When the tidings of her death reached the son, he came at once that he might convey the remains to the home in Ontario. Meeting the maid again, and forgetful of his mother’s wishes, he married her, and took her with him to his old home. Truly a strange journey, his bride with him, and his mother’s dead body in the baggage car on the same train. From his mother the lad inherited tens of thousands of dollars, and is probably heir to many more.
The French in Upper Canada--Sir Wilfrid Laurier--Voyageurs and their songs--“A la Claire Fontaine”--Money-lenders--Educational matters--Expatriated Canadians--Successful railway speculation--A shrewd banker.
“Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam, His first, best country ever is at home.” --GOLDSMITH, “_The Traveller_.”
Although Upper Canada is essentially an English-speaking province, there are many settlements throughout its wide area composed of other nationalities, emigrants from European nations, who have founded colonies within its borders. Quebec is more French, it being the old Canada, or New France, and in it the two languages are equally spoken. Still, although there are not noticeably many French in the Upper Province, there are small groups of them here and there, chiefly among the laboring classes.
The most picturesque figure in Canada to-day is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and as Premier of the Dominion we may claim him as belonging to us in Ontario as well as to his native Province of Quebec. The son of a provincial land surveyor, he is a man of finished culture and education, whose eloquence is as fluently expressed in one language as in the other. After taking a full classical course at L’Assomption College, he studied law, took the degree of B.C.L. at McGill College, Montreal, was for a time editor of a prominent and influential Lower Canadian journal, later became well known as a powerful and skilful counsel in both civil and criminal cases, and was created a Q.C. in 1880.
He came into politics as an associate of Dorion, Laflamme and others of the old Liberal school in Lower Canada; later has called himself a Liberal of the English school, a pupil of Charles Fox and Daniel O’Connell. His débût in the Legislature of Lower Canada created a sensation, “not more by the finished grace of his oratorical abilities than by the boldness and authority with which he handled the deepest political problems.” The effect of his “fluent, cultured and charming discourse” is described by the poet Frechette as “magical.” The brilliant Frenchman, who is yet so proud of his country and of being a British subject, who has been honored and received by Her Imperial Majesty the Queen, decorated with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor by France, and given audience in the Vatican by the Pope, has taken a stand in Canada and wielded an influence for good government, broad statesmanship and a wide-reaching Imperial policy that falls to the lot of few men to have the opportunity given them, and to still fewer the ability to grasp when the opportunity arrives.