Work in the City Council.
On entering the Council in 1868 I was placed upon the Watch Committee, and remained on that committee for fifteen years. The work was of a very routine character; we had, however, an excellent chairman in Mr. F. A. Clint, and I have never forgotten the lessons I received from him in the management of a committee, and how to get the proceedings of a committee passed by the Council. "Never start a hare" was his motto, "you never know how it will run, and the amount of discussion it may provoke." Another lesson which he taught me was always to take the Council into your confidence. "Tell them everything, and if you make a mistake own up to it;" and there can be no doubt that there is great wisdom in adopting this course. Deliberative assemblies are naturally critical and suspicious: but treat them with confidence and they will return it; once deceive them, or keep back what they are entitled to know, and your task thereafter becomes very difficult.
Mr. Alderman Livingston was the deputy-chairman, and was quite a character in his way. In personal appearance he resembled Mr. Pickwick, and his ways were essentially Pickwickian. In the selection of Mayors he was always very much in evidence, and he was before everything a Tory of Tories. Politics were his delight, and even when quite an old man he did not shirk attending the November ward meetings, where his oracular and often amusing speeches were greatly enjoyed by the electors.
At one period during the agitation against licensees of public-houses, the Watch Committee was composed of all the members of the Council with Mr. S. B. Guion as chairman; and the committee met in the Council Chamber, but a committee of this size was too unwieldy for administrative business, and the arrangement did not last long.