon, but hat and clothes had to be buried, and he himself well fumigated before he could approach his nearest and dearest. This was a hair in his neck that every Musquodoboit man could pull at any time. In fact, it redressed the balance between them, and made them feel at ease in his presence. They were quite certain that if he knew more about the Constitution, they knew more about skunks. The last two of the ten years' conflict for Responsible Government he spent on the head waters of the Musquodoboit, where he worked a farm ; in other words he worked for his living hard as any Musquodoboit farmer. Here he renewed the physical and nervous strength which had been giving way under the strain to which they had been subjected. He writes in his "Letters and Speeches :""I had been for a long time overworking my brains and underworking my body. Here I worked my body and rested my brains. We rose at daylight, breakfasted at 7, dined at 12, took tea at 6, and then assembled in the library where we read four or five hours almost every evening. I learned to plough, to mow, to reap, to cradle. I knew how to chop and pitch hay before. Constant exercise in the open air made me as hard as iron. The fact that in no part of Nova Scotia My head was clear and my spirits buoyant." is Howe's character more highly estimated, In those evenings in the library he educated and his memory more fondly cherished than his daughters, explaining to them, as they in Musquodoboit must go for something in read, the English classics. Such an educa- a general estimate of him. Our countrytion is worth more, how much more need people are naturally keen, inquisitive, opinionnot be specified, than the ordinary boarding-ative; inclined to be suspicious rather than reverential of any one above them. In our country districts the catechism classification of men as superiors, inferiors, and equals has no place. All are equals. I know no body of men so little inclined to hero-worship as our farmers. The politician who could stand the test, not of an ordinary canvassing tour, but of a two years' residence among them, must have had good stuff in him. "You know me well and have never failed me," he said twenty years after; "for twelve years you honoured me with your suffrages, for more than a quarter of a century you have given me your political support, and within that time, I passed upon this river, in intimate and close communion with you, two of the happiest years of my life! I miss from among you some of the old friends who respected and loved me, and who now sleep tranquilly on the hillsides. We would not wish them back; the resolute performance of our public duties is the best tribute we can pay to their memories." Anecdotes about him circulate like current coin up and down the river, most of them illustrative of the strong and the good features of his character. Lady collectors once called on him for a subscription to send the Gospel to the South Sea Islanders. "Why not begin nearer home?" he questioned. "There's a camp of Indians three miles back in the woods. I spent part of last Sunday reading the Bible to them, but I did not find that any one else had been there on a similar errand." At a monster teameeting in the settlement, an old worthy was called on for a speech. He tried, but broke down. Howe was at his side in a minute, and, with his hand placed affectionately on the old man's back, he covered the break-down, and actually turned him into the hero of the hour. "Our friend," he said, "is not accustomed to speak to crowds, but he can do something far better. He can speak to God. Often has he been out in the woods with me calling moose, and when our tent was pitched for the night, and supper over, he never let me go to rest And there till he had prayed with me. under the stars in the silent woods we worshipped more truly than in church." These simple stories are told with exceeding relish by the people. They give us glimpses of his character, and help to explain why the people felt that Howe was their friend. He was interested in them individually, and they trusted and loved him in return. When, notwithstanding Lord Falkland's proscription, Howe and his party were sustained at the great election of 1847, after a thorough discussion of all the principles and issues involved, the great battle of his political life may be said to have been fought and gained. Responsible, that is, popular or party, Government, in the fullest sense of the word, was secured for Nova Scotia, and Joe Howe was acknowledged to be its prophet. He succeeded Sir Rupert D. George as Provincial Secretary, and for the next ten years he wielded as real power in Nova Scotia as ever dictator wielded in Rome or Mr. Gladstone in Britain. In speaking of the conflict for Responsible Government, I have scarcely referred to the able men who fought by Howe's side, nor of the general condition of political affairs all over British America at the time, simply because justice could not be done to the men or the question in a Magazine article. My aim, at present, is to give some insight into the character of Mr. Howe, not to write a history of his times nor to compare him with his contemporaries. It ought not to be forgotten that, though he had strong enemies, the popular current was with him, and that he did not create though, as far as his own Province was concerned, he did much to guide the current. He rose on it into power; and he then found how true was his great opponent's warning, that it is always easier to attack than to defend, to find fault with appointments than to make better ones, and that men do not cease to be selfish because they call themselves Reformers. (To be concluded in our next.) |