THE ADMINISTKATION OF SIR HENRY BARKLY 77 



of ruffianism at the elections, and faction fights raged even around 

 the precincts of Parliament. The threatening language and aggressive 

 attitude displayed at the public meetings held by the so-called 

 " liberal " party, of which Wilson Gray was the chief organiser and 

 Charles Jardine Don the fiery orator, alarmed the more sober citizens. 

 As the franchise was as yet confined to those who had some abiding 

 interest in the country, the formation of a strong Ministry, pledged 

 to many reforms and generally progressive legislation, gave them 

 hope of a cessation of political strife, without which progress was 

 impossible. 



On the day when Mr. O'Shanassy was challenged by the hostile 

 vote, the Governor sustained a sad bereavement in the death of 

 his wife a few days after she had given birth to a son. Although 

 her brief residence of some three months in Victoria had not made 

 her well known to the colonists, the deceased lady had been greatly 

 loved in Jamaica, and the genuine sympathy of all classes was offered 

 to His Excellency at the desolation which for a second time had fallen 

 upon the Toorak House in the short history of its occupation. 



The two principal features of Parliamentary work in 1857 were 

 the abolition of the property qualification for members, which though 

 passed by the Assembly in February did not reach its final stages 

 elsewhere until August, and the committal of the colony to universal 

 manhood suffrage on the 21st of November. The latter measure, 

 however, could not come into operation until an amendment of the 

 Electoral Act provided the machinery for taking so largely extended 

 a vote. The decision of Parliament on this subject was called into 

 question by Mr. Edward Wilson, the proprietor of the Argus, who 

 in May, 1857, addressed a lengthy letter to his paper maintaining that 

 the principle of manhood suffrage, unaccompanied by any other 

 electoral qualification, would result in a pure class government, and 

 eventually in a tyranny of labour as the dominant element in the 

 population. The tone of the letter was prophetically pessimistic, 

 and the writer's only suggestion for avoiding the evils which he an- 

 ticipated was in the independent representation of some six or eight 

 leading interests of the colony, indicating the squatters, miners, land- 

 owners, farmers, manufacturers, merchants and manual labourers. 

 The proposal to form a House consisting of seven or eight representa- 



