Government
imposes when you meet it in respectful capitals in the public prints,
but when you get a glimpse of it in its shirt sleeves, _en famille_, or
playing harlequin upon the top of a barrel at the hustings, or tickling
the yokels with bits of cheap millinery and silk stockings, and reflect
that you have paid homage to _that_, you begin to doubt the saving
efficacy of the ballot box.
Now, the Government of Quebec is neither a naval nor a military power.
It doesn't want to fight, and if it did it hasn't got either the ships,
or the men, or the money. The Sergeant-at-Arms in the Legislative
Assembly is the only military person in its pay. It has not even a
single policeman to assert the majesty of the law.
The Government of Quebec is the Hon. Honore Mercier.
Mr. Mercier is like the first Napoleon. He chooses _tools_ to assist,
not strong individualities to oppose, him.
Party journalism in the Province of Quebec is peculiarly bitter and
mendacious. The Press generally had made the most of the shooting of
Warren. A month had elapsed, and no attempt had been made to arrest
Morrison, who, it was alleged, swaggered through the country armed to
the teeth, and threatening death to the man who should attempt to take
him.
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