was no commonplace figure. Set on steel springs, the hands opening and shutting, the light-blue eyes sending keen and piercing glances through the ranks of “these people” before him, who were already in the best of training from the local agitator Mr. Bennett, the master of Liberty Cottage, “this fellow” spoke in a way direct and easy to understand. His writing was sometimes verbose, unequal and amateurish; but in speech “the superlative littleness of the man” was lightened by gleams of humour, facial expression and gesture which would not commit themselves to paper, nor did they hinder the deadly earnestness that carried conviction to any wavering mind. Now as he spoke a great clatter arose from an incoming crowd which bore a blackened, bedizened and hideous effigy of himself; the likeness was so good that the sight of it provoked a smile from the original. He paused in his speech and looked on in silent and grim amusement. Had he but known it, the lay figure held almost an allegory of the real. It was stuffed with gunpowder and other combustibles, and, as its original was destined to do, went off prematurely; it knocked down a man or two, but did no great harm. The figure wore a pair of very good boots, which someone in the crowd, not so well furnished, begrudged. The man worked his way through, seized the burnt brogues, and made off with them as fast as his legs could carry him. It is marvellous the bandit was not arrested as a suspect; it took very small evidence to make a case. One Irish Loyalist, John McCrea, was sent a summons to join the company then forming in Guelph for the front; he considered his farm and home duties of more importance, and was at once reported as “disaffected.” Shortly afterwards he went to the general store kept by Captain Lamphrey, a retired English officer, and was asked, as was the usual custom, into the parlour for a glass of wine. To his surprise he there found three others, a bench of magistrates, who without further ado began to try him. Why had he not responded to the command to join the corps? Because he had private and important domestic concerns on hand. He asked for the name of his accuser and the specific accusation, but in reply was told he must give a bond for his good behaviour. This was surely the Star Chamber, Scroggs and Jeffreys, the secret-service principle of Mackenzie’s written and spoken diatribes, and Mr. McCrea’s justified Irish obstinacy rose as a wall against the combination. One of the trio offered to become the bondsman, but the accused contended its acceptance would be an admission of guilt. Mr. McCrea insisted upon knowing their authority; they could not furnish it, and there was an end of the matter.