This reel covers an active period in Smith's jounalistic life in Canada. The Bystander, his one-man monthly magazine, took most of his time during its run of eighteen issues that began in January of 1880. Late in 1883 he became "part proprietor" of the Week, in which he wrote many signed articles and a weekly section of comment. In December of 1885, after some weeks of illness, he wrote George W. Curtis that he was no longer a contributor to teh Week. In June of 1881 he left Canada for a year. He spoke to a number of English audiences on as many subjects, and addressed an economy and trade group in Dublin in October. In succeeding months much of the correspondence concerned Irish problems. There are many letters from James Laister, who with Smith engaged in a jounalistic controversy over the nature of the Jewish problem in Russia and elsewhere. Laister supplied Smith with clippings and citations supporting the view that Jewish customs were inimical to citizenship in a democratic society. Other subjects discussed in the correspondence are the fisheries dispute, British Parliamentary reform, female suffrage, American presidential elections, Canadian-American trade relations and the Gladstone government. Some correspondents of note on the reel are Matthew Arnold, Lord Ashbourne, John Bright, John Duke Coleridge, the third Earl Grey, Lord Lansdowne, and John Tyndall. A letter from Viscount Wolseley on September 11, 1886 has some remarks on the obstacles to reform in the British army.