evening after tea; and when he left Kingston six months after, he could read, write, and speak French with tolerable fluency. The arrangement with Mr. Thompson was only temporary, as Mr. Thompson entered upon the study of law in the office of the late W. O. Buell, and took Mr. Rice into partnership to manage and conduct the _Courier_ business, as Mr. Thompson’s name had to be dropped from the paper on signing articles as a law student. At this time Mr. Rice entered upon his career as a journalist, his political articles, however, being revised by Mr. Thompson. The partnership continued until the first of January, 1852, when Mr. Thompson, having been appointed sheriff of the county of Lanark, sold out the _Courier_ printing office to Mr. Rice, who continued to publish and edit the paper, having changed the name to the _Perth Courier_, until the first of January, 1863, when he sold out to the late G. L. Walker, brother of the present publisher and editor, Jas. M. Walker, and thenceforth ceased all connection with political journalism. In May, 1862, the Canadian parliament was in session in Quebec, and Sir John A. Macdonald’s ministry was defeated by a small majority, and the late John Sanfield Macdonald was called upon to found a new ministry, which he succeeded in doing. At this time the office of County Court clerk, deputy-clerk of the Crown, and registrar of Surrogate Court was vacant by the death of the late C. H. Sache. On the change of government, and the reform party coming into power, Mr. Rice at once applied for the office, and on the 10th of June was appointed to fill the vacancy, and which office he still holds (May, 1886). In 1864 Mr. Rice was appointed by the Hon. John Sanfield Macdonald to the commission of the peace. In 1856 he bought out the book and stationery store of Wm. Allan, but after continuing the business for two years, and finding it did not succeed to his satisfaction, wound it up and again confined his attention exclusively to the newspaper business. During his connection with the press, Mr. Rice was a strong and pronounced advocate of reform principles and responsible government, his political editorials on the questions of the day being often copied into other journals. The legislative union between Upper and Lower Canada did not work well, owing to differences in sectional interests, race and religion. Among the many schemes proposed to make the machinery of government work more smoothly, and allay sectional jealousies, was the one known as the “double majority” principle, advocated by John Sanfield Macdonald, and opposed by George Brown and the _Globe_. Mr. Macdonald’s scheme was that all measures purely local to Lower Canada should be dealt with by Lower Canadian members exclusively; and those purely local to Upper Canada, by Upper Canada members exclusively; while general measures affecting the whole province should be dealt with by the united parliament as a whole. Mr. Rice, in the editorial columns of the