On the 6th of November the existing parliament was dissolved. In the following elections Mr. John Young was returned from Montreal and was given a place in the Hincks-Morin cabinet as commissioner of public works. Mr. Papineau was defeated in Montreal, but found a seat for the county of Two Mountains. In the early part of 1852 Mr. Hincks visited England and arranged for the capitalizing of the Grand Trunk Railway to proceed westward from Montreal. Consequently during the fourth parliament’s first session at Quebec, which opened on August 19th, conspicuous among the acts passed was one to incorporate the Grand Trunk Railway. Other acts interesting to Montrealers were the municipal loan fund act to enable municipalities to borrow money on the credit of the province for local improvement, an act for the establishment of a trans-Atlantic line of steamers and the appropriating of £19,000 sterling per annum for the purpose. The contract was secured by McKean, McLarty & Company, of Liverpool, and steamers began to run during the following spring. Two years later the contract was annulled and an arrangement was made with Messrs. Edmonstone, Allan & Company, of Montreal. The small fleet of the last named company has since developed into the well known Allan line of trans-Atlantic steamships. On October 23d Mr. Charles Wilson, mayor of Montreal, was added to the legislative council. Before the session ended there occurred the famous Gavazzi riots in Quebec and Montreal, the latter place especially maintaining its reputation for mob violence. As the government was afterwards attacked for delay in ordering an unavoidable and searching investigation into the perpetrators of the fatal disaster at Montreal the story may be told here rather than in the ecclesiastical history of the city. During the spring of 1853 Alessandro Gavazzi, an ex-monk, had been giving a course of lectures in the States, mostly against Romanism. He had previously been received with success in England. Posing as an Italian patriot of liberty, with the reputation for impassioned and eloquent oratory and the added piquancy of being an ex-priest, he had attracted elsewhere a favourable hearing. But on his entrance to Lower Canada, at Quebec, he received a check on June 6th when delivering a lecture on the Inquisition in the Free Church on St. Ursule Street. A scene of disorder occurred in the church. The lecturer was attacked in the pulpit, and though he defended himself right valiantly with a stool, knocking down some sixteen of his assailants, he was overmastered and thrown on to the heads of the people below. Confusion reigned. The military were providentially soon on the scene and quiet obtained. The proceedings were sufficient to warrant an informal discussion in the House next day. On the night of the 9th of June Gavazzi was in Montreal, lecturing in Zion Church on the Haymarket square, now Victoria Square. Without, to prevent a recurrence of