At a meeting called in Stimpson, Ontario, to hear a debate on annexation _v._ independence or continued dependence, a vote taken after the speakers had finished showed 418 for the annexation to 21 for the _status quo_. It seems almost incredible, but this meeting is a good indication of the rapid strides the annexation sentiment is making among the Canadian people. The Tories cannot keep Canada out of the Union much longer. As I have never been able to discover any place of that name in Ontario, and as there is no such post office in the official list, it is evident that the dispatch was a pure invention for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States. Another important indication of the feeling is shown in an article in the New York _Daily Commercial Bulletin_ in November, 1888, referring to certain political considerations as between Canada and the States. It states: What these are may be inferred from the recent utterances of prominent American statesmen like Senator Sherman and Mr. Whitney, Secretary of the Navy, just previous to the recent election, with reference to which the _Bulletin_ has recently had something to say. Both are inimical to commercial union unless it be also complemented by political union; or, to phrase it more plainly, they insist that annexation of Canada to the United States can afford the only effective guarantee of satisfactory relations between the two countries, if these are to be permanent. These prominent public men, representing each of the great parties that have alternately the administration of this Government in their hands, we are persuaded, did not put forth these views at random, but that they voiced the views of other political leaders, their associates, who are aiming at making Canadian annexation the leading issue at the next Presidential election. As if speaking for the Republicans, Senator Sherman, as has already been shown, thinks the country is now ready for the question; while Secretary Whitney, as if speaking for the other political party, is not less eager to bring the country face to face with it, even at the risk of a war with England, though it is but justice to him to say that he is of the opinion that the Mother Country, if really persuaded that the Canadians themselves were in favour of separating from her, would not fire a gun nor spend a pound sterling to prevent it. . . . The whole drift is unquestionably in that direction (political union), and in the meantime we do not look for positive action on the part of Congress, on either commercial reciprocity or the fisheries, at this session or the next. These questions, in all human probability, will be purposely left open by the party managers in order to force the greater issue, which, as it seems to me, none but a blind man can fail to see is already looming up with unmistakable distinctness in the future.