of tenure and appointment by the crown. It has on the whole been
creditable to the country and remarkably free from political influences.
The criminal law of England has prevailed in all the provinces since it
was formerly introduced by the Quebec act of 1774. The civil law of the
French regime, however, has continued to be the legal system in French
Canada since the Quebec act, and has now obtained a hold in that
province which insures its permanence as an institution closely allied
with the dearest rights of the people. Its principles and maxims have
been carefully collected and enacted in a code which is based on the
famous code of Napoleon. In the other provinces and territories the
common law of England forms the basis of jurisprudence on which a large
body of Canadian statutory law has been built in the course of time.

At the present time all the provinces, with the exception of Prince
Edward Island, have an excellent municipal system, which enables every
defined district, large or small, to carry on efficiently all those
public improvements essential to the comfort, convenience and general
necessities of the different communities that make up the province at
large. Even in the territories of the north-west, every proper facility
is given to the people in a populous district, or town, to organise a
system equal to all their local requirements.

Every Englishman will consider it an interesting and encouraging fact
that the Canadian people, despite their neighbourhood to a prosperous
federal commonwealth, should not even in the most critical and gloomy
periods of their history have shown any disposition to mould their
institutions directly on those of the United States and lay the
foundation for future political union. Previous to 1840, which was the
commencement of a new era in the political history of the provinces,
there was a time when discontent prevailed throughout the Canadas, but