NOTABLE CENTENARIAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20005, 23 November 1927, Page 13

NOTABLE CENTENARIAN

LEGISLATOR OF 100 YEARS RECORD FOR THE WORLD. TORONTO, Nov. 1. Senator George Casimir Dessaulles, of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, is 100 years old. A.s he enjoys vigorous health and attends the sessions of the Senate at Ottawa, he is probably the oldest active legislator in the world. St. Hyacinthe was en fete to-day when this notable centenary was celebrated by a great family festival. It was in Hyacinthe that Senator Dessaulles was born on September 29, 1827. He was the son of Hon. Jean Dessaulles, who was of Swiss origin, and Seigneur of St. Hyacinthe, as well as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada (now Quebec) from 1815 to 1831, when ho was appointed by Lord Aylmer to the Legislative Council. Senator Dessaulles’ mother was Rosalie Papineau, daughter of Joseph Papineau, and sister of L. J. Papineau, who was a leader with the grandfather of the present Prime Minister, Mr Mackenzie King, in the Canadian rebellion of 1837. The Senator is the oldest graduate of Georgetown University, District of Columbia, From that institution, which was a long way from his home town of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, he received the degree of B.A. in 1848. Twelve years ago the university recognised him further by conferring on him the Degree of Doctor of Laws. A Long Public Service. After graduation, young Dessaulles assayed law in Montreal, but soon deserted this vocation to return to St. Hyacinthe, where he had many business interests connected with the Seigneury to look after. He was, in St. Hyacinthe, city councillor from 1858 to 1869 and was mayor of the city for 25 years, always being elected by acclamation with the exception of one year. In 1897. when 70 years old, he was elected to the Quebec Legislature for the

County of St. Hyacinthe, but retired at the close of one session. In 1907, when 80 years old, he was appointed to the Senate of Canada, which he regularly attended ever since.

To a visitor the other day the Senator, recalling his father’s activities as a member of the Legislative Council back in 1835, said that appointments then were made by the Crown and the councillors attended at their own expense and paid £lO each for the honour. “ Things are managed much better now in that respect,” he added, with n smile, no doubt recalling the £BOO sessional payment which each Canadian Senator, receiver ror life. Senator Dessaulles to-day is mentally and physically active and each day enjoys a motor-car ride, although he has a sentimental preference for horses. Ho walks erectly and with firm step. When he visits the Senate chamber a.t Ottawa he carries a cane, but it has more the appearance of a swagger-stick than a staff. ‘‘Voice of a Young Man.” The centenarian’s shoulders are squared, his head unbowed and his keen, kindly dark eyes are undimmed by the long years over which he looks back to childhood days in the manor house of the St. Hyacinthe seigneury. The snow whiteness of a hundred winters rests on his hair and patriarchial beard, but his voice is the voice of a young man, trumpet-like in its resonance, firmness, and even quality. The handicap which bothers him. most is deafness. In a conversation he made a reference to his grandmother as a strongminded woman; “She would be a feminist to-day, possibly a woman member of Parliament,” suggested his interviewer. “No,” he said almost sharply, “politics is not the place for women. Their place is in the home attending to it and to their children.”