Oldal 255 [255]
OCR
I50 in Scotland, and the political persecutions of 1820. The spy system introduced by the tyrannical government sent many innocent parties to prison. Richmond, the principal of the spy department, had his emissaries among the people. These wretches deceitfully led men to give expression to their feelings against the government; the names were then forwarded to the officials, and imprisonment or transportation followed. Soldiers marched through the streets, while house to house examinations were made whose house an old rusty sword or bayonet was found. No one dared express an opinion in opposition to the Government, and all known to do so were imprisoned or hunted out of the country. Freedom of speech there was none. Amid such scenes Mr. Wylie’s early political principles were laid. He ran in opposition to Dr. Church for North Grenville, but was defeated, the constituency being thoroughly Conservative. Just after the Confederation of the Provinces was completed, Mr. Wylie published a small volume of poems under the title of " Waifs from the Thousand Islands." These were well received by the press. In 1870, he visited his native country and was engaged by the Provincial Government to bring the subject " Canada as a Field of Immigration” before the people of Scotland. In this he was very successful. He wrote a series of twelve letters, besides other special correspondence, on the subject in the Glasgow Herald, a paper enjoying at that time a circulation of 36,000 daily. Mr. Wylie gave four months of his time gratuitously, as he was only remunerated for his actual outlay—his labor being given gratis. In 1875, he desired to withdraw from the responsibility and care attendant on editing and publishing a paper. He, however, had started the EVENING RECORDER, and sunk some money in the undertaking. In September of 1875, however, he sold out to Leavitt & Southworth, Mr. Leavitt having taken. charge of the editorial department in the month of April preceding, when Mr. Wylie was appointed Paymaster of Militia, District No. 4, having the rank of Major, but was a short time afterward made honorary Lieutenant-Colonel. He has always, since being a member of Captain Lyman’s Company of Rifles in Montreal, taken a warm interest in the volunteer movement. He passed through the grades of Private, Corporal, Lieutenant, Captain and Major, and nowrests as Lieutenant-Colonol and Paymaster. He has been thirty years a School Trustee, being many years Chairman of the Board. He has also served several years as a member of the Town Council. His whole life has been one of activity and usefulness. Hedeserved far more acknowledgment than he has received from the Government, SENATOR BROUSE. William Henry Brouse, M. A., M. D., was born at Matilda, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, in the year 1824. He is the second son of the late Lieutenant-Colonel Jacob Brouse, a descendant of one of the U. E. Loyalist families who first settled in the County of Dundas. Reared upon a farm, when young, he attended the common schools in winter and worked in the fields during seed time and the harvest. His father, realizing the want of a good education himself, determined to give his children the best literary advantages his means would afford, accordingly gave them the privilege of an education at our Canadian Universities. Dr. Brouse was sent to Cobourg, a student at Victoria College. He was very successful and left with the highest honors. His class-mates were the Rev. S. S. Nellis, D. D., now President of the same University, the Rev. William Ormiston, D. D., the celebrated Divine of New York, John George Hodgins, L. L. D., Assistant Superintendent of Education for Ontario, the late Judge Springer, of Hamilton, James L. Biggar, Esq., M. P., East Northumberland, and Hon. William McDougall, M. P. The Degree of M. A. was obtained at Victoria College. His medical studies were pursued in Toronto, under the immediate instruction of the late Hon. Dr. Rolph, after which he proceeded to Montreal and obtained the Degree of M. D. from McGill College, in the spring of 1847. In the same year, he was appointed by the government to take charge of an hospital of emigrants on Point Iroquois, where he attended three hundred sick with typhoid fever, known as the emigrant fever. His former tutor, Dr. Rolph, offered him a partnership to induce him to go to Toronto, and some years afterward, asa further inducement, had him appointed Professor of Surgery in the Toronto School of Medicine—but Dr. Brouse at the time not being robust, at the request of his friends, settled in Prescott, where he has since practiced his profession. He married in 1857, Fanny A. Jones, daughter of the late Alpheus Jones, Esq., Post Master and Collector of Customs for that town. He is surgeon of the 56th Battalion, is a member of the Senate and Board of the University of Victoria, is the Managing Medical Director of the Toronto Life and Tontine Company, was appointed member as far back as 1849, has been elected, by the united vote of the physicians, a member of the Medical Council for Ontario, at the elections for 1866, 1869 and 1872, continuously since its first formation, and was elected President of the Council in 1870. Dr. Brouse has represented his town in the County Council, and was the choice of the people for Mayor.
