It was over the magnificence of this effort that he got the title which he retained for some time of the silver-tongued orator of the Ontario bar. Partly as a result of this case he obtained a very large practice, and travelled from assize to assize, putting in an immense amount of work, though nearly all the time enduring great personal agony, as the result of an accident suffered some years before. This accident occurred while he and another gentleman were shooting in the marsh near this city. One of the guns went off prematurely, shooting Mr. Cameron in the thigh. The wound took a bad turn, and the injured leg had to be amputated. The stump never healed properly, and during the remainder of his life he was almost continually in pain from this accident. The physical suffering never prevented him from doing such a day’s work that few men in the country would have performed in the same time. In his early days, when he was a practising barrister, he would work through one assize court, and then travel all night across country roads thirty or forty miles, take up the business at another court and after going through it travel to the next court, and so on. At the assizes, as a judge, he would go to the bench early in the morning, would sit there all afternoon, and would not adjourn till four or five in the morning if necessary to get through with a case. He has worn out three juries in a day. His legal acquirements and great talents caused him to be looked up to with profound respect by the bar, the members of which also entertained much personal affection for him. His summing up of a case was a masterpiece of lucidity and force. The first public office held by the late Sir Matthew Cameron was on a commission with Colonel Coffin, appointed in 1852, to inquire into the causes of accidents which had been of frequent occurrence on the Great Western Railway. In 1859 he went into the City Council of Toronto, representing St. James ward, and thenceforward he figured prominently in public life. In 1861, and again a few years later, at the solicitation of many citizens, he contested the mayoralty unsuccessfully. In 1861 he entered the arena of national politics, and sat for North Ontario in the Canadian Assembly from the general election of that year until the general election in 1863, when he was defeated. But in July, 1864, he was re-elected for the same seat, which he continued to hold until confederation, when he was again unsuccessful. At the general Provincial elections in 1867 he was returned to the Ontario legislature for East Toronto, and re-elected in 1871 and 1875. He was a member of the Executive Council in Ontario in the Sandfield Macdonald administration from July 20, 1867, until the resignation of the ministry, December 19, 1871, and, with the exception of the last five months of this period, when he was commissioner of Crown Lands, he held the offices of Provincial Secretary and Registrar. He was also leader, and a very able