On comparing chronometers, we found a difference in the time between Quebec and Greenwich of 5h. 44m. 49s.
From here we took the express train to Montreal, and put up at the Albion Hotel. The scenery along the line of the railway seemed to me so strange; the country was covered with wood; wherever I looked there was wood—everything seemed wooden.
At 8 o'clock next morning we took the train for that ancient limestone-fortified City of Kingston—the city of the Thousand Isles—where we arrived at 2 p.m., and drove in a cab to the Anglo-American Hotel where we stayed till next day, at 3 p.m., when we took the steamer "Bay of Quinté" for Picton. The scenery along the beautiful Bay of Quinté, from Kingston to Picton, was delightful. I stayed on deck during the evening, enchanted with the wild landscape and picturesque scenery, arriving at Picton at 8 p.m., when we rode in Mrs. Blanchard's 'bus up to my sister's.
I visited my friends for a month when I went steward of Ontario College, where I stayed for twelve months, when I bought a property on Main Street; here I went into the grocery business, during which time I messed the 16th Battalion County Prince Edward Volunteers, and the summer following I messed the officers at Picton and again at Kingston in 1871.
The same year I applied to the Council at Picton for a license—which was granted—for my house, which I named the "Victoria Hotel," where I carried on business as a hotel-keeper until the year 1878, when I sold the hotel through the effects of the Dunkin Act, after laying out a large sum of money in enlarging and building an addition to the house, also stables and sheds. For two or three years previous to voting on the Dunkin Bill, a few fanatics—in order to get their names before the public as great temperance advocates, not knowing of anything better to preach about, like the Turkish Dervishes, tried to make people believe that they were all saints and everybody else sinners; although the temperance saints generally had a bottle in the garret or the cellar which they used when not observed.
They held meetings all over the county, and any person who did not join them had no chance of being elected to any public office. Men who were ambitious were obliged to attend their meetings in order to gain popularity, and dare not go into an hotel. An honest, straightforward, truthful man, unless he agreed with them, had a poor chance of being elected to any office. At any rate, the Dunkin side got strong enough to carry the election. Most of those who were against it would not vote through fear of their neighbours, they said it made little difference to them whether there was license or not. Through this sort of intimidation the vote was carried by the Dunkinites and became law in the county. At the end of twelve months another vote was taken to repeal it, when the Dunkinites again carried the election, owing to several local orators who stood up where the Dunkinites held meetings throughout the country and preached against its repeal. These men, of course, gained popularity with the temperance party for the time being. But like the house that was built on the sand, "the rain came and the wind blew and beat on that house and great was the fall thereof, because it was built on the sand." And now those who voted for the Dunkin Bill want to repeal it, seeing that it not only increases the number of places that sell liquor privately in the town, but that it deprives the county of a very large revenue. Notwithstanding that the Dunkin Act was superseded by the Crooks' Act, and, knowing that it was ultra vires, they tried to enforce it. Several cases of selling liquor contrary to the Dunkin Act were brought before the magistrates and fines inflicted; at last, seeing that it was not constitutional, they gave up trying any more. But when a man is to be hanged there is always a hangman to be found; so it was with the Dunkin Act, there was one found to try the cases, when almost invariably fines or imprisonment were inflicted; of the latter several hotel-keepers had a foretaste.
Knowing that these convictions were bad, they were appealed to a higher tribunal. There was one thing that we have got cause to be thankful to the government for, and that is for selecting and appointing just, learned and impartial judges, who know neither friend nor partisan when they sit on the tribunal to mete out justice and judgment, according to the law of the land. When these appeal cases came before the learned and just Judge of the County of Prince Edward, they were all quashed.
LINES ON PICTON, BAY OF QUINTE.
Fair Picton! what a blissful spot,
Where peace and happiness had been my lot,