Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/90

 . In March 1848, after a stormy election in which several persons were killed, he was returned for the city of Montreal, which he represented during the remainder of his public life.

In March 1848 the reform party triumphed at the general election, and Baldwin and Lafontaine again took office, Lafontaine as premier and attorney-general for Lower Canada. In January 1849 he passed an amnesty bill, and in February he introduced the famous rebellion losses bill, which was intended to compensate innocent sufferers in 1837. This bill was bitterly resented both in Canada and England, because it was feared that it would benefit disloyal French Canadians, and it gave rise to the most extraordinary scenes of riot in Montreal [see, eighth ]. Lafontaine's house was partly burnt down and he himself on more than one occasion exposed to imminent peril. In consequence of the disorder the seat of government was permanently removed from Montreal. In the meantime Lafontaine felt that he was growing out of sympathy with the younger reformers. The temper of his mind was naturally aristocratic and conservative. The movement which he had led had been national, and when questions of class interest became of importance he found himself out of accord with his former supporters. He was opposed to the secularisation of the clergy reserves in Upper Canada and the abolition of the seigneural tenure in the lower province, both of them measures steadily demanded by a large section of the reform party. In consequence he retired from political life towards the close of 1851. On 13 Aug. 1853 he was nominated chief justice of Lower Canada in succession to Sir James Stuart [q. v.], and on 28 Aug. 1854 he was created a baronet. He continued to hold the office of chief-justice until his death at Montreal on 26 Feb. 1864. He was twice married: first, on 9 July 1831, to Adèle, daughter of Amable Berthelot, an advocate at Quebec. She died without issue on 27 May 1859, and he married secondly, on 30 Jan. 1861, Jane Morrison, a widow of Montreal. By her he had an only surviving son, Louis Hypolite, on whose death, in 1867, the baronetcy became extinct.



LAING, SAMUEL (1812–1897), politician, author, and chairman of the Brighton Railway, was born in Edinburgh on 12 Dec. 1812. He was the son of [q. v.], the author of the well-known 'Tours' in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, who was the younger brother of [q. v.], the historian of Scotland. Laing was educated at Houghton-le-Spring grammar school, and privately by Richard Wilson, a fellow of St. John's, Cambridge. He entered that college as a pensioner on 5 July 1827, graduated B.A. as second wrangler in 1831, and was also second Smith's prizeman. He was elected a fellow of St. John's on 17 March 1834, and remained for a time in Cambridge as a mathematical coach. He was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 10 Nov. 1832, and was called to the bar on 9 June 1837. Shortly after his call he was appointed private secretary to [q. v.], then president of the board of trade. Upon the formation of the railway department of that office in 1842 he was appointed secretary, and thenceforth distinguished himself as an authority upon railways under successive presidents of the board of trade. In 1844 he published the results of his experience in 'A Report on British and Foreign Railways,' and gave much valuable evidence before a committee of the House of Commons on railways. To his suggestion the public are mainly indebted for the convenience of 'parliamentary' trains at the rate of one penny per mile. In 1845 Laing was appointed a member of the railway commission, presided over by Lord Dalhousie, and drew up the chief reports on the railway schemes of that period. Had his recommendations been followed, much of the commercial crisis of 1846 would, as he afterwards proved, have been averted. The report of the commission having been rejected by parliament, the commission was dissolved, and Laing, resigning his post at the board of trade, returned to his practice at the bar. In 1848 he accepted the post of chairman and managing director of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, and under his administration the passenger traffic of the line was in five years nearly doubled. In 