126 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
designated The Family Compact, who had control of the revenues of 
the country to aid in maintaining their positions. 
When general elections were held, a poll for voting was kept 
open a week at only one central place in a large riding or district, 
comprising several of the present counties. Elections were not held 
simultaneously in all constituencies over the province as at present, 
but proclamations were issued for different dates in each, so that it 
was more convenient for government officials, their assistants and 
sympathizers to throng each polling division, to resort to covert and 
disreputable methods with free liquor and bribery and often force, 
to get their favourite or faithful followers elected. In many instances 
this was accomplished by having a rowdy element in control of the 
polls for days at a time, to prevent all opposed to those Tory poli- 
ticians from voting. The struggle for this privilege was often so 
great that lives were occasionally lost, or permanent injuries sustained. 
This continuous contest for justice was maintained until within very 
few years of the close of Mr. McCollom’s life, at the age of seventy- 
four years. He was ruddy and vigorous to the last day of his life, 
with hair remarkably white and teeth as white and even as those of 
a child (having never lost but one), his appearance was venerable, 
and noted at church and other assemblages. He had seen and felt 
the disastrous consequences which resulted from Great Britain’s loss 
of domain and prestige through errors of her King and Legislative 
and Privy Councillors, who allowed the most beautiful and fertile 
country in the world to slip from their control and to be lost to the 
Crown forever. For these reasons Mr. McCollom was the more 
urgent for the establishment of a responsible form of government, 
favourable to necessary reform measures, in sympathy with the peo- 
ple, and who could be depended upon to compile statutes necessary 
for their amelioration, thereby contributing to their happiness and 
prosperity. And to him and his son and the many pioneers contem- 
porary with them who, contended honourably, manfully and constitu- 
tionally for the right, Canadians to-day owe a deep debt of gratitude 
for the reason that in this department of the British Empire the 
great principles of justice, morality and religious toleration were so 
thoroughly inculcated and established that a greater amount of free- 
dom is enjoyed than in any other country in the world. 
