son, Edward, was born,[5] but he was not destined to receive his
educational training amid such surroundings. While he was still an
infant the family removed to Toronto. A life in the backwoods had been
tried, and was found to be unsuited to the genius and ambition of a man
like William Hume Blake. He had tried surgery, divinity, and
agriculture, and had not taken kindly to any of those pursuits. He now
resolved to attempt the law, and commenced his legal studies in the
office of the late Mr. Washburn, a well-known lawyer in those days.
During the troubles of 1837 he was, we believe, for a short time
paymaster of a battalion, but fortunately there was no occasion for his
active services. In 1838 he was called to the Bar of Upper Canada, and
was not long in making his way to a foremost position. His rivals at the
Bar were among the foremost counsel who have ever practised in this
Province, and included Mr. (afterwards Chief Justice) Draper, Mr.
(afterwards Judge) Sullivan, Mr. Henry John Boulton, Mr. (now Chief
Justice) Hagarty, Robert Baldwin, Henry Eccles, and John Hillyard
Cameron. Mr. Blake soon proved his ability to hold his own against all
comers. He enjoyed some personal advantages which stood him in good
stead, both while he was fighting his way and afterwards. His tall,
handsome person, and fine open face, his felicitous language, and bold
manly utterance gained him at once the full attention of both Court and
Jury; and his vigorous grasp of the whole case under discussion, his
acute, logical dissection of the evidence, and the thorough earnestness
with which he always threw himself into his client's case, swept
everything before them. In the days when such men as Draper, Sullivan,
Baldwin and Eccles were at the Bar, it was something to stand among the
foremost. Mr. Blake became associated in business with Mr. Joseph C.
Morrison--now one of the Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench--and some
years later, his relative, the late Dr. Connor, who in 1863 became one
of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, entered the firm. Business
poured in, and the number of Mr. Blake's briefs increased in almost
geometrical proportion. His arguments were of due weight with the judges
of those times, but with juries his force was irresistible. Many
incidents have been related of his forensic triumphs. Among other cases
recorded by the writer already quoted from, that of Kerby vs. Lewis
occupies a conspicuous place. The question at issue was Mr. Kerby's
right to monopolize a ferry communication between Fort Erie and some
point on the American shore. This right the defendant contested, and
employed Mr. Blake to conduct his case. The judges appear to have leaned
strongly to the side of the plaintiff, and granted a succession of new
trials, as, on each occasion, Mr. Blake's telling appeals to their
sympathy with the defendant, as the champion of free intercourse between
the two countries, extorted from the juries a verdict in favour of his
client. It is said that the Court finally refused to grant any further
new trials in sheer hopelessness of any jury being found to reverse the
original finding.
Another proof of his energy and ingenuity was given in the Webb arson
case, which made a considerable noise at the time. Webb was the owner
of a shoe store in Toronto. Having on more than one occasion obtained
compensation from fire insurance companies for losses he had sustained,
suspicion was excited against him, and, on another fire occurring, the
companies decided on prosecuting. Webb retained Mr. Blake. The theory of
the defence was that a stove-pipe from the adjoining store, which
connected with Webb's premises, had become heated, and had ignited some
"rubbers" hanging in the vicinity. The prosecution denied that "rubbers"
were combustible in any such sense as the defence represented. To put
his theory beyond a doubt, Mr. Blake, on the evening before the trial,
had set his two boys, Edward and Samuel, to look up every piece of
information they could obtain from encyclopaedias or other sources as to
the properties of rubber. Then an old pair of "rubbers" was procured,
experiments were engaged in, and both father and sons were occupied
during the greater part of the night in their investigations, to the no
small discomfort of the other members of the household. When the trial
came on next day, after the case for the prosecution had been presented,
Mr. Blake began his defence. He dissected the prosecutor's evidence with
an amazing fund of irony and sarcasm, and requested the jury to place as
little reliance on the general testimony for the prosecution as they
would soon do on the theory of "rubbers" being non-combustible. Then a
candle and a pair of old "rubbers" were produced; a few strips cut from
the latter were held in the flame, and the interested crowd of
spectators saw them burn. The jury accepted this as sufficient, at all
events, to cast doubts on the whole case against the prisoner, and Webb
was acquitted.
The "Markham gang," as they were called, are still well remembered by
the older inhabitants of Toronto and the adjoining country. In several
of the prosecutions arising out of the outrages of the gang, Mr. Blake
was defending counsel, and invested the defence with additional
interest, in the eyes of the legal profession, by raising the question
of the admissibility of the evidence of an accomplice. Another case
which showed the earnestness and conscientiousness of Mr. Blake, who
prosecuted, was the trial of two persons--a man named McDermott and a
girl named Grace Marks--charged with the murder of Mr. Kinnear and his
housekeeper, near Richmond Hill, in the year 1843.[6] Not content with
secondhand information, the hard-working lawyer devoted the only holiday
which intervened between the committal of the prisoners and the trial to
a careful and minute examination of the house and premises where the
murder had occurred, so that in going into court he had the most perfect
familiarity with every detail connected with the crime. The prisoners
were convicted; the man suffered the extreme penalty of the law, and the
woman, who was reprieved, was only liberated from the Penitentiary after
an incarceration of twenty years. No man could more readily seize hold
of the salient points of a case presented to him; few could make so much
out of a small and apparently insignificant point; but no one ever made
the business before him the subject of more patient study or more
exhaustive attention. Honourable and high-minded himself, he sought to
inspire those about him with the same feelings. He endeavoured at all
times to encourage a gentlemanly bearing in the young men who studied
under him, and would tolerate nothing inconsistent with perfect fairness
and honesty in transacting the business of the office.
Mr. Blake and his partners were all active members of the Liberal Party.
In the early contests for Municipal Institutions, National Education,
Law Reform and all progressive measures, they took an earnest part--and
in the struggle with Lord Metcalfe and his Tory abettors for the
establishment of British Parliamentary Government in Canada, they did
excellent service to the popular cause. Mr. Blake, at the general
election of 1844, was the Reform candidate for the second Riding of
York--now the county of Peel--but was defeated by a narrow majority on
the second day of polling by his Tory opponent, Mr. George Duggan. A
little later, he contested unsuccessfully the county of Simcoe, in
opposition to the Hon. W. B. Robinson. At the general election of 1847,
while absent in England, he was returned by a large majority for the
East Riding of York--now the county of Ontario. The result of that
election was the entire overthrow of the Conservative Government, and
the accession of the Liberal Party to power, under Messrs. Baldwin and
Lafontaine, on the 10th of March, 1848. Mr. Blake became
Solicitor-General under the new arrangement, and was duly reëlected for
East York. Then followed the struggle over the famous Rebellion Losses
Bill. In that contest Mr. Blake took an active part in support of Lord
Elgin, who was so outrageously treated by the Opposition leaders in
Parliament, and by the mob of Montreal that followed in their wake. For
his powerful advocacy of the Governor-General, and his scathing
diatribes against the tactics of the Opposition, he was fiercely
denounced by the Conservative leaders. So far was this denunciation
carried that a hostile meeting between Mr. Blake and Mr. Macdonald--the
present Sir John A. Macdonald--was only prevented by the interference of
the Speaker of the House. The Opposition press, without the slightest
justification, published articles in which the writers professed to
believe that Mr. Blake was wanting in courage, and afraid to meet his
antagonist in the field. The _Globe_, which was the organ of the
Government in those days, replied in a spirit which did it honour. In an
article written by the late Mr. Brown himself, and published in the
_Globe_ on the 28th of March, 1849, we find these words: "The repeated
insinuations against the courage of Mr. Blake, to use the ordinary
phrase, are as untrue as they are base and ungenerous. We are quite
aware of all the circumstances of what was so near leading to one of
those transactions called affairs of honour. We know, and we state it
with regret, that there was, on Mr. Blake's part, no wish to shrink from
the consequences of the intended affair, but a great anxiety to meet it.
We would have thought it far more creditable to him, and far more
becoming the station he holds in the councils of the Province, if he had
exhibited that higher courage which would shrink from being concerned in
an affair which, however it may be glossed over by the sophistry and the
practice of the world, is a crime of the deepest dye against the law of
God and the well-being of society."
The Court of Chancery for Upper Canada had been for years a mark for
scorn and derision on account of the personal deficiencies of Mr.
Vice-Chancellor Jameson, and the lack of organization in the whole
Chancery system. The Baldwin-Lafontaine Government undertook the reform
of the Court, increased the number of Judges to three, and gave it the
improved system of procedure which has earned for the Court its present
efficiency and popularity. When the measure became law, the question
arose as to who should be appointed to the seats on the Bench that had
been created. There was but one answer in the profession. Mr. Blake was
universally pointed out as the man best fitted for the post of
Chancellor. He accepted the Chancellorship of Upper Canada on the 30th
of September, 1849, which he continued to fill until the 18th of March,
1862, when failing health compelled him to retire. There were not
wanting political opponents who declared that Mr. Blake had created the
office that he might fill it; but all who knew the man and the position
in which he stood were aware that it was with extreme reluctance he
accepted the place. As his great judicial talents came to be recognized
the voice of the slanderer ceased, and the services which he rendered on
the Bench will, we doubt not, be now heartily acknowledged by all
parties. Mr. Jameson for a short time continued to sit on the Bench as
Vice-Chancellor, side by side with Mr. Blake. In the month of December,
1850, he was permitted to retire on a pension of £750 a year.
Mr. Blake, while at the Bar, held for a number of years the position of
Professor of Law in the University of Toronto, but resigned it when he
became Solicitor-General. He took a deep interest in all the affairs of
the University, of which he was for a long time the able and popular
Chancellor.
Afflicted with gout in its most distressing form, Mr. Blake, after his
retirement from the Bench, sought relief from his sufferings in milder
climes. He returned to Canada in 1869, but it was evident that his end
was not far distant. He died in Toronto, on the 17th of November, 1870.
The late Chancellor Vankoughnet paid an eloquent tribute to his memory.
"With an intellect fitting him to grasp more readily than most men the
whole of a case," said Mr. Vankoughnet, "he was yet most patient and
painstaking in the investigation of every case heard before him. He
never spared himself; but was always most careful that no suitor should
suffer wrong through any lack of diligence on his part. He had,
moreover--what every Equity judge should have--a high appreciation of
the duties and functions of the Court--of the mission, if I may so term
it, of a Court of Equity in this country: not to adjudicate drily upon
the case before the Court, but so to expound the principles of Equity
Law as to teach men to deal justly and equitably between themselves. I
have reason to believe that such expositions of the principles upon
which this Court acts have had a salutary influence upon the country;
and Mr. Blake, in the able and lucid judgments delivered by him,
contributed largely to this result. He always bore in mind that to which
the present Lord Chancellor of England gave expression in one of his
judgments--'The standard by which parties are tried here, either as
trustees or corporations, or in various other relations which may be
suggested, is a standard, I am thankful to say, higher than the standard
of the world.'"
THE REV. ALEXANDER TOPP, D.D.
The life of the late Dr. Topp, like the lives of most members of his
sacred calling, was comparatively uneventful. He was born at
Sheriffmill, a farm-house near the historic old town of Elgin, in
Morayshire, Scotland, in the year 1815. He was educated at the Elgin
Academy, the present representative of the old Grammar School of the
burgh, and an establishment of much local repute. Thence, in his
fifteenth year, he passed to King's College, Aberdeen--an institution
affiliated with the University--where he passed through a very
creditable course, winning one of the highest scholarships, and
retaining it for four years. In 1836, immediately upon attaining his
majority, he received a license to preach, and was appointed assistant
to the minister of one of the churches in Elgin. This minister soon
afterwards died, leaving the pastorate vacant. The abilities and zeal of
his young assistant had made themselves recognized, and it was thought
desirable that the latter should succeed to the vacant charge. The
appointment was hedged in with certain restrictions, and was at the
disposal of Government. A petition from the congregation and from the
Town Council was successful, and Mr. Topp was inducted into the charge.
Upon the disruption in 1843 he seceded from the Establishment, and
carried over with him nearly the entire congregation, which erected a
new church and manse for him. He continued in this charge until 1852,
when he removed to Edinburgh, having accepted a pressing call from the
Roxburgh Church there. Here he continued to minister for about six
years, during which period his congregation increased to such an extent
as to render the accommodation insufficient. A project for erecting a
new and larger church was set on foot, but before it had been fully
matured Mr. Topp had accepted a call from the congregation of Knox
Church, Toronto. This was in 1858. Two years before that date he had
received a pressing call from the same quarter, which he had then
thought proper to decline. At the time of entering upon his charge in
Toronto the membership of Knox Church was only about three hundred.
Under his ministry there was a steadily perceptible increase, and at the
time of his death the membership was in the neighbourhood of seven
hundred. His abilities commanded recognition beyond the limits of his
own congregation, and he steadily won his way to position and influence
in the community. In 1868 he was elected Moderator of the General
Assembly of the Canada Presbyterian Church, and thus afforded the first
instance of a unanimous nomination by the various Presbyteries to that
office. He took a prominent part in the movement to bring about the
Union between the Canada Presbyterian Church and the Church of Scotland,
and the successful realization of that project was in no small degree
due to his exertions. In 1876 he was elected Moderator to the General
Assembly of the United Church. His doctor's degree was conferred upon
him in 1870 by the University of Aberdeen, where he had been so
successful a student forty years previously.
For several years prior to his death Dr. Topp's constitution had given
unmistakable symptoms of having become seriously impaired. In the autumn
of 1877 his physicians acquainted him with the fact that he was
suffering from a mortal disease--organic disease of the heart--but it
was not supposed that the malady had made such progress as to endanger
his life for some years to come. In the early summer of 1879 he paid a
visit to his native land, and of course spent some time in Elgin,
renewing the pleasant associations of his youth. He received many
pressing overtures to preach, but the state of his health formed a
sufficient excuse for his declining. One Sunday, however, contrary to
the advice of a local medical practitioner, he consented to occupy the
pulpit, and preached a long and vigorous sermon to his old congregation.
His audience was very large, and his nervous system was naturally
wrought up to a high pitch. It is believed that his efforts on that
occasion materially shortened his life. Immediately after his return to
his home in Toronto he sent in his resignation as pastor of Knox Church,
but it had not been accepted ere the shades of death closed around him.
The end came more suddenly than had been anticipated. He passed away on
the 6th of October, 1879, while reclining on a sofa in the house of one
of his parishioners. His death was very calm, and apparently free from
all pain. He left behind him a name which will long be borne in
affectionate remembrance by the members of the Presbyterian Church in
Canada. He was kind and gentle in his demeanour, and was loved the most
by them who knew him best. At the time of his death he had been pastor
of Knox Church for more than twenty-one years, during the greater part
of which he had laboured assiduously in all the various fields connected
with his sacred calling. He was open-handed in his charities, and was an
invaluable consoler in the sick-room. He literally died in harness, for
death came upon him while he was paying a pastoral visit to a member of
his congregation.
The _Canada Presbyterian_, which may be presumed to reflect the opinions
of Canadian Presbyterians generally, concluded an obituary notice
written immediately after his death in the following words: "The name of
Dr. Topp will never be forgotten in this country. While we regret that
he has so suddenly been called away, we rejoice that in his case there
are left to us so many happy remembrances of a useful and honourable
career, and that he has bequeathed to the youthful ministry of the
Church the example of a brave and faithful servant of Christ."
THE HON. HENRI GUSTAVE JOLY.
Since Confederation the Hon. Mr. Joly has occupied a prominent position
in the politics of the Province of Quebec. His high morality, integrity
of character, and fine social qualities, have created for him a
reputation which it is the lot of few public men to enjoy. He is
conspicuous in the history of Quebec as the instrument through whose
exertions the Liberal Party were restored to power for the first time
since the Union. He is also noteworthy as being the Minister on whom
devolved the office of selecting a Government to succeed the De
Boucherville Administration, upon its dismissal by Mr. Letellier in the
month of March, 1878.
He was born in France on the 5th of December, 1829, and is the son of
the late Gaspard Pierre Gustave Joly, Seigneur of Lotbinière, and Julie
Christine, daughter of the late Hon. M. E. G. A. Chartier de Lotbinière,
who was Speaker of the Quebec Assembly from 1794 until May, 1797, and
was afterwards a prominent member of the Legislative Council. Mr. Joly
received a liberal education at Paris, and while yet very young removed
with his parents to Canada, settling in Lotbinière. Having chosen the
law for a profession, he devoted five years to legal studies, and in the
month of March, 1855, he was called to the Bar of Lower Canada. He first
entered political life in 1861, when he was returned to the Canadian
House of Assembly for the county of Lotbinière. This seat he continued
to hold until the Union of the Provinces, when at the general elections
which followed the formation of the Dominion he was elected by
acclamation to both the Commons of Canada and the Assembly of Quebec. He
sat in both Houses until 1874, when, on dual representation being
abolished, he resigned his seat in the Commons, and directed all his
energies to the furtherance of Liberal principles in the Quebec House of
Assembly. The same year he was offered a seat in the Senate, but
declined to accept that dignity, preferring to fight the battles of
Liberalism in the more popular Assembly, in which he had already
achieved a high reputation as a statesman and debater, as well as much
personal popularity. In January, 1877, he again declined elevation to
the Upper House, and refused the portfolio of Dominion Minister of
Agriculture which had been tendered him by the Mackenzie Administration.
The constituency of Lotbinière has never proved fickle to her trust, but
has regularly returned Mr. Joly as her representative to the popular
branch of the Legislature. From the Union, he has been the acknowledged
head of the Liberal Party in Lower Canada, and the chosen leader of the
Opposition in the House of Assembly. In March, 1878, the Hon. Luc
Letellier de St. Just, Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, dismissed his
Ministry under circumstances which have already been detailed at
length in these pages; and on the then Premier--Mr. De
Boucherville--refusing to nominate a successor, Mr. Joly was sent for
and invited to form a Cabinet. He promptly accepted the responsibility,
selected his colleagues, and, on being defeated in the Chamber, appealed
to the people for a ratification of the principles of his Party. The
contest was fought with great vigour and pertinacity on both sides, and
the result was a victory, though a slight one, for the Liberal Party.
Mr. Joly was opposed in Lotbinière by Mr. Guillaume E. Amyot, an
advocate and journalist of Quebec. He was elected by a majority of more
than three hundred votes. He became Premier and Minister of Public
Works--an office which requires the utmost tact and delicacy in its
administration. He set on foot a policy of retrenchment and purity, and
contemplated several much-needed reforms which he did not retain office
long enough to see brought into operation. Mr. Joly's Administration was
based on principles of the closest economy, and every effort was made to
check all unnecessary outlay of the public expenditure. The salaries of
the Ministers were reduced, an effort was made to abolish the
Legislative Council, and the railway policy of the country was developed
with caution. Wherever the pruning knife could be advantageously
employed, the Premier applied it, and if he was not always successful,
the fault was certainly not his own. His personal popularity was
sufficiently attested by the fact that although he is a Protestant, with
fixed opinions on theological matters, he was Premier of a Province
where a large majority of the population are adherents of the Roman
Catholic faith. He carried on the affairs of the country with combined
spirit and moderation until October, 1879, when, on being defeated in
the House, he and his Government resigned their seats in the Executive,
and Mr. Chapleau was sent for. Mr. Chapleau succeeded in forming an
Administration, which at the time of the present writing still holds the
reins of power in the Province of Quebec.
[Illustration: HENRI GUSTAVE JOLY, signed as H. G. JOLY]