110 msronr OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

useless anomaly. Let anyone visit Portland—where he might expect to see the law decently enforced—and he will find in one, at least, of the principal hotels in the city, a public bar-room in which alcoholic liquors of all kinds are openly sold; and, if he chooses to begin business in the liquor line, he can, for thirty dollars, procure a license from one of' the otlicials of the United States government, for that purpose. The United States law sanctions the importation and sale of intoxicating drinks; the Maine state law forbids the sale ostensibly, whilst it is really permitted. The temperance movement has effected a vast amount of good, but coercion is not the means by which it has been accom- plished.

During the session of 1853, an act to extend the elective franchise was passed, which made that privilege almost universal. The house-was dissolved during the summer, and at the general election which ensued the government was defeated. A requisition was in consequence addressed to the governor by members of the assembly, praying for the early assembling of the house, in order that, by legal enactment, departmental officers might be excluded from occupying seats in the legislature, to which request the governor (lid not accede.

On the seventh of October, 1853, a sad catastrophe took place in the loss of the steamer Fairy Queen. The boat left Charlottetown on a Friday forenoon. Shortly after getting clear of' Point Prim, the vessel shipped a. sea which broke open the gangways. \Vhen near Pictou Island the tiller-rope broke, and another heavy sea was shipped. 'The rope was, with the assistance of some of the passen- gers, spliced; but the vessel moved very slowly. The captain and some of‘ the crew got into a boat and drilled avay, regardless of the fate of the female passengers.