be heard in that federal parliament of which he had been one of the fathers.  All classes of Canadians vied with one another in paying a tribute of affection and respect to one who had been in every sense a true Canadian.  Men forgot for the moment his mistakes and weaknesses, the mistakes of the politician and the weaknesses of humanity, “only to remember”—­to quote the eloquent tribute paid to him by Mr. Laurier, then leader of the opposition—­“that his actions always displayed great originality of view, unbounded fertility of resources, a high level of intellectual conception, and above all, a far-reaching vision beyond the event of the day, and still higher, permeating the whole, a broad patriotism, a devotion to Canada’s welfare, Canada’s advancement, and Canada’s glory.”  His obsequies were the most stately and solemn that were ever witnessed in the Dominion; his bust was subsequently unveiled in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral by the Earl of Rosebery, when prime minister of England; noble monuments were raised to his memory in the cities of Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal; and the Queen addressed a letter full of gracious sympathy to his widow and conferred on her the dignity of a peeress of the United Kingdom under the title of Baroness of Earnscliffe, as a mark of her Majesty’s gratitude “for the devoted and faithful services which he rendered for so many years to his sovereign and his Dominion.”

Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, stonemason, journalist, and prime minister, died in April, 1892, a victim to the paralysis which had been steadily creeping for years over his enfeebled frame, and made him a pitiable spectacle as he sat like a Stoic in the front seats of the opposition, unable to speak or even to rise without the helping arm of some attentive friend.  On the 30th October, 1893, Sir John Abbott, probably the ablest commercial lawyer in Canada, who had been premier of Canada since the death of Sir John Macdonald, followed his eminent predecessors to the grave, and was succeeded by Sir John Thompson, minister of justice in the Conservative government since September, 1885.  A great misfortune again overtook the Conservative party on the 12th December, 1894, when Sir John Thompson died in Windsor Castle, whither he had gone at her Majesty’s request to take the oath of a privy councillor of England—­high distinction conferred upon him in recognition of his services on the Bering Sea arbitration.  Sir John Thompson was gifted with a rare judicial mind, and a remarkable capacity for the lucid expression of his thoughts, which captivated his hearers even when they were not convinced by arguments clothed in the choicest diction.  His remains were brought across the Atlantic by a British frigate, and interred in his native city of Halifax with all the stately ceremony of a national funeral.  The governor-general, Lord Stanley of Preston, now the Earl of Derby, called upon the senior privy councillor in the cabinet, Sir Mackenzie Bowell,