“What manner of man is Joseph Hume?” asks _The Noctes_. “Did you never see him?” says North. “He is a shrewd-looking fellow enough, but most decidedly vulgar. Nobody that sees him could ever for a moment suspect him of being a gentleman born. He has the air of a Montrose dandy at this moment, and there is an intolerable affectation about the creature. I suppose he must have sunk quite into the dirt since Croker curried him.” “I don’t believe anything can make an impression on him. A gentleman’s whip would not be felt through the beaver of a coal-heaver.” He was, in fact, short, broad, stiff, square and copperfaced. He exhibited the uncouthness of the Scot in relief, and his speech, in all the worst of the Scotch brogue, “barbarous exceedingly,” baffled description. “Depend upon it, Joseph will go on just as he has been doing.” And he had been going on from his place as Radical member for Montrose. Added to all, he was a master of detail. In spite of his earnestness, he often convulsed the House with his Scotch bulls when he intended most to impress. Expatiating on the virtues of the French-Canadians, he exclaimed, “I say, sir, they are the best and gentlest race in Europe (laughter), aye”--waxing hotter--“or in Africa” (roars of laughter). Sir Francis Bond Head did not scruple to say that Hume was the greatest rebel of the lot, and, in his turn, Hume made a furious attack on Sir Francis. However, he was just as vigorously answered by Lord Grey, and then the morning papers said “that Hume had not been able to make Head.” Politics were so bitter then that all Reformers were rebels. Hume’s letter of March 29th, 1834, in which he says, “_Your_ cause is _their_ cause, _your_ defeat would be _their_ subjection. Go on, therefore, I beseech you, and success, glorious success, must inevitably crown your joint efforts,” sounds as if Sir Francis might have had reason for his opinion. By 1839 a public dinner had been given this erstwhile Tory, in testimony of his eminent public services and constant advocacy in the cause of reform. Says North, “Why, a small matter will make a man who has once ratted rat again. We all remember what Joe Hume was a few years ago!” “A Tory?” “I would not prostitute the name so far, but he always voted with them.” “At the Whigs it was then his chief pleasure to rail, He opposed all the Catholic claims tooth and nail....” “Why, no wonder ... he hates the Tories. They never thought of him while he was with them, and now the Whigs do talk of Joe as if he were somebody. But, as _John Bull_ says, “‘A very small man with the Tories Is a very great man ’mong the Whigs.’”