QUEBEC, 



Wfi 



Q 



, PROVINCE OF. I'.y the " Brit- 

 Mi North Anirrii-ii Act" Quebec is made a 

 pivot pi-ox ince, ami n medium for regulating the 



j> n-liaiuentary represeiitat ion of the .t her prov- 

 ince-. The number of members for lonelier in 

 tin- House of Commons was li \edat <>~i. "There 

 shall IN- a-sj^ned to each of the oilier provinces 

 such a numlier of members its will hear the same 

 proportion to the number of its population (as- 

 certained at such census) as the number 65 hears 

 to the number of the population of Quebec (so 

 ascertained)." 



This provision necessitates a redistribution of 

 parliamentary seats in t ho Commons House im- 

 mediately after each decennial eensus, the repre- 

 sentation of the province of Quebec remaining 

 still the same. By the census taken in the 

 spring of 1891 the population of this province 

 was 1. INS.:>SI;. an increase over that of 1881 of 

 r.".i..v>'.). [n this aggregate is included the city 

 of Montreal, the largest in the Dominion, with a 

 population of 216,650, increased within the dec- 

 ade by 61.413, or 39-5 per cent., and the city of 

 Quebec, provincial capital, the third city in the 

 Dominion, with a population of 63,090. This 

 city is, next to Halifax, the strongest fortified 

 place in America. 



Local Revolution. What follows can scarce- 

 ly, with strict propriety, be included under the 

 lieail of Finance. Early in 1891 a number of 

 charges were boldly made against the Mercier 

 provincial administration. Premier Mercier 

 and some of his ministerial colleagues were al- 

 leged to have taken bribes from certain railway 

 contractors and others, for sums amounting to 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars the exact 

 amount may probably come under " the unknow- 

 able" conditioned upon the fraudulent assign- 

 ment to such contractors, at inflated prices, of 

 contracts for the construction of the Bay Cha- 

 leur Railway .-Mid other provincial works. A 

 man named Pacaud was represented to have 

 been the go-between in arranging these thrifty 

 transactions, " for a consideration "; while Mer- 

 cier himself, as was alleged, had received a large 

 share of the fund to pay the expenses of a visit 

 to Kiirope. These allegations were so holdlv 

 and circumstantially made that it was deemed 

 incumbent to provide for an investigation. A 

 commission was appointed, it is believed through 



the insistence of Lieut. -Cov. Angers with tlmt 



end. The oommiMion proceeded to inv.--' 



and at length issued a partial and incomplete 

 report, which, so far as it went, wa highly 

 damnatory to the provincial ministry. ' 

 this report, the lieutenant-governor considered 

 it incumbent upon him to call iii><>n his mini-- 

 ters to resign their j>ort folios, which not having 

 been promptly done, he took upon himself the 

 responsibility of dismissing them from , flier. 

 and called upon Hon. < '. ]]. I>e I'.oin-herville to 

 form a new ministry. From this it followed 

 that, in the last days of the old year, the fol- 

 lowing new ministry was announced: DC IJoii- 

 cherville. President of the Council and Premier; 

 Klynn, Minister of Crown Lands; Pellet ier, 

 Provincial Secretary: I'.eaiibien. .Minis:. 

 Agriculture; Casgrain. Attorne\-(i( neral : Hall. 

 Provincial Treasurer; Nantel. Minister of Public 

 Works; Taillon, Masson, and Mclntosh. without 

 portfolios. 



This bold action of the lieutenant-governor, 

 seemingly on his own sole responsibility, caused 

 great excitement and the widest diversity of 

 opinion. The? ex-ministers and their coparti- 

 sans were soon again startled from the same 

 quarter, for as soon as the new Cabinet were 

 sworn into office Gov. Angers issued a proclama- 

 tion dissolving the Provincial Assembly, the 

 elections for the new House to take place on th> 

 8th of March ensuing. Meanwhile the contest 

 raged with virulence. Mercier and his following 

 fiercely charged the lieutenant-governor with 

 gross violation of the Constitution, which nothing 

 could justify. The new ministers and their sup- 

 porters, while averring the contrary, further 

 maintained that the gubernatorial prerogative 

 justified his acts, and that the cause of morality 

 made those acts imperative upon him. They 

 declared that they were possessed of evidence of 

 great frauds and "peculations on the part of the 

 Mercierites, of which the general public yet knew 

 nothing, and a new royal commission of investi- 

 gation was resolved upon by Lieut. -(Jov. Angers. 



In the general election, held on March 8, the 

 result was a triumph of the policy of Lieut. - 

 (!ov. Angers and his new ministry. The returns 

 show the election of 56 Government supporters, 

 or Conservatives, and 17 supporters of Mercier, 

 the ex-Premier. 



RAIN. ARTIFICIAL. Rain-makinir. or at- 

 tempted rain-making, is of prehistoric origin, and 

 almost as universal as the human race. The fa- 

 miliar story of Klijah and the prophets of Baal 

 may he cited to prove its antiquity, while Jupi- 

 ter I'luvius and the other olond-COmpelUng dei- 

 ties of Greece and Rome are almost equally fa- 

 miliar. Kvery modern traveler has tales to tell 

 ol barbaric devices to propitiate the powers that 

 are supposed to prevail in the upper air. The 

 summer of 1891 was unique in this respect. The 



Hindus were permitted by their British rulers to 

 resume rain- making on their traditional lines, in- 

 volving human torture and all but human sacri- 

 fice; the savage African lighted his bonfires and 

 sang his rain-song as usual; the Indian medi- 

 cine-man beat his drums and shook his rattles a< 

 of old ; and the (!o\ eminent of a great civilized 

 nation, for the first time in history, entered the 

 arena with costly apparatus and undertook to 

 accomplish on scientific principles \\hat barbari- 

 ans have long sought to do with such apj '. 



