Suggest This Page To A Friend!

Transcribed by Gary Carroll, [email protected]

PAPEI ACC 2851/7 - Letter from William Black Wellner to George W Howlan

Charlottetown 9 Aug '56

Dear George
I cannot resist the temptation to send you a scrap with respect to the late election in this city Our old friend Robert Hutchinson Esq. has ben reelected by a majority of 53 over John Binns by which decision the Tories here have got such as blow to all their hopes of crushing the Liberals as they will not recover from for some years - if ever.

The deep scheming dogs laid their heads together by putting up Binns not only to crush Huchinson & the Liberals with respect to the civic but also the general election which they have in prospect but they have been most gloriously defeated with their own weapons. They plotted a scheme to make themselves & exasperated many of their friends to such a degree that they turned completely round & voted against Binns & many have since declared they will never again vote with the Tories the latter have since the election almost ? J.D. Mason & his partner Robt. Hodgson with Mr. Paw Thos Pleadwell & a number of others who deserted the Tory ranks & voted for Hutchinson - the "Monaghan Mayor" as he is now called. One of the dirty jobs performed by the Tory Wm Pope, had a most crushing effect on their cause viz: when Hutchinson passed the compliment on him

2

asking for his vote Pope replied - I could give & get you plenty of votes if you promise to turn all the dogs & Monaghans out of Charlottetown! This getting wind roused the "Monaghans" as they are styled & very many who had determined to vote for neither side came out and against Binns & bought all they could with them - another scheme concocted by John Lawson the Recorder, who is a real snake in the grass -- many persons had lost their receipts for assessment paid & were refused their voting on this ground because the law specifies the receipt to be a criterion of their vote being valid they applied to the Collector (City Marshal O'Hara) for duplicates of their receipts, when Lawson came into the office and ordered him "not to grant duplicates" Many were waiting for them & being thus checked raised their venom & when they thus discovered they were cast off they crowded every body that had a good vote to give it to Hutchinson -- Another scheme concocted by Lawson & Palmer as far as could be found out was put forth against John Rigg Esq. to this effect. He last year was appointed a City Auditor & his appointment does not run out till some day next week & the law specifies that no person holding any office or place of emolument under the city shall be eligible during the holding of said office to a seat at the Council board! They let the matter progress till they found Rigg was running too heavy a riff against J. Wm. Morrison when they appeared as through the light of a sun beam to have discovered the iniquity of his having come out & wanted

3

to drive him off the election (but he was too wide awake for them, by resigning as auditor & tendering his fine of £ 5 before the election commenced) this being considered by the general body of Catholics as a direct insult to them. Mr. Rigg being the only one of their body that they had brought out having previously proposed Protestants for the other four ? set them on fire & they determined to rout out every vote for Hutchinson & Rigg which gave these two in the 1st ? almost double of their opponents for these and some of the other sins of omission & commission Johnny is most likely to get an overhauling at a Council meeting to be held on Monday evening next. Just at the last pinch Bertram Moore consented to be dragged out in opposition to Silas Barnard. He obtained 21 votes & I think was 37 behind Barnard. T.B. Tremain was also at the 11th hour dragged out in opposition to Henry B. Smith the "drunken painter" as he is called who beat Tremain by 5 that were polled by some 5 or 6 were at the Hustings to vote for Henry when the poll closed. I hope this honor conferred on Henry will make a man of him & keep him so - Tremain cried on the Hustings to think that his Tory friends dragged him out against his will & let him be beaten by a paltry 5 & worse than all by Henry Smith!

Poor Doctor Conroy having been buried in that portion of the Catholic Church yard designed for "self murderers & outcasts of society" has created considerable discussion by a few interested folk who no doubt designed making political capital out of it.

4

Mrs Conroy wrote the Bishop who replied if the Doctors brothers were anxious to have him moved to the Parish Churchyard & the sematery authorities deemed it prudent to exhume & convey his corpse through the City he, the Bishop, would not object to the Doctors removal, but I think the poor old fellows bones will just sleep as sweet among the "outcasts" if there were such, as he could in the Church yard. Tricky Sandy was seized upon & had his furniture all sold whereupon he decamped leaving everybody that he could in the rear. Moses Haszard came out in opposition to McIsaac but I think the latter nearly doubled him. He was proposed at a public meeting at which G. W. Beer threw all the insults he could against the Catholics & Hutchinson by moving or seconding the poorest scribes & greatest fools as he thought to draw up an address to Hutchinson, but I think their address could not have been bettered by the whole Tory compact. You have no doubt seen it in some of the papers & can judge for yourself it has given general satisfaction

Excuse haste at 12 o'clock Saturday night as the Catholic Church clock which works well & keeps good time is just striking
Yours truly
W.B. Wellner