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Key Events in the History of Nova Scotia: 1848.
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[Backward In Time (1847)]
[Forward In Time (1849)]
§"When the new Cunard schedule started in 1848, Halifax had the best overseas communication in America with two steamers a week, one coming and one going alternately to Boston and New York. In addition, Cunard had extended the Halifax-Bermuda packet service to the West Indies and had replace the sailing packets with steamers. They ran once a month, bringing passengers bound for Europe up from the islands and from South America to connect with the Atlantic steamers." (Kay Grant)
§Jan 22nd: The Eighteenth Assembly of the Nova Scotia Legislature convened.
§French Revolution of 1848. (See write up in connection with bio. on Frederic Bastiat.)
§Advances In Arms: The rifles and Minie Balls: "The precursor to the Minie ball was created in 1848 by the French Army captains Montgomery and Henri-Gustave Delvigne. Their design was made to allow rapid muzzle loading of rifles, an innovation that brought about the widespread use of the rifle rather than the smoothbore musket as a mass battlefield weapon. Delvigne had invented a ball that could expand upon ramming to fit the grooves of a rifle ..."
§Responsible Government: It was during 1848 that the practice of appointing friends of the crown to the executive or governing council in Nova Scotia came to an end; and this only after a long and hard fight with those who were reluctant to give up power to individuals who merely got themselves elected.
§The British parliament repealed a clause of the 1840 constitution which joined Upper and Lower Canada, a clause which restricted the use of the French language in the legislature.
§March 22nd, Chloroform used for the first time in Canada at Pictou. It was concocted by Mr. J. D. B. Fraser, a chemist and druggist of Pictou. Fraser administered the drug to his wife who was in labour; the family physician was in attendance. Prior to the discovery of anaesthetic, surgeries were carried out in a hurried and gruesome manner, "the patient was held down by able bodied assistants and often tied with ropes."(K. A. MacKenzie)
§July 25th, first issue of the British Colonist.
§In 1848, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. It followed along after the Mexican War between the U.S. and Mexico. It resulted in the purchase of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and western Colorado.
§In England, the first Public Health Act is passed. The main principle of the act was "permission rather than compulsion."
§An act "To establish a line [Electric Telegraph] from the Atlantic Shore to the St. Lawrence
§Halifax was incorporated by statute
§Halifax Water Co. incorporated in 1844 is by statute allowed to construct a reservoir on the Common.
§Halifax had a fire engine, Engine Number One, the city's finest with its nine inch chamber and stroke, discharged 149 gallons of water per minute ..." By 1848, water pipes had been laid in the "principal streets." The first use of a fire hydrant occurred in 1848; by 1850 there were over 50 fire hydrants throughout the city.
§Both Mill's Political Economy and Macaulay's History of England were published at London.
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[Backward In Time (1847)]