62 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



II. Memories of Some Men of the Old Times. — The years of which I 

 am almui tu>jicaU — lh."),s-18(M — were the tlo^eoi the '•old limes," and the 

 beginning of a new era in the history of Nova Scotia. The "old times" 

 had been noted for the i)resence of eloquent, witty, versatile, accomplished 

 men, but by 1859 their ranks had been severely thinned, some by the 

 course of nature, and others, unhajipily, by the excess of social pleasures, 

 which, as in the days of Fox and Pitt, were no social crime in Halifax. 

 To drink deep i)otations and disappear regularl}' under the table, was 

 then no dishonourable or unpopular feat. I can still well remember the 

 evil conse(iucnees to Halifax and other towns in Nova Scotia of the mad 

 enjoyment of drink. Assuredly life in Nova Scotia and other parts 

 of Canada has in this respect vastly improved for the better, and no one 

 can now taunt public men w-ith excess as in old times. 



It was iri 1859 that 1 tirst took my seat at the official reporters' desk 

 and saw many men who have been most closely identified with the 

 political history of the province, for the second half of this century. 

 James Boyle Uniacke, Lawrence Doyle, Herbert Huntington, and other 

 men of the generations who had taken part in the struggle for 

 responsible government, had passed away, although as a boy I had seen 

 and heard some of them. I can well remember hearing James 

 Boyle Uniacke address a jury in the old court house at Sydney — long 

 since levelled to the ground — where the old judge — the famous author of 

 " Sara Slick " was presiding — one of his last appearances on the bench 

 where an innate sense of humour often got the better of the judicial 

 dignity. I can still hear the sonorous voice of the eminent lawyer when 

 he drew himself up in his most stately fashion, and, as it were, embraced 

 with voice and gesture "this sea-girt isle" — a phrase which local 

 parliamentarians would hardly now use with the same effectiveness in the 

 relatively placid, dull debating hall of the assembly where speeches are no 

 longer delivered with the ore rotunda that was so successful in the old 

 times oi' Uniacke, Lewis Wilkins and their contemporaries. 



As I have already said, 1 was only a boy when I first saw Judge 

 Haliburton, who soon afterwards removed to England from the province 

 where he had been for so many years a conspicuous figure, and conse- 

 quently I have nothing to say of his personal characteristics from my 

 own knowledge. 1 can well remember, however, the complex feelings 

 with which Ids name was once mentioned by many Nova Scotians who 

 were ])roud of his re])utation as an author, and at the same time inclined 

 somewliat to resent his sarcastic allusions to foibles and weaknesses of the 

 Nova Scotian ])cople. *' It's a most curious unaccountable thing, but it's 

 a fact, said the clockmaker, the blue-noses are so conceited, tluy think 

 they know everything. . . They reckon them.selves here, a chalk above 

 us Yankees, but I guess they liave a wrinkle oi- two to grow niovo they 

 progress ahead on us yet. If tliey ha'nt got a full cargo of conceit here, 



