The capital of Canada has again been the scene of
disturbances, and blood has been shed ; the weak and compromising spirit of the Government at once exasperating opposition and inciting attack. The riots of April had been made the subject of an in- quiry, tardy and secret, and thus keeping alive the anger which it could not overawe. At last,—on the 15th of Asyfust—it was thought safe to arrest certain persons of the " British " party, who were so accommodating as to go down to the police-office privately, for the purpose of being arrested and held to bail. Imagine a Government accepting that sort of accommodation from the very persons it was professing to coerce ! The privacy, however, was not so secret but that it got abroad, and it occa- sioned a renewal of the April riots. The mob attacked Mr. La- fontaine's house, and was repulsed ; and a lad was shot in the re- pulse. " Murder I Anglo-Saxon blood!" cried the enraged
British." An inquest was held, at which Mr. Lafontaine re- fused to appear as a witness A great concourse of the British was bidden to the funeral of the lad, on the 18th; and an armed police force was stationed to preserve the peace: at the demand of the mob, it was removed to the other side of the river. The sequel is unreported. And whilst the authorities at Montreal were combining the policy of Radetzky and Dogberry, where was Lord Elgin, Go- vernor-General and Commander-in-chief ?—Still ensconced in his villa at Monklands, safe in "dignified neutrality."
This intelligence arrived in London on Monday : Tuesday's Gazette announced Lord Elgin's elevation to the Peerage of the United Kingdom : what for ? Is it a sarcastic pun—because he IS SO Slow to appear, that Ministers will make him a Peer ? or is it that Lord Grey, like a perverse mamma, is petting the spoiled child the more people cry out upon him ?
