76 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



simple architectural beauty, very pleasing to the eye in these days when 

 the tendency is to lavish ornate decoration on our public buildings. 

 Nova Scotians, however, like the present writer, who have known these 

 legislative halls for half a century, will dwell little on their architectural 

 characteristics, but will rather recall the voices and faces of those 

 distinguished men, statesmen, orators, poets, humourists, historians, and 

 publicists, whose feet have echoed on the gloomy stones of the lobbies 

 thîit lead to the chambers, with which must always be associated the 

 most striking episode.^ in the jiolitical history of the peninsula of Acadia. 

 As I remember the chamber of the assembly thirty years ago, the 

 members formerly sat on a raised platform, below which was a lounging 

 place to which strangers had access. The Speaker's chair was then at 

 the upper or west end, and the members sat on benches or long sofas on 

 either side of the clerk's table. Now the room has been made smaller, 

 but the old simple decorations of the ceiling can still be seen. The 

 Speakei-'s chair now faces the main entrance or what was once a side of 

 the chamber, while the members have separate chairs, covered with that 

 old-fashioned, though durable horse-hair cloth which is generally rele- 

 gated to second-rate rural hotels and steamboats. AVhat interests us most 

 in this chamber, where some of the most brilliant orators of British North 

 America once spoke, are the full length portraits of two men, famous in 

 their day — two ruimes long a.ssociated with the struggles, victories and 

 defeats of the Conservative and Liberal parties in Nova Scotia. To the 

 right of the Speaker is the picture of Joseph Howe, somewhat coarsely 

 ])ainte(l. giving him, perhaps, too harsh an expression, but still on the 

 whole an excellent portraiture of the ]n-inter, ])oet and politician, whose 

 name will always be connected with the triumph of responsible govern- 

 ment in his native ])rovince. On the other side of the chair is the more 

 intellectual face and bent figure of James William Johnston, the eminent 

 law3-er and jurist, who was for a quarter of a century and more the able 

 leader of the Conservative party and the earnest opponent of Joseph 

 Howe. The names of these two men were for years household words in 

 Nova Scotia, as representing widely antagonistic principles, though some- 

 times meeting and acting together on the common patriotic ground of 

 the public welfare. 



24tli .lune, IMOT, "vvlicn"— to quote a part of tlje inscription on the tablet— " the 

 Hiitisli Empire was celebrating liie sixtietii anniversary of the acce.ssion of Her 

 Majesty Queen Victoria, duriuK wliose benelicent reif^n tlie Dominion of Canada 

 lias extended from the shores llrst seen by Cabot and Knglish sailors four hundred 

 years before, to the far I'acillc coast." See Trans. Roy. Soc. Can. for 18U7 for full 

 account of the proccedinj^s on the unveiling of the tablet. The Archbishop of Hali- 

 fax, Dr. O'Dricn, was president of the Society tiiat year, and the present writer the 

 honorary secretary. His Kxceliency the Karl of Aberdeen, governor-general, and 

 His Honour M. B. Daly, lieutenant-governor, took part in the ceremony. 



