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diff --git a/38858-h/38858-h.htm b/38858-h/38858-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0cbfd82 --- /dev/null +++ b/38858-h/38858-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5373 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Pictures of Canadian Life, by J. Ewing Ritchie</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pictures of Canadian Life, by J. Ewing Ritchie + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Pictures of Canadian Life + A Record of Actual Experiences + + +Author: J. Ewing Ritchie + + + +Release Date: February 13, 2012 [eBook #38858] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICTURES OF CANADIAN LIFE*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1886 T. Fisher Unwin edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Note to +page</span> 56.</p> +<p>Sir Charles Tupper tells me that I was totally +misinformed. I am sorry to have been led astray, and have +pleasure in making the correction, which was received, +unfortunately, after the chapter had been worked off.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Dr. Barnardo’s Distributing Home for Children, +Peterborough, Ontario" +title= +"Dr. Barnardo’s Distributing Home for Children, +Peterborough, Ontario" +src="images/p0.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>PICTURES<br /> +<span class="smcap">of</span><br /> +CANADIAN LIFE</h1> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">A Record of Actual Experiences</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +J. EWING RITCHIE</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">author +of</span> ‘<span class="smcap">east anglia</span>,’ +‘<span class="smcap">british senators</span>,’ +‘<span class="smcap">on the</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">track of the pilgrim fathers</span>,’ +<span class="smcap">etc.</span>, <span +class="smcap">etc.</span></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>WITH TWELVE +ILLUSTRATIONS</i></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">London<br /> +<span class="smcap">t. fisher unwin</span><br /> +26, <span class="smcap">paternoster square</span><br /> +1886.</p> +<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>CONTENTS.</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p><span class="smcap">chapter</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">page</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Introductory.—Canadian Territory and Population</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Off With The Emigrants—The Voyage Out—The +‘Sarnia’—The Cod-Fishery</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Arrival at Quebec</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page33">33</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p>At Montreal, and on to Ottawa—Interviewing and +Interviewed</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Toronto—The Town—The People—Canadian +Authors—The Leader of the Opposition</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page74">74</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Off to the North-West—Niagara—Lake +Superior—The Canadian Pacific Railway—At Winnipeg</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Life on the Prairie</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page148">148</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Amongst the Cow-Boys</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page174">174</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><a name="pagevi"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. vi</span>IX.</p> +</td> +<td><p>In the Rockies—Holt City—Life in the +Camp—A Rough Ride—The Kicking Horse +Lake—British Columbia</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page194">194</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Dangers of the Rockies—Prairie Fires—The +Return—Port Arthur—Emigrants</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page225">225</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Back to England—Canadian Hospitality—The +‘Assyrian Monarch’—Home</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page245">245</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Colonization in Canada</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page255">255</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vii</span>LIST +OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">page</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dr. Barnardo’s Distributing Home for Children, +Peterborough, Ontario</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Frontispiece</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Falls of Montmorenci—Quebec—Junction of the +River Ottawa and St. Lawrence, Montreal</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>King Street, Toronto</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page78">78</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Second Year on a Prairie Farm, Canadian North-West</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page134">134</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Calico Island, Saskatchewan River, Canadian North-West</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page135">135</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Hunting Scene on the Souris River</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page145">145</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Souris Valley, Manitoba</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page147">147</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Pioneer Store at Brandon in 1882</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page162">162</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Harvesting on the Bell Farm—Indian Head, N.W.T.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +viii</span>Mount Stephen in the Rocky Mountains, On the Line of +the Canadian Pacific Railway</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page197">197</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Thunder Bay, Lake Superior</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page242">242</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>CHAPTER +I.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">INTRODUCTORY.—CANADIAN TERRITORY AND +POPULATION.</p> +<p>Lunching one day in Toronto with one of the aldermen of that +thriving city (I may as well frankly state that we had +turtle-soup on the occasion), he remarked that he had been in +London the previous summer, and that he was perfectly astonished +at the idea Englishmen seemed to have about Canada. He was +particularly indignant at the way in which it was coolly assumed +that the Canadians were a barbarous people, planted in a +wilderness, <a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +2</span>ignorant of civilization, deficient in manners and +customs—a well-meaning people, of whom in the course of +ages something might be made, but at present in a very nebulous +and unsatisfactory state. It seems my worthy friend had +gone to hear a popular Q.C.—a gentleman of Liberal +proclivities, very anxious to write M.P. after his +name—deliver a lecture to the young men of the Christian +Association in Exeter Hall on Canada. Never was a man more +mortified in all his life than was the alderman in +question. All the time the lecture was being delivered, he +said, he held down his head in shame. ‘I felt,’ +said he, rising to a climax, ‘as if I must +squirm!’ What ‘squirming’ implies the +writer candidly admits that he has no idea. Of course, it +means something very bad. All he can say is, that it is his +hope and prayer that in the following pages he may set no +Canadian squirming. He went out to see the nakedness, or +the reverse, of the land, to ask <a name="page3"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 3</span>the emigrants how they were getting +on, to judge for himself whether it was worth any +Englishman’s while to leave home and friends to cross the +Atlantic and plant himself on the vast extent of prairie +stretching between Winnipeg and the Rocky Mountains. What +he heard and saw is contained in the following pages, originally +published in the <i>Christian World</i>, and now reproduced as a +small contribution to a question which rises in importance with +the increase of population and the growing difficulty of getting +a living at home.</p> +<p>As a rule, the English know little more of Canada than that it +belongs to us—that it is very cold there in winter and very +hot in summer. I happened to be on board the +<i>Worcester</i> training-ship on the last occasion of the prizes +being given away, and was not surprised to find that Canada was +especially referred to as illustrating the defective geographical +knowledge of the young cadets. In <a name="page4"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 4</span>the <i>London Citizen</i> a few weeks +later there was still grosser display of ignorance on the part of +a writer who had gone to Montreal to attend the meetings of the +British Association there, and who complained bitterly of the +lack of garden-parties and champagne lunches. This victim +of misplaced confidence owned that he had to put up with tea and +coffee and non-intoxicating beverages when he did so far +condescend as to accept Canadian hospitality. Yet the +writer of that letter was a barrister, at this very time a +candidate for Parliament. Had he an atom of common-sense, +he might have known—this distinguished barrister and +ornament of the British Association for the Advancement of +Science—that Canada is a young country; that its wealth is +still undeveloped; that the greater part of it is prairie; that +the settler—in his heroic efforts to subdue Nature, to make +the wilderness to rejoice and blossom as the rose, to build up a +grand nation in that quarter <a name="page5"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 5</span>of the globe, to spread in a region +larger than the United States the Anglo-Saxon laws and +civilization and tongue—has to renounce luxury, to scorn +delights, to live laborious days. Canada is not the place +for members of the British Association who long for the +flesh-pots of Egypt or the champagne-cup. In Canada one has +to live simply and to work hard. He who does so work, +though in England he may die a pauper, there becomes a man. +Canada offers to all independence, a fertile soil, a bracing +air. At present there is little chance of the majority of +its people being enervated by luxury or demoralized by +wealth.</p> +<p>Canada is a country, however, with room and scope for millions +who must starve and die in Europe. Its area is 3,470,392 +square miles, and its most southern point reaches the 42nd +parallel of latitude. It possesses thousands of square +miles of the finest forests on the continent, widely spread coal +<a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>fields, +extensive and productive fisheries, and rivers and lakes of +unequalled extent. The country is divided into eight +provinces, as follows: Nova Scotia, containing 20,907 square +miles; New Brunswick, 27,174; Prince Edward Island, 2,133; +Quebec, 188,688; Ontario, 101,733; Manitoba, 123,200; the North +West, 2,665,252; British Columbia, 341,305. Newfoundland +lies outside the Dominion, for reasons best known to itself.</p> +<p>According to the census taken in 1881, the population at that +time numbered 4,324,810, distributed as follows: Nova Scotia, +440,572; New Brunswick, 321,233; Prince Edward Island, 108,891; +Quebec, 1,359,027; Ontario, 1,923,228; Manitoba, 65,954; the +North West, 56,446; British Columbia, 49,459. These figures +must be much added to if we would get an idea of the growth of +population, especially in the North West, which has increased by +leaps and bounds. Up to 1870 <a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>it was as it had been since the +charter of Charles II.—the happy hunting-ground of the +Hudson Bay Company. As late as 1870 it had no railway +communication, no towns or villages, few post-offices, and no +telegraph. There must be a million of people settled there +by this time, and yet it is a wilderness almost untrod by +man. The origins of the populations are returned as +follows: 891,248 English and Welsh; 957,408 Irish; 699,863 +Scotch; 1,298,929 French; 254,319 Germans. The balance is +made up of Dutch, Scandinavians, and Italians. A large +number of persons who were born in the United States are to be +found in Canada—and why not? They have in Canada a +government quite as free as in the United States, though the +Canadians prefer to have a holiday on the Queen’s birthday +rather than the 4th of July, and an English Viceroy—who at +any rate is a gentleman—to an American President. +Anywhere in Canada the Englishman <a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span>is at home. The people have an +English look. Directly you pass the border into the States +you see the difference. There is an astonishing contrast +between the healthy Canadian and the lean and yellow Yankee.</p> +<p>Canadian history is one record of toil and struggle—of +the advance of the whites, of the retreat of the native +races. Foremost in suffering were the French. In 1608 +the first permanent settlement in Canada was made by Champlain, +who founded Quebec, and afterwards discovered the lake which +still bears his name. It was he who taught the Iroquois to +stand in awe of gunpowder; but, alas! familiarity bred contempt, +and the Red Indian was more than once on the point of +exterminating the white man. It was only by the +intercession of the Saints that the feeble colony was +preserved. At Montreal, for instance, the advanced guard of +the settlements, some two hundred Iroquois fell upon twenty-six +Frenchmen. The Christians were out-matched <a +name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>eight to one, +but, says the Chronicle, ‘the Queen of Heaven was on their +side, and the Son of Mary refuses nothing to His holy +Mother. Through her intercession the Iroquois shot so +wildly, that at their first fire every bullet missed its mark, +and they met with a bloody defeat.’ No wonder the +French were animated with renewed zeal. Father Le Mercier +writes: ‘On the day of Visitation of the Holy Virgin, the +chief Aontarisati, so regretted by the Iroquois, was taken +prisoner by our Indians, instructed by our fathers, and baptized; +and on the same day, being put to death, I doubt not he thanked +the Virgin for his misfortune and the blessing that followed, and +he prayed to God for his countrymen.’</p> +<p>It was no common faith that led the French monks to seek to +make Canada theirs. Their sufferings from cold, from +starvation, from the savages, from want of all the comforts of +life, seem to have been as much as mortal <a +name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>men could +bear. But they made many converts. On one occasion, +when the French Chaumont had delivered an address, his Indian +auditors declared that if he had spoken all day they should not +have had enough of it. ‘The Dutch,’ said they, +‘have neither brains nor tongues; they never tell us about +paradise or hell. On the contrary, they lead us into bad +ways.’ Nothing could daunt the Jesuits—not the +loss of all they had, nor protracted suffering, nor cruel +death. ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the +Church,’ said one of them; ‘and if we die by the +fires of the Iroquois, we shall have won eternal life by +snatching souls from the fires of hell.’</p> +<p>Let us listen to Chaumont again, as he stands before his +savage hearers—he and his companions having first, with +clasped hands, sung the ‘Veni Creator’: ‘It is +not trade that brings us here. Do you think that your +beaver-skins can pay us for all our toil and <a +name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>dangers? Keep them, if you like; or, if any fall +into our hands, we shall use them only for your service. We +seek not the things that perish. It is for the faith that +we have left our homes, to live in your hovels of bark and eat +food which the beasts of our country would scarcely touch. +We are the messengers whom God has sent to tell you that His Son +became a man for the love of you; that this man, the Son of God, +is the Prince and Master of men; that He has prepared in heaven +eternal joys for those who obey Him, and kindled the fires of +hell for those who will not receive His Word. If you reject +it, whoever you are—Onondaga, Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, or +Oneida—know that Jesus Christ, who inspires my heart and my +voice, will one day plunge you into hell. Be not the +authors of your own destruction. Accept the truth; listen +to the voice of the Omnipotent!’</p> +<p>Wonderful miracles sustained and renewed <a +name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>this ardent +faith. In the autumn of 1657, there was a truce with the +Iroquois, under cover of which three or four of them came to the +Montreal settlement. Nicholas Godé and Jean +Pière were on the roof of their house, laying thatch, when +one of his visitors aimed his arquebuse at Saint Pière, +and brought him to the ground like a wild turkey from a +tree. The assassins, having cut off his head and carried it +home to their village, were amazed to hear it speak to them in +good Iroquois, scold them for their perfidy, and threaten them +with the vengeance of heaven; and we are told they continued to +hear its voice of admonition even after scalping it and throwing +away the skull.</p> +<p>During a great part of this period, the French population was +less than three thousand. How was it they were not +destroyed? Mr. Parkman tells us for two reasons. In +the first place, the settlements were grouped around three +fortified posts—Quebec, Three <a name="page13"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 13</span>Rivers, and Montreal—which, in +time of danger, gave an asylum to the fugitive inhabitants; and +secondly, their assailants were distracted by other wars. +It was their aim to balance the rival settlements of the Hudson +and the St. Lawrence. It was well for Canada when France +lost hold of her. In 1666, Louis the Great handed her over, +bound hand and foot, to a company of merchants—the Company +of the West, as it was called. As, according to the edict, +the chief object in view was the glory of God, the Company was +required to supply its possessions with a sufficient number of +priests, and diligently exclude all teachers of false +doctrine. It was empowered to build forts and war-ships, +cast cannon, wage war, make peace, establish courts, appoint +judges, and otherwise to act as sovereign within its own +dominions. A monopoly of trade was granted it for forty +years, and Canada was the chief sufferer; but at any rate the +peopling of <a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +14</span>Canada was due to the king. Colbert did the work +and the king paid for it. Protestants were objected +to. Girls, to be wives to the emigrants, were sent out from +Dieppe and Rochelle. In time, girls of indifferent virtue, +under the care of duennas, emigrated to meet the growing demand +for wives. ‘I am told,’ writes La Houtan, +‘that the plumpest were taken first, because it was +thought, being less active, they were more likely to keep at +home, and that they could resist the winter cold still +better.’ Further, such was the paternal care of the +king for Canada, that he attempted to found a colonial noblesse, +and offered bounties for children. The noblesse were a +doubtful boon: industrious peasants were much more to be +desired. Leading lazy lives, many of the gentilhommes soon +drifted into the direst poverty. The Canadians had one +advantage—their morals were well looked after by the +priests, who kindly took charge of their education as well. +<a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>Compared +with the New England man, the habitant had very much the +advantage. He was a skilful woodsman, able to steer his +canoe, a soldier and a hunter. Nevertheless, when +Wolfe’s army had scaled the heights of Abraham, and won +Canada for the British, it was the beginning of a new life.</p> +<p>‘England,’ writes Mr. Parkman, ‘imposed by +the sword on reluctant Canada the boon of rational and ordered +liberty. A happier calamity never befell a people than the +conquest of Canada by the British arms.’ But it was +not till the American Revolution had broken out, and the +royalists left the States to found in Canada a strong colony +attached to the British Crown, that Canada may be really said to +have been a part and parcel of the Empire, bone of our bone and +flesh of our flesh. It was necessary to move many of the +French Canadians elsewhere; and those who remained, still for +long looked with an unfriendly eye on England and her rule.</p> +<h2><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">OFF WITH THE EMIGRANTS—THE VOYAGE +OUT—THE ‘SARNIA’ THE COD-FISHERY.</p> +<p>One Wednesday at the end of April, last year, St. Pancras +Railway Station was the scene of a display not often matched even +in these demonstrative days. Mr. J. J. Jones, of the +Samaritan Mission, had arranged to take out a party of five +hundred emigrants to Canada—the first party of the +season. The event seemed to create no little excitement in +philanthropic circles. The Lord Mayor had promised to be +there, but he was detained in the City, possibly in defence of +the ancient Corporation of which he has become the champion; but +he sent a cordial letter, as did <a name="page17"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 17</span>many other distinguished people, to +express sympathy and goodwill.</p> +<p>In the absence of the Lord Mayor, the Earl of Shaftesbury, +after the emigrants had been got together in a waiting-room, +presided at a farewell meeting, which ought to have sent the +emigrants in the best of spirits to the new homes they expect to +find on the other side of the Atlantic. They would, said +his lordship, still be under the reign of our Queen. They +would confer a great blessing on the country whither they were +going, and they would show what they could do as good citizens in +subduing and replenishing the earth, and in spreading over the +world the Anglo-Saxon race. He hoped that the young men +present would come back to England for wives, and ended with his +best wishes for all in the way of a safe voyage and temporal and +spiritual good.</p> +<p>The Earl of Carnarvon, who next spoke, had this advantage over +the noble chairman, <a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>in that he had made a trip to Canada himself. The +emigrants, he said, would encounter difficulties. They were +not going to a paradise, but they would find that they had a +better chance of getting a living in the New World; especially if +they avoided bad company and the crowded towns, and got into the +country, and underwent a certain preparatory training. As +to Canada, it was a country in which a man would succeed who had +health and strength and industry, and a good head and a good +heart, and the fear of God to teach him that honesty was the best +policy.</p> +<p>Sir Henry Tyler, M.P., the chairman of the Grand Trunk +Railway, followed in a similar strain. The people were not +crowded up in Canada as they were here. It was a grand +country for honest, hard-working men and well-behaved women; but +he recommended them at first to seek good honest people to work +with, rather than high wages. <a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>Turning to the young women, he +assured them they would find good husbands in Canada—a +remark which seemed to give them much satisfaction; and he hoped +that they would have large families when they married, as large +families were a blessing out there.</p> +<p>Then came forward Mr. Clare Sewell Read, M.P., who, as a +countryman, said he saw some country bumpkins in the party, and +he could assure them, as he had been in Canada, its soil was +unrivalled for fertility.</p> +<p>Lord Napier of Magdala followed, and then came the Hon. Donald +A. Smith, one of the directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway, +to tell how people prospered in Canada who behaved well and +worked hard. The Rev. Oswald Dykes and the Rev. Burman +Cassin also addressed the audience; and there were others, such +as the Earl of Aberdeen, the Rev. W. Tyler, and the Rev. Styleman +Herring, who were ready to say a few words <a +name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>had time +permitted; but the train had to be packed up with passengers and +luggage, and there was no time to spare.</p> +<p>In a few minutes they were off, amidst tears and cheers, while +Mr. Jones and I, with Mr. Alexander Begg, of the Canadian Pacific +Railway, and the remainder of the emigrants, followed. A +little after five we arrived at Liverpool, and then Mr. Jones had +to work like a horse.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, I, with a couple of artistic friends, who are to +sketch us, all took our ease in our inn, from which comfortable +quarters I felt sadly indisposed to stir; but I had to see the +emigrants off, and my heart sank into my shoes as, looking at the +hundreds swarming the platform, and the pyramids of luggage, and +then at the <i>Sarnia</i> moored in mid-stream, the thought +suggested itself, How on earth can they all be stowed +away?—a query which, however, was soon settled, as, at a +later hour, I found myself on <a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>board the <i>Sarnia</i>, leaving +smoky Liverpool behind, and with the ship’s head turned to +the sunset ‘and the baths of all the Western +stars.’</p> +<p>The <i>Sarnia</i>, it may be as well to inform my readers, is +one of the screw-steamers running between Quebec and Liverpool, +by the Dominion Line, which line commenced its gay career in +1870. I ought to be very happy on board, since I learn, +from the attentive perusal of documents lying in the cabin, that, +owing to the lines in the model, the rolling of the ship is to a +great extent, not destroyed, but reduced, making a considerable +decrease in sea-sickness, and that in the book of rules and +regulations compiled for the guidance of the Dominion Line +officers, they must run no risk which might by any possibility +result in accident to the ship, and that they are further +requested to bear in mind that the safety of the lives and +property entrusted to their care is the ruling principle that +should <a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>govern them in the management of their ships. I +almost fancy I must have thrown away my money in insuring my life +against loss and my person against accidents. What have I +to fear, if the rules and regulations of the company be +observed? I am very glad, as it is, I did not insure for a +larger sum, though the agent, who, of course, had his eye on the +extra commission, was kind enough to suggest it were well to +insure for the larger sum, <i>in case the ship went +down</i>!—a thing not to be dreamed of.</p> +<p>I have consulted that oracle of our fathers—Francis +Moore. In his ‘Vox Stellarum’ he tells me, to +my comfort and satisfaction, that after the 25th of April the +winds will be light. Francis Moore, you may tell me, is not +weatherwise. Are the scientific meteorologists, with their +forecasts, wiser? It is hard to say.</p> +<p>It is a comfort to think that the emigrants are well off for +literature. The <i>Graphic</i> <a name="page23"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 23</span>company—whose last dividend, I +learn, was a good deal over a hundred per cent.—have sent a +tremendous packet of <i>Graphics</i>. The Bible Society +sent Testaments. The Religious Tract Society have placed at +Mr. Jones’s disposal tracts and books. The Rev. +Newman Hall has sent 250 books, while a goodly packet of the +‘Family Circle Edition’ of the <i>Christian World</i> +will, I dare say, be in much request—quite as much as the +five hundred sheets of hymns which the Earl of Aberdeen brought +with him on Wednesday to St. Pancras as his contribution to the +common stock. Yes, indeed, as my Welsh friends would say, +the lines for us are cast in pleasant places, and we have a +goodly heritage. It is to be hoped it may be so.</p> +<p>I never saw a more tidy lot of emigrants—some of them +evidently the right class to get on. I had an amusing chat +with one, who told me what inquiries he had made before he would +entrust Mr. J. J. Jones with ‘Cæsar <a +name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>and his +fortunes.’ If the emigrants are all like him, the +Yankees, if there be such in Canada, will find it rather +difficult to take them in. We swarm with children and +babies. I fear some of us will wish, before we reach the +St. Lawrence, that good King Herod was on board. Of course, +these are not my sentiments. I suppose most of us were +babies once—there is every reason to believe that I was; +nevertheless, the most gushing mother will admit that there are +times when even the sweetest of babes ceases to charm. My +companions in the smoking-room the first night were, however, by +no means babes. I had not been there half-an-hour before I +was offered 34,000 acres of land—abounding with fish and +game, and all that the carnal heart could desire—a decided +bargain. I did not close with the offer. Perhaps I +ought to have done so. But such earthly grandeur is beyond +my dreams.</p> +<p>Nothing can be drearier or more monotonous <a +name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>than a trip +to Canada in the early season of the year. After you leave +Ireland, you see no ships—nothing but the sea, grey and +dull as the heaven above. Now and then a whale comes up to +blow, and that is all; and when the wind blows hard, you get +nothing but big, lumpy waves, which set the ship rolling, and add +only to the discomforts. And then you are on the +Newfoundland banks, where you may spend dull days and duller +nights—now going at half-speed, now stopping altogether, +while the fog-horn blows dismally every few minutes, and whence +you can see scarcely the length of the ship ahead.</p> +<p>Like Oscar Wilde, I own that I am very much disappointed with +the Atlantic. The icebergs are monotonous—when you +have seen one, that is enough. In the saloon, we are a sad, +dull party; even in the smoking-room, one can scarcely get up a +decent laugh. I pity the poor emigrants in the steerage, +whom a clever young Irish <a name="page26"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 26</span>journalist on board, with the +instinct of his race, has failed to excite into a proper state of +indignation on account of the discomforts of the voyage, and the +hardness of the potatoes—always a matter of complaint in +all the ships that I have ever been on board of.</p> +<p>The raw, cold, damp fog has taken all the starch out of the +steerage passengers, always the first to grumble on sea, as they +are on shore; yet on one occasion they did go so far as to send a +deputation to the captain, and what, think you, was their +grievance?—that they had no sauce to their fish!—a +grievance of little account, when one thinks of the sauce we had +served up in the saloon.</p> +<p>As a rule, the steerage passengers are a difficult body to +deal with; they seem so helpless, and require so much looking +after. Mr. Jones has enough to do to look after his. +If they lose anything, however paltry, he is appealed to. +If they require anything not provided in the bill of fare, he is +sent for. It <a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>is very clear to me that his party have great +advantages. He has taken down all their occupations, and +when we arrive at Quebec they will all, if possible, be provided +with employment, and will be at once forwarded to their +destination, without loss of time or expenditure of cash. +Many of them are also assisted by his Society with small sums of +money, and in every way they are helped as few other emigrants +are.</p> +<p>We have on board a party of fifty-one lads, sent out by Dr. +Bowman Stephenson, who has a depôt somewhere near Hamilton, +and a helper is on board to take care of them. Some of them +are of very juvenile years, and, it is to be believed, in Canada +will find a far more favourable lot than they ever could in the +streets and slums of the East End.</p> +<p>‘What are you going to do?’ said I to one of them +the other morning.</p> +<p>‘Please, sir, I am going to be adopted,’ was the +reply; and adopted he will be by <a name="page28"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 28</span>some worthy couple who, having no +children of their own, are ready to give the little outcast a +home such as he never could have found in the old country.</p> +<p>We have also an agent on board, who, for a certain sum, agrees +to take young fellows out and to find them suitable +situations. That is a course I should not recommend. +A young fellow had far better keep that extra cash in his pocket, +get out as far into the North-west as he can, there hire himself +to some settler, who at this time of year is sure to be in need +of his services, and then in a year or two he will be able to get +a grant of land on his own account, on which, after three years +of real hard work, he will be able to live in peace and comfort, +and to achieve an independence of which he has no chance on our +side of the Atlantic.</p> +<p>It quite grieves me to think of the poor farmers I have known +at home, wasting their time and capital and strength in a +hopeless <a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span>effort to make both ends meet, who might be doing well +out here, with the certainty that their families will be left in +a comfortable position as far as this world’s goods are +concerned. One thing, however, I must strongly impress upon +the emigrant, and that is, the necessity of coming out in the +spring.</p> +<p>It is madness to cross the Atlantic in the autumn; when he +lands at Quebec, he will find nothing to do, and must live on his +capital, or starve till next spring; and if I might recommend a +ship, it certainly would be the <i>Sarnia</i>, on which I now +write. She is slow but sure. Her commander, Captain +Gibson, is all that a captain should be—not a brilliant +conversationalist, not one of those men who set the table in a +roar; but cautious, skilful, fully alive to the responsibilities +of his position and the dangers of his calling. As to the +dangers, it is impossible to exaggerate them. There are +more than a thousand of us on board, and were anything to happen, +<a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>not more +than three hundred of us could, I should think, be crowded into +the boats, provided that the sea were quite calm, and that we had +plenty of time to leave the ship; and in a panic and in bad +weather, it is clear that even such boats as the <i>Sarnia</i> is +supplied with would be of little avail. Safety seems to me +a mere matter of chance. You hit on an iceberg, and down +goes the ship with all on board, leaving no record behind.</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, I believe these big steamers often, on a +dark night, run down the vessels engaged in fishing off the +Newfoundland banks. When we passed, the season had scarcely +commenced. It is in May, towards the end of the month, that +the fishing commences. The chief fishermen are the French, +who mostly hail from St. Malo, and who have in the Gulf of +Newfoundland two small islands, which they use for +fish-curing. You get an idea of the extent of these +fisheries, when I tell you that the total <a +name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>value of them +amounts to three millions a year, and that the supply seems +inexhaustible. Romanists and High Churchmen who indulge in +salt cod in Lent have little cause to fear that that aid to true +religion will cease—at any rate, in our time. The +fishing season lasts until November, when the shoals pass on to +their winter quarters in deeper waters.</p> +<p>The delicate and the consumptive have many reasons for +thankfulness in connection with this fishery. What they +would do without the cod-liver oil, which has saved and +lengthened many a valuable life, it were hard to say. It is +to England that almost all the cod-liver oil comes. The cod +roe, pickled and barrelled, is exported almost entirely to +France, where it is in great demand, as ground-bait for the +sardine fishery. How great that demand is, the reader will +at once perceive when I tell him that no fewer than 13,000 boats +on the coast of Brittany are engaged in the sardine fishery +alone.</p> +<p><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>I ought +to say that these Quebec steamers are, as regards saloon +accommodation, and the class of people you meet with on board, +not quite on a par with those which ply between Liverpool and New +York. Perhaps the latter are fitted up almost too +splendidly. ‘When the stormy winds do +blow’—when everyone is ill—when you are in that +happy state of mind when man delights you not, or woman +either—the gilded saloons, the velvet cushions, the plate +glass and ornamented panels, seem quite out of place; to say +nothing of the luxurious dinners, which not everyone is able to +enjoy. Such things are better fitted for summer seas and +summer skies.</p> +<h2><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">ARRIVAL AT QUEBEC.</p> +<p>Once more I am on <i>terra firma</i>, and on Canadian soil, +where I breathe a balmier air and rejoice in a clearer atmosphere +than you in England can have any idea of. After all, we +were in twenty-four hours before the mail steamer, the +<i>Sarmatian</i>, which you must own is a feather in the cap of +the <i>Sarnia</i>. One hears much of the St. Lawrence, but +it is hard to exaggerate its beauties. When you are fairly +in it, after having escaped the fog of the Newfoundland Banks and +the icebergs of the Gulf, on you sail all day and night amidst +islands, and past mountains, their tops covered with snow, +stretching far away into the interior, <a name="page34"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 34</span>guarding lands yet waiting to be +tilled, and primeval forests yet ignorant of the +woodcutter’s axe. A hardy people, mostly of French +extraction, inhabit that part of the province of Quebec; but as +you reach nearer to the capital, the land becomes flatter, and +the signs of human settlement more frequent in the shape of +wooden houses, each with its plot of ground, where the rustics +carry on the daily work of the farm, or in the shape of villages, +inhabited by ship-wrecked fishermen, who have intermarried with +the French, and whose children, if they bear the commonest of +English names, are at the same time utterly ignorant, not only of +the tongue that Shakespeare spake, but of the faith and morals +Milton held. They are a lazy people, living chiefly on the +harvest of the sea, and doing little when that harvest is +over. Men are wanted to cut down timber, and they come in +gangs of two or three hundred, and spend a week in riotous +debauchery before they can <a name="page35"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 35</span>be got to work. Few English +settlers go into that region, yet they can easily make a living +there if they are inclined to rough it in the bush, and are not +afraid of coarse living and hard work. Villages, churches, +hotels, are all built of wood on a stone foundation, and, painted +as the houses are, they remind one not a little of Zaandam, and +the little wooden cottages you may see in that old quarter of the +world. But the original colonists are a poor people, living +frugally and with little desire for the comforts and luxuries of +life. It is the same in Quebec, where the poor all talk +French, and where the Protestants are in a very small +minority. In Quebec there is little to attract the +stranger. It looks its best at it stands on its picturesque +rock rising out of the St. Lawrence. You see the French +University, founded as far back as 1663 by that De Laval whose +name is so deeply interwoven with the French history of the +province. It is thus that his contemporaries <a +name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>describe +him. ‘He began,’ writes Mother Juchiereau de +Saint Denis, Superior of the Hôtel Dieu, ‘in his +tenderest years the study of perfection, and we have reason to +believe he reached it, since every virtue which St. Paul demands +in a bishop was seen and admired in him.’ Mother +Marie, Superior of the Ursulines, wrote: ‘I will not say +that he is a saint, but I may say with truth that he lives like a +saint and an apostle. We have ample evidence of the +austerity of his life. His servant, a lay-brother, +testified after his death that he slept on a hard bed, and would +not suffer it to be changed, even when it became full of +fleas. So great was his charity that he gave fifteen +hundred or two thousand francs to the poor every +year.’ ‘I have seen him,’ writes +Houssart, ‘keep cooked meat five or six, seven or eight +days, in the heat of summer, and when it was all mouldy and +wormy, he washed it in warm water, and ate it, and told me it was +very <a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>good. I determined to keep everything I could that +had belonged to his holy person, and after his death to soak bits +of linen in his blood when his body was opened, and take a few +bones and cartilages from his breast, cut off his hair, and keep +his clothes and such things to serve as most precious +relics.’</p> +<p>Then you see the spire of the English Cathedral, a very plain +building, and higher up still, the modern Parliament House, but +recently erected. Further on, you see the Dufferin +Promenade, which is a lasting record to the most popular of +English Governors-General; and higher up still is the citadel, +and beyond that are the plains of Abraham, where Wolfe fell in +the hour of victory.</p> +<p>The Presbyterians and Wesleyans have good congregations, but +the Baptists are not strong, in spite of the wonderful vitality +of the aged pastor, Mr. Marsh, who, octogenarian as he is, seemed +much more able to climb the <a name="page38"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 38</span>heights than the writer, who perhaps +was a little out of condition on account of the laziness of sea +life. One of the buildings with which I was most pleased +was that of the Young Men’s Christian Association (built +partly by the munificence of Mr. George Williams, of London, the +founder of the Young Men’s Christian Associations all the +world over), which is quite a credit to the place, and from the +top of which you get a magnificent view of the quaint old city, +with its gates and narrow streets, and the pleasant suburbs, and +the far-away plains and hills, amongst which the St. Lawrence or +the river Charles, which runs into it here, urges on its wild +career.</p> +<p>‘In a city where we have to contend,’ says the +last Report of the Association, ‘against great +disadvantages, where the Protestant population seems to be +gradually diminishing, and the young men seeking other fields of +enterprise, it is a matter of sincere thankfulness <a +name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>that we have +not to record a retrograde movement.’ It was with +regret that I saw that the Independent church, which is a fine +one, has had to close its doors. Another disadvantage +resulting from this decay of Protestantism is, that the +Protestants have to bear more than their fair share of taxation, +as the Roman Catholic churches and convents and nunneries, which +are wealthy, are exempt from taxation altogether. I fancy, +also, that the men employed at the extensive wharves are doing +all they can to drive the trade away, as they impose such +regulations as to the number of men to be employed in loading or +unloading ships, that now many of them load lower down the +river. However, the place is busy enough, especially on the +other side of the river, where the steamers land their +passengers, and where Miss Richardson has established a +comfortable home for girls and young women—which I +inspected—free of expense, as they arrive from England, and +<a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>seeks to +plant them out where their services may be required.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p40.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Falls of Montmorenci, Quebec" +title= +"Falls of Montmorenci, Quebec" +src="images/p40.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>One of our latest lady writers is very enthusiastic on the +subject of Quebec. I am sorry to say I cannot share in that +enthusiasm, and I was by no means disconsolate that I could not +stay to attend a convivial meeting to which I was invited by a +French colonist, one of our fellow-passengers. I was soon +tired of its dusty and narrows streets, and its pavements all +made of boards, and its priests and nuns. There are no +shops to look at worth speaking of, and the idea of riding in one +of the <i>caleches</i> was quite out of the question. +Nothing more rickety in the shape of a riding machine was ever +invented. It seemed to me that they were sure to turn over +as soon as you turned the corner. The <i>caleche</i> is +simply a little sledge on wheels. As a sledge I fancy it is +delightful, though by no means up to the sledges I have driven on +the Elbe in hard winters in days long long <a +name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>departed; but +as a carriage, drawn by a broken-down horse, with a driver almost +as wild as the original Indian, the <i>caleche</i>, I own, finds +little favour in my eyes. Up the town there does not seem +much life. There is plenty of it, however, in the shipping +district, where a great deal of building is going on.</p> +<p>Of one thing I must complain in connection with emigration, +and that is the pity the emigrants land at Quebec at all. +The steamers all go up to Montreal after they have shot down +their helpless crowd of emigrants on the wharf, where they have +to spend a dreary day waiting to get their luggage. How +much more pleasant it would be to take them right on to Montreal, +which, at any rate, is the destination of ninety-nine out of a +hundred at the very least. As it is, they are taken on by a +special train, which starts no one knows when, and which arrives +at Montreal at what hour it suits the railway authorities. +In that <a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>respect, it seems to me, there is room for great +improvement; but on this head I speak diffidently, as, perhaps, +the steamship owners and the railway companies know their own +business better than I do. The trip is a picturesque one, +and can be enjoyed in these short nights better on the deck of a +steamer than in a railway-car. [I am glad to hear since +writing the above that this state of things will not further +exist, and that every arrangement is now being made by the +Canadian Pacific Railway authorities for the speedy transfer from +the steamer to the train.] The more I see of matters, the +clearer it seems to me that large parties of emigrants should not +be sent out by themselves, but that they should be under the care +of some one who knows the country and the railway officials.</p> +<p>I am sorry to say, as regards some of the better class of +emigrants, the long delay at Quebec gave them an opportunity of +getting drunk, of which they seemed gladly to have <a +name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>availed +themselves. The future of some of these young fellows it is +not difficult to predict. In a little while they will have +exhausted their resources, and will return home disgusted with +Canada, and swearing that it is impossible to get a living +there. There was no need for them to go to an hotel at +all. In the yard there was a capital shed fitted up for +refreshments. I had there a plate of good ham, +bread-and-butter and jam, and as much good tea as I +wanted—all for a shilling. It was a boon indeed to +the emigrants we had landed from the <i>Sarnia</i> to find such a +place at their disposal.</p> +<p>As to myself, I need not assure you I was glad enough to find +myself in a Pullman car, bound for Montreal. I shed no +tears as we left Quebec far behind, and glided on under a +cloudless, moonlit sky, serenaded by those Canadian nightingales, +the frogs. At first I felt a little difficulty in retiring +to rest. As a modest man, I was inclined to object to the +<a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>presence +of so many ladies, although we had been on the best of terms +during our voyage out. It is true that they had their +husbands with them, but nevertheless I felt uncomfortable, and +vowed I would retreat to the smoking-room. However, I was +over-persuaded, and lay down with the rest; though more than once +that eventful night I was awoke by awful sounds, reminding me +rather of the hoarse roar of the Atlantic in a storm than of the +peaceful slumbers of a Pullman car.</p> +<h2><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +45</span>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">AT MONTREAL, AND ON TO +OTTAWA—INTERVIEWING AND INTERVIEWED.</p> +<p>One discovery I have made since I have been here is that +Canada has its clouded skies and its rainy days, and that a +Canadian spring may be quite as ungenial as an English one. +Yet it is, I still see, the country for a working man. And +I write this in full knowledge of the fact that here at Montreal +the charitable, on whom the poor depend—for there is no +poor-law in this country, and let us hope, seeing what mischief +has been done by poor-laws, there may never be one—have +been sorely exercised this winter how to feed the hungry, and to +clothe the naked, and to find <a name="page46"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 46</span>the outcast a home. But, mind +you, I only recommend the place for the poor agricultural +labourer or artisan; and already I find the larger portion of +such who have come out with me are in full work, and are thankful +that they have come, but they had to take anything that was +offered. It is clear this is not the country for clerks and +shop-lads, and the secretary of the Young Men’s Christian +Association—which I find here to be a flourishing +institution—writes:</p> +<p>‘Young men are coming by each steamer. Many of +them are introduced to us with excellent recommendations, and +have occupied good positions in England. Some have left +their situations on the representation of railway and steamboat +agents as to the opportunities in this country. We find it +absolutely impossible to secure employment for them in many +cases, business in every department has been so dull. +Almost all the houses have been employing hands that they <a +name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>could +dispense with. Reports from the West show the market +glutted as bad as in Montreal.’ And I fear things +have not improved since.</p> +<p>It is cruel to get such young men out of England. They +are worse off here than they would be at home. It is +curious to note, in connection with emigration, the evident +desire of the educated mechanic to keep his rivals out. +‘By all means bid them stop at home,’ he cries, +‘or wages will be lower in the colonies.’ +Already I have been interviewed by a working-class official here, +and that is his cry. And I give it for what it may be +worth, merely remarking that such illustrations as he gave in +support of his views turned out to be the merest moonshine.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p48.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Junction of the River Ottawa and St. Lawrence, Montreal" +title= +"Junction of the River Ottawa and St. Lawrence, Montreal" +src="images/p48.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Now let me speak of Montreal, which I entered with pleasure, +and leave with regret. It is the chief city of Canada, and +is built on the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, <a +name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>where the +muddy Ottawa, after a course of 600 miles, debouches into +it. You arrive by a grand railway bridge, which is one of +the wonders of this part of the world. The population is +nearly 200,000, of which two-thirds are French or Irish, and +Roman Catholic. It abounds with every sign of prosperity, +and, as a city, would be a credit to the old country. The +river front is lined with steamers loading for England. The +principal thoroughfares contain lofty buildings, and shops as +spacious as any of our best, whilst its hotels altogether throw +ours into the shade; and then, in the suburbs the merchants live +in palaces, whilst handsome churches attest the wealth, if not +the piety, of all classes of the population. I fear Mammon +worship is the prevailing form of idolatry, yet I cannot shut my +eyes to the fact that the early settlement of the place was the +result of religious enthusiasm, and that it was an attempt to +found in America <a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>a veritable kingdom of God as understood by the Roman +Catholics; but all that is past, and the chief topics of interest +are the prices of pork, or the state of the market as regards +butter and cheese. Let me remind you that such is the +goodness of the cheese of Canada, all made in factories, that +nearly as much cheese finds its way into the English market from +Montreal as from New York.</p> +<p>One thing especially strikes me, and that is the muscular +character of the young men. Montreal is a great place for +athletes. Montreal has hundreds of such, as it is not only +a centre of commerce, but the most important manufacturing city +in the Dominion—3,000 hands are employed in the manufacture +of boots and shoes. Then there are here the largest sugar +refineries and cotton mills and silk and cloth factories in +Canada, and the result is that, as these factories are nursed by +Protection, the towns are unnaturally crowded, and the people all +over <a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>the +country have to pay high prices for inferior articles, and the +Canadians, who ought to be making cheese and butter, and growing +corn for the artisans of Lancashire, are doing all they can to +reduce their best and most natural customers to a state of +starvation. ‘It is a shame,’ said a Canadian +manufacturer to me, only in language a little more emphatic, +‘that England allows any of her colonies to put prohibitory +duties on British products.’ And I quite agree with +my friend that it is a shame. However, as long as the +present Canadian Government are in power, there is no chance of +Free Trade. It was the Protection cry that placed the +Conservatives in power. With so many French as there are in +Canada, vainly dreaming of a restoration of French rule, it is +idle to talk of the interests of the mother country. Nor +does Great Britain deserve very well of the Canadians. Up +to almost the present time it has held them <a +name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>to be of +little account, and, as we all know, it is not so very long since +it suffered Brother Jonathan to annex that part of Maine in which +Portland is situated, and thus to deprive Canada of its only +winter harbour.</p> +<p>For one thing Montreal is to be highly commended, and that is +on account of its hotels. The Windsor Hotel, in Dominion +Square, is one of the finest hotels in America, and as you enter +you are quite bewildered at the magnificence of the +entrance-hall. A curious thing happened to me there. +Mr. Hoyle and Mr. Barker, of the U.K. Alliance, had come there +after a pilgrimage in the States, and it was determined to give +them a reception. I had a ticket, and went for about an +hour, chatting pleasantly with readers, who had known me by +repute, and were glad to shake hands with me. Imagine my +horror when, in the next morning’s paper, I read that the +reception had been got up by Temperance friends for me, as <a +name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>well as +Messrs. Hoyle and Barker, and that my humble name figured first +on the list. Perhaps this was meant as a consolation to +me. I had been interviewed on the previous day, and the +papers had spoken of me in such complimentary terms that I felt +almost a lion.</p> +<p>Alas! in America interviewing is quite a common-place affair, +and it gives no <i>éclat</i> to be interviewed. +People sat smoking in the hall as I passed, utterly unconscious +of the fact. Yet the reporters did their best. One of +them called after I was gone to bed. He said he was not +going to be scooped out by the other fellow, whatever that may +mean. Virtue in his case was not rewarded. I kept to +my bed, and left the enterprising reporter to do the best he +could.</p> +<p>I ought to say a word of the hotel at which I +stopped—the Lawrence Hall, in James’s +Street—which I strongly recommend to all, especially to +such of my friends as <a name="page53"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 53</span>may be contemplating a visit to +Montreal. The bedrooms are beautifully clean, the cooking +is excellent, and the service is admirable. It enjoys a +tremendous amount of support. I was there just forty-eight +hours, and I counted as many as two hundred names of arrivals +after me, and yet, in spite of the crowd, there was ample +accommodation for all, and I and my friends dined as comfortably +and quietly as if we had been at home. The proprietor, Mr. +Hogan, is a gentleman with whom it is a pleasure to +converse. Nor are his charges high.</p> +<p>It is a sight to sit in the hall and watch the ever-shifting +crowd, or to stray into the shaving apartment, where a dozen +barbers are always hard at work. I own I became a victim, +and paid a shilling for a performance which in London only costs +me sixpence; but in London I simply have my hair cut, here I was +under the care of a ‘professional artist.’ I +quote his card: <a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +54</span>‘Physiognomical hairdresser, facial operator, +cranium manipulator, and capillary abridger.’ I could +not think of offering so distinguished a professor less than a +shilling. But the fact is, you can’t travel cheaply +either in Canada or the United States.</p> +<p>It goes sadly against the grain to pay fivepence for having +one’s boots blacked, and the way in which your change is +doled out to you is not pleasant, and adds materially to the +difficulties of the situation. For instance, I had a +certain American coin the other day pressed into my reluctant +hands on the express understanding that it was to go for ten +cents. I paid it to a ferryman, who said it was only worth +eight, and then, on that supposition, he managed to cheat me; and +I had to appeal to a friend of mine, who told me that I had not +the right change, before I could get the man to give me my due; +directly, however, the mistake was pointed out he rectified it, +thus acknowledging, <a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +55</span>in the most barefaced manner, his attempt to cheat; and +the beauty of it was, I was with a great man of the place, who +witnessed the whole transaction, and never said a word, +apparently looking upon it as a matter of course.</p> +<p>I fear there is a good deal of villainy in the world, and that +it is not confined to America. Travellers are bound to be +victimised, and the best thing you can do is to laugh. I +own I did so at Liverpool the other day, as I was waiting for the +tugboat to take me off to the <i>Sarnia</i>. I knew that I +had not made a mistake, I knew that the tug was sure to come; yet +four big hulking fellows with brazen faces would have made me +believe that I was too late for the tug, and that my only chance +of getting on board was for me to let them row me out. In +that case the attempt was the more rascally, as from a small +row-boat I could never have boarded the <i>Sarnia</i> had <a +name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>I +tried. Yet there they stood—sullen and +expectant—for a quarter of an hour, taking me, possibly, +for a bigger fool even than I look.</p> +<p>‘It is a pity,’ said a Canadian lady to me, +‘that Queen Victoria’—for whom all Canada prays +that long may she reign over us, happy and +glorious—‘fixed upon Ottawa as the site of the +Government.’</p> +<p>I am very much inclined to a similar feeling. At +Montreal the change of water affected me very disagreeably. +At Ottawa I was completely floored. It is a curious fact +that almost everyone who goes to Ottawa is taken ill. I was +complaining of my first terrible night to Sir Leonard Tilley, the +Finance Minister, and he said that when he first came to Ottawa +it was the same with him.</p> +<p>A lady told me that Lady Tupper, who has just left the Colony +for England, where, it is said, her lord and master hopes to find +<a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>a seat in +the Imperial Parliament—a consummation devoutly to be +wished, as to my mind it is clear that all our colonies should +have representatives in Parliament—made a similar complaint +as to the effect of the place on her children, and I have it on +the best authority that scarcely a session passes but an M.P. +pays the penalty of a residence in Ottawa.</p> +<p>In my case I was preserved, as the man in the ‘Arabian +Nights’ says, for the greater misfortunes yet to befall me +by the use of Dr. Browne’s far-famed +‘Chlorodyne’—an indispensable requisite, I am +bound to say, when an emigrant takes his trial trip to +Canada. I know not who is the inventor—I believe it +is what we call a patent medicine—that is, a medicine not +sanctioned by the faculty—but, as has been observed of the +Pickwick pen, it is indeed a boon and a blessing to men. I +used ‘Chlorodyne,’ and was soon all right. Sir +Leonard <a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>Tilley told me he did the same, and no one should go to +Ottawa without having a small bottle of it in his carpet-bag.</p> +<p>Yet Ottawa is not without a certain freshness of beauty that +one associates <i>primâ facie</i> with perfect +health. The stately Government buildings, all of grey +stone, are placed on a hill, whence you have a peerless view of +river and country and distant hill, and far away forests all +around. A more picturesque site it would be assuredly most +difficult to find. As to the town itself, it is a curious +compound—almost Irish in that respect—of splendour +and meanness. There are magnificent shops—and then +you come to wooden shanties, which in such a city ought long ere +this to have been improved off the face of the earth. If on +a rainy day, unless very careful, you attempt to cross the +streets, you are in danger of sticking in the mud, which no one +seems to ever think of removing, and in many parts <a +name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>there are +disgraceful holes in the plank pavement on which you walk, which +are dangerous, especially to the aged and infirm.</p> +<p>In Ottawa the contrasts are more violent than I have seen +elsewhere. Everyone comes to the place. It is the +headquarters of the Dominion. I met there statesmen, +adventurers, wild men of the woods, or prairie, deputies from +Manitoba, lawyers from Quebec, sharpers and honest men, all +staying at one hotel; and it seemed strange to sit at dinner and +see great rough fellows, with the manners of ploughmen, quaffing +their costly champagne, and fancying themselves patterns of +gentility and taste. In one thing they disappointed +me. Sir Charles Tupper was to leave for England, and his +admirers met outside the hotel to see him off. There was a +carriage and four to convey him to the station, and other +carriages followed. There was a military band in <a +name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>attendance, +much to the disgust of the Opposition journals—and yet, in +spite of all, the cheers which followed the departing statesman +were so faint as to be perfectly ridiculous to a British ear, and +seemed quite out of proportion to all the display that had been +made. Certainly they seemed quite childish compared with +those which greeted a certain individual, whose name delicacy +forbids my mentioning, when, on the last night on board the +<i>Sarnia</i>, he ventured humbly to reply to the toast of the +Press which had been given in the smoking-room by a Quebec artist +returning home from study in Paris.</p> +<p>In Ottawa, certainly, there is no demand for emigrants, unless +it be good female servants, who are wanted much more, and can +have much more comfortable living, at home. A lady asked me +to send her a few good servants from England. I replied +that my wife wanted them as much as she did, and <a +name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>that it was +my duty to attend to her requirements first.</p> +<p>It is curious the airs the raw servant-girls from Ireland give +themselves out here. One day, when I was at Peterborough, +one of the head-quarters of the lumber trade—which +yesterday was a dense forest, and is now a town of 8,000 +people—I heard of the arrival of a lot of girls from +Galway. The drill-hall was set apart for their use, and +there they were respectfully waited on by the chief ladies of the +district in need of that rarest of created beings—a good +maid-of-all-work. In this particular case one of the +arrivals was fixed on.</p> +<p>‘What can you do?’ said the lady.</p> +<p>The girl seemed uncertain on that point.</p> +<p>‘Can you wash?’</p> +<p>‘Oh no!’</p> +<p>‘Can you cook?’</p> +<p>‘Oh no!’</p> +<p>‘Can you do housemaid’s work?’</p> +<p><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>Well, +she thought she could.</p> +<p>Then came the question of wages.</p> +<p>‘Will you take eight dollars a month?’</p> +<p>No, she would not. Would she accept of nine? Oh +no! Would she take ten? Certainly not.</p> +<p>‘What do you want?’ said the lady, beginning to be +alarmed.</p> +<p>‘They told me I was to have twelve dollars a +month,’ said the girl, and that put a stop to the +negotiation.</p> +<p>When I state that an English sovereign is worth at this time +four dollars and eighty-six cents, I think you will agree with me +that this charming daughter of Erin somewhat overrated the value +of her services. The Canadians are a well-to-do people, but +they cannot afford twelve dollars a month for a mere +housemaid. I think it would be well if the respectable +young women—of whom there are thousands in England who do +not care for the pittance given to a governess, and <a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>who prefer +the life of a lady-help—were to come out. They would +soon be appreciated.</p> +<p>The average girl selected to be sent out to the colony, so far +as I have seen her, is not a model of loveliness or +utility. Were I a Canadian mother, I would sooner have a +lady-help. Nor need the lady-help be afraid of the +roughness of her lot. In Ontario, all the difficulties of +the pioneers of civilization have long since disappeared. +One hears strange tales of what those brave men and delicately +nurtured ladies had to suffer.</p> +<p>I have seen two—whom I had known when a boy—who +were familiar with the best of London literary society, who +figured in all the annuals of the season, who were famous in +their day, whose sires came over with William the +Conqueror. They were sisters, and married two officers, who +had land allotted to them in Canada, and brought out these +wellborn and delicately nurtured women into what was then a +waste, howling wilderness, where <a name="page64"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 64</span>they had to slave as no servant-girl +slaves in England, and to fight with the severity of the climate +in a way of which the present generation of Canadians have no +idea. Only think, for instance, of your joint roasting at +the fire on one side and freezing on the other! In the +settled parts of Canada, such horrors are now amongst the +pleasant reminiscences of the past.</p> +<p>But I must return to Ottawa, where the universal testimony of +all the heads of the Government was to the effect that Canada is +the place for the poor, hard-working man. There is an +emigration-office in every town, where the emigrant is sure to +hear of work, if work is to be had.</p> +<p>Canada is a charming place for the traveller. He sees +friends everywhere. Mr. John H. Pope, Minister of +Agriculture, and Mr. John Lowe, Secretary, were especially useful +in aiding me. As I called on the Minister of Finance, he +insisted on <a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +65</span>my seeing the Premier—Sir John Macdonald—who +came out of a Council to give me a friendly chat for half an +hour, and who kindly asked me to call on him again on my +return. In Canada the Council sits almost daily, and the +sitting generally lasts from two till six, as all the business +which is left in England to the departments, in Canada is +transacted in the Council. Sir John seemed to think that a +good deal of time was wasted in speeches in Parliament, which +were intended not for the House, but for the constituents +outside: in this respect the Canadian Parliament much resembles a +more august assembly nearer home.</p> +<p>I had also the honour of an interview with the Marquis of +Lansdowne at the Government House, in a pretty park about a mile +out of the town. His lordship enjoys his residence at +Ottawa very much, and said he should leave it with regret. +His idea seemed to be that now was the time for English farmers +with a little capital to come out to Ontario, <a +name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>as the old +farmers are selling off their farms and going further, to take up +large tracts of land in the North-West; and I think many English +farmers would be wise if they adopted some such plan. The +Province is called the Garden of Canada.</p> +<p>At present I have seen no very superior land. There is a +good deal of sand where I have been and wheat-growing is out of +the question; but the barley is excellent, and is in great demand +in the United States, and a good deal of money is made by raising +stock and horses. At any rate, no farmer here is in danger +of losing all his capital—most of them are well off, and +their sons and daughters prosper as well.</p> +<p>Let me give a few further particulars respecting Sir John +Macdonald—perhaps the most abused, and the hardest working +man, in all Canada. He has good Scotch blood in his +veins. In the thirteenth century one of his ancestors looms +up as <a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>Lord +of South Kintyre and the Island of Islay. When the +emigration movement to Canada began, a descendant of this +Macdonald settled in Kingston, then the most important town in +Upper Canada, and, next to Halifax and Quebec, the strongest +fortress in British North America. He was accompanied by +the future Premier, then a lad of five years of age. The +boy was placed at the Royal Grammar School of Kingston, under the +tuition of Dr. Wilson, a fellow of the University of Oxford, and +subsequently under that of Mr. George Baxter. Meanwhile, +his father moved to Quinté Bay, near the Lake of the +Mountain, a lonely, wild country, in which the future Canadian +statesman was often to be seen in the holiday time, with a +fishing rod in his hand, with other companions as gay-hearted as +himself. At that time he is described as having ‘a +very intelligent and pleasing face, strange furry-looking hair, +that curled in a dark mass, and a striking nose.’</p> +<p><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>Indeed, +Sir John’s admirers see in him a resemblance to the late +Lord Beaconsfield, and that there is a slight resemblance the +most superficial observer must admit. As a lad, Sir John +seems to have specially distinguished himself in +mathematics. His master also, we are told, frequently +exhibited the clean-kept books of young Macdonald to some +careless student for emulation, and as often selected specimens +of the neat penmanship of the boy, to put to shame some of the +slovenly writers of his class.</p> +<p>At sixteen young Macdonald commenced the study of law, to +which he devoted three years. The gentleman to whom he was +articled speaks of him as the most diligent student he had ever +seen. Before he was twenty-one years of age he was admitted +to the Bar, opened an office at Kingston, and at once began to +practise his profession. ‘He was,’ says a +fellow-student, ‘an exemplary young man, and had the +goodwill of everybody. <a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>He remained closely at his business, +never went about spreeing, or losing his time, with the young men +of his own age and standing, did not drive fast horses, but was +always to be found at his post in his office, courteous, +obliging, and prompt.’ When Sir John commenced his +legal career, the country was full of revolution, and every +county in Canada had its Radicals ready to take up muskets or +pitchforks against the oppressor. Sir John, though a Tory, +was often the means of doing good service to his friends of the +opposite party. In defending a rebel who was tried for +murder, the future Premier gained his first legal success. +It was a time of intense excitement, and crowds thronged to see +the prisoners and hear the trials. Everyone was struck with +the masterly character of Sir John’s defence; and though +they knew it was not within the power of human tongue or brain to +save the prisoner, they admired the skill with which he +marshalled <a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>his arguments, the tact he displayed in his appeal to +the judges, and, above all, the deep interest he displayed in the +cause of his unfortunate client. This was in 1838; from +that date Sir John was looked to as a rising man. In a +little while afterwards he commenced his stormy political +career.</p> +<p>In 1841 Kingston was made the seat of Government, and Sir John +was returned to Parliament, in place of a politician who had lost +his popularity. The assembly was an excited one, and +everyone made furious speeches, with the exception of the new +member, who sat unmoved at his desk while the fray went on, +looking, says a gentleman who well remembers him there, half +contemptuous and half careless. In 1844, he commenced his +executive career by being appointed to the Standing Orders +Committee. His first speech was delivered with an easy air +of confidence, as captivating as it was rare. The time +ripened rapidly. The <a name="page71"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 71</span>old Tory Compact Party was being +swiftly broken up, and when Lord Elgin arrived in Canada, a new +Government was formed, with Sir John as Receiver-General. +In a little while he was moved to the Office of Crown Lands, then +the most important department in the public service, and one that +in the past had been most shamefully, if not most criminally +abused, but he was soon out of office, and a new Ministry came +into force, pledged to a Bill for the indemnification of parties +in Lower Canada whose property had been destroyed in the +rebellion. There were awful riots. The Parliament +buildings in Montreal were burned, and it seemed as if the old +feud between Frenchman and Englishman had been roused, never more +to die.</p> +<p>Lord Elgin was ready to return to England The reformers were +strong, but Macdonald did not despair. The new Government, +amongst other things, were pledged to <a name="page72"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 72</span>increased parliamentary +representation, the abolition of seignorial tenure, and the +secularization of the Clergy Reserves. Of the Government +that attempted to do this, Sir John was a bitter opponent, on the +ground that they had hesitated about questions which had set the +country in a blaze. The Government had to retire, and in +the Liberal-Conservative Ministry which succeeded to office we +find Mr. Macdonald Attorney General, and he held office till he +was defeated in his Militia Bill. He returned to office, +however, in time to carry a confederation of the Colonies, and to +become Premier, when Lord Monck was Governor-General.</p> +<p>Since he has been at the head of affairs the Hudson Bay +Company has handed over its gigantic territory in the North West +to the Dominion. That great work, the Canada Pacific +Railway, has nearly been brought to a successful termination, and +Canada <a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>has +taken a leap upwards and onwards to matured life and +independence, of which not yet have we seen the end. It is +a terrible scene of personal attack, political life in +Canada. Even since Parliamentary Government has been +established, the fight between the ins and the outs has been +bitter and constant. No one can understand it, unless he is +a native of the country; and it says much for Sir John that he +has risen to the top, and kept himself there so long. To +have done so, he must have possessed more merit than his enemies +give him credit for.</p> +<h2><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">TORONTO—THE TOWN—THE +PEOPLE—CANADIAN AUTHORS—THE LEADER OF THE +OPPOSITION.</p> +<p>Toronto, or the Queen City of the West, as she loves to call +herself, stands upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, and has not +only achieved a great success, but may be said, in spite of all +the moving to the North-West of which we hear so much, to have a +great future before it, on account of its position with regard to +railways, which alone in this great country decide the fate of +towns and cities. Immediately in front is a broad bay, from +which you get an imposing view of the city, while its forest of +spires and factory chimneys gives evidence of prosperous and busy +life. I have <a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +75</span>never been in a city where the Sabbath was more strictly +observed. The omnibus ceases to run on a Sunday, the cab is +locked up, and even the cigar-store is closed. At seven on +Saturday evening all the liquor-shops are shut, and in Toronto, +as in all the Province, no one can buy a drop of whisky, or wine, +or beer, till a decent hour on Monday morning. It is true, +I was invited one Sunday to go and have a glass of whisky and +water—an offer which, it is needless to say, I refused; but +then, had I accepted the offer, I should have had to go into a +club of which my friend was a member. In Canada, as in +England, the club-member may indulge his taste, however strictly +the abstinence of his less fortunate brother may be enforced by +law. But the Sunday quiet of Toronto is remarkable. +There are few people but church-goers in the streets, and the +churches of all religious denominations are quite as numerous and +quite as handsome as any we have in England. <a +name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>They are all +built on a larger scale, and are all well-filled. On Sunday +evening I had to light my way into the Congregational church, of +which Dr. Wild is the minister. He hails from America, and +is quite the sensation of the hour. There was no +standing-room anywhere, and as I made to the door I met many +coming away. However, I had made up my mind to hear the +Doctor, and hear him I did. It seems that the subscribers +have a door to themselves; I made for it, and luckily found a +chair, which I wedged in under the platform. As I entered, +the Doctor was making the people laugh by answering questions +that had been sent to him in writing. Then we had quite a +service of song. The choir behind him performed, a lady +sang a solo, the congregation joined in a well-known English +hymn. The Doctor prayed, and then we had a sermon about +Revelation, containing much that was very effective, if not about +his text, at any rate about that mysterious part of Scripture <a +name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>from which +the text was taken. The Doctor is now in the prime of life, +and his preaching powerful and effective. The audience +consisted chiefly of men; perhaps that may be considered in the +Doctor’s favour. One thing did surprise me, and that +was to see seated at a table right under the pulpit platform a +reporter coolly taking notes. Our English reporters in a +place of worship on a Sunday are certainly more modest, and +prefer to blush unseen.</p> +<p>Toronto rises up, with its grand public buildings, proudly +from the shore. The site of the city was very marshy, and +at one time it was known as Muddy York. Only yesterday a +lady was telling me how her mother was near losing her life in +the mud of the chief street, leaving behind her the English +pattens of which she was so proud. The further from the +lake, the more the land rises, till you reach where, as Tom Moore +wrote—</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>‘The blue hills of old Toronto shed<br /> +Their evening shadows o’er Ontario’s bed.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p78.jpg"> +<img alt= +"King Street, Toronto" +title= +"King Street, Toronto" +src="images/p78.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In 1812 the population of the place was under 1,000. It +is now, including the suburbs, where some of the wealthiest +citizens live in houses as well-built and as luxuriously fitted +up as any in London, about 116,000. King Street, the +principal one, is built up with substantial brick and stone +buildings, many of which are equal to any on the American +Continent. Forty years since, it was completely composed of +wooden structures, and was barely passable to pedestrians. +Now, it is adorned with stately stores, where the latest +novelties of the Old World and the New are ostentatiously +displayed. The public buildings are quite an ornament to +the place, and the offices of the leading newspaper, <i>The +Toronto Mail</i>, are one of the sights of the city. The +yearly civic income and expenditure is over 2,000,000 dollars, +and the assessed value of property last year <a +name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>was +61,942,581 dollars. The streets are spacious, well laid +out, and regularly built. The two main arteries of the city +are King and George Streets, which, crossing each other at right +angles, divide the city into four large sections. I +don’t think house-rent is cheap. I have been in one +or two private houses, the rents of which seemed to me certainly +dearer than would be the rents of similar houses in London. +But, then, in Toronto—think of it, O respected +Paterfamilias!—the best cuts of meat are about eightpence a +pound, and prime butter is not much more, and—Sir Henry +Thompson will rejoice to hear this—there is a plentiful +supply of fish. The city also boasts of fine theatres, and +halls, and colleges; while the Episcopalian Cathedral in James +Street possesses the celebrated chimney and illuminated clock +which took the first prize at the Vienna Exhibition, and which +was purchased by the citizens, and presented to the Dean <a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>and +churchwardens of the place on Christmas-eve, 1876. They +tell me, however, that the strongest body of Christians in the +city is that of the Wesleyans. I am staying at Walker +House, the most comfortable place which I have discovered thus +far. Toronto itself offers few opportunities to the +emigrant, and the citizens are not enthusiastic in his +favour. I met a reverend gentleman from England here, who, +the other night, at a meeting of mechanics, vainly endeavoured to +say a word in favour of emigration, and had to desist under the +threat that if he did not they would knock off his head. +The mechanics here are very much afraid that if more of their own +class come out, wages will be lowered. Nor are Irish +emigrants in much favour here, as they stop in the city instead +of going into the country in search of work, and have to be +supported by the charitable and humane. Only a few days +since a large batch of Irish arrived. Work had been found +<a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>for them +which they agreed to accept, and they were on the point of being +forwarded, when they were got at by the Irish already in the +city, and now they refuse to budge.</p> +<p>The other day I met Dr. Barnardo’s agent, who has come +out with some of his trained boys to settle them in Peterborough, +where Mr. G. A. Cox, the Mayor of the place, has kindly given a +commodious house for their use. Already, I believe, the +Doctor has sent out 780 boys and about 470 girls, who have all +been planted out. Mr. W. Williams, of the <i>Chichester</i> +and <i>Arethusa</i>, has sent many more, and so have others, of +whom I hope to hear tidings in the course of my travel. The +manager of Dr. Barnardo’s home at Peterborough, in answer +to inquiries from the farmers and others, writes that boys from +seven to twelve years of age are usually sent out on terms of +<i>adoption</i>, to be treated in every respect as children of +the <a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>household, and to receive, on attaining their +twenty-first birthday, a sum of not less than one hundred and +fifty dollars. Boys of thirteen and over are hired as +‘helps,’ at wages varying from thirty-five to +ninety-five dollars per annum, with lodging, food, and medical +attendance. Girls are sent out at ages ranging from four to +sixteen years. Those of eleven and under are usually +<i>adopted</i> into families; while those of twelve and upwards +are hired at wages from two dollars to nine dollars a month, with +board, lodging, washing, and medical attendance. The utmost +care is taken that these children should be placed in good +hands. The applicant for a child has to get his letter +recommended by a clergyman or magistrate; then he has to give his +Christian name and surname in full, his address, his occupation; +to say if he hires his farm, or if it is his own; whether he is a +member of a Christian Church; what work the child will have to +perform; on what <a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>terms the child comes into the family; what length of +engagement is desired; what church the child will attend; and so +on.</p> +<p>Moreover, Dr. Barnardo’s system provides for the regular +and frequent visitation of every young emigrant at his or her +place of employment; the girls by a lady of great experience, the +boys by a gentleman. By this means the children are never +lost sight of, and trustworthy reports of their progress and +whereabouts are periodically furnished to the heads of the +institution in England.</p> +<p>Now, I call attention to this plan, not merely to increase +confidence in the labours of philanthropists who are sending out +children to Canada, but in order to raise the question, why it is +only the children of the destitute and the wild arabs of the +street that are to have this advantage. There must be many +poor people in England who have sons, perhaps a little too plucky +for home, who could pay to send out their lads, and would <a +name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>be glad to do +so, if they saw a chance of their being placed in good +hands. There are many boys who would be glad to leave the +somewhat overcrowded house, and who would rejoice to fight the +battle of life in the New World under such advantageous +conditions. Why should they not have a chance? Why +should the destitute only be looked after? Why should not +some one in the same way lend a helping hand to the honest son of +the honest working man? It may be that his father may be +too old to emigrate. It may be that he is doing fairly well +at home, and that it is not worth his while to emigrate. +But why should not his son have a chance, and be sent out under a +system as excellent as that to which I have referred? +Assuredly that is a question to be asked by others.</p> +<p>But Dr. Barnardo says in his magazine, <i>Night and Day</i>, +that much injury to the work of emigration has been effected by +supposing that boys who have committed grave moral <a +name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>faults can do +well, if only shipped off to Canada. He contends that a +number of young fellows of <i>that</i> sort sent to Canada, would +seriously prejudice the prospects of emigration generally; and he +urges in very strong terms that none but boys and girls of +thoroughly good physique, industrious, honest, and of good +general character, should be encouraged to emigrate upon any +pretext whatever.</p> +<p>Previous to my leaving Toronto I had the pleasure of an +interview with the Hon. Edward Blake, the head of the Opposition, +whose utterances are watched and waited for by all parties in the +State with breathless interest. Travelling from Winnipeg, I +had listened to a conversation on that gentleman’s merits +by two young gentlemen—who were a little incoherent in +their language, owing to the quantity of refreshment they had on +board—which certainly somewhat raised my +expectations. Nor was I disappointed <a +name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>on my +personal interview with the subject of their praise.</p> +<p>The Hon. Edward Blake is a man in the prime of life, of fresh +complexion, of more than average height and build, with a keen +and intellectual face. He was born in Canada, was educated +at the University, followed his father in the profession of the +bar, and as a cross-examiner, especially of an unwilling witness, +and in the art of turning a man inside out, may claim to have no +equal in Canada at the present time. He has visited Europe +more than once—at one time in an official +capacity—has mixed with our public men as well as with +those of the Continent, has been in office, and, it is believed, +will soon be in office again. He received me with great +courtesy, and talked on things in general in a lively and +interesting manner. On the Province of Ontario as a home +for the British farmer he had much to say.</p> +<p>Taking me to the map hanging up in his <a +name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>office, and +pointing to the district between Toronto and Detroit, he affirmed +that there was no finer land to be found anywhere in the United +States. His first constituency was a very poor +one—consisting of English settlers and others who had gone +there with very little, if any, money, and they had all done +well, and their children were now mostly wealthy men. He +did not approve of the Government plan of emigration; but he did +think there was a fine field in Canada for the British farmer and +his men. As to mechanics, he thought the look-out was +poor. The mechanic in that part of the world leads a very +migratory life. Such was the facility offered by railways, +which ran in all directions, that a slight rise in the rate of +wages would send him wherever that rise was to be found. At +the present time there was a depression of trade in the United +States, and wages were low. In Canada the wages were a +little higher, and he looked to <a name="page88"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 88</span>an emigration from the United States; +and then the wages in Canada would go down.</p> +<p>The British mechanic would thus have to face a double +difficulty—the competition of the Canadian and the American +mechanic alike. I must add, however, that this was not the +view of an English mechanic who had been settled in Toronto some +years, and with whom, subsequently, I had some chat. His +opinion was that any first-class English mechanic who came out +would do well, while he frankly admitted that an inferior hand +would have no chance whatever.</p> +<p>But to return to Mr. Blake. It is evident, though he and +his party are supposed to be in favour of Free Trade—and it +is a matter of fact that they were driven from place and power by +a Protectionist outcry—that he does not consider the +question of Free Trade from an English standpoint at all. +It will be long ere Canada will lift up her voice in favour of +Free Trade. In Canada <a name="page89"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 89</span>there is no such thing as direct +taxation, and as money has to be raised for the support of +Government, it is felt it is easier to do that by means of a duty +on foreign manufactures than by taking it directly out of the +pockets of the people.</p> +<p>Just now there is a feeling growing up in favour of Free Trade +with America; but that will not aid the British manufacturer one +jot. The system of duties between Canada and America is an +enormous nuisance, when one thinks of the daily personal and +commercial intercourse between the two countries. For +instance, I lost by changing English money into Canadian dollars; +and then again, when I had to change Canadian dollars into +American greenbacks, I had to submit to a further loss. +This was not pleasant, especially when you remember that every +time you cross the frontier—and people are doing it +daily—you have to submit to a disagreeable examination on +the <a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>part +of Custom House officers. Surely Canada and America will +before long have to come to a better understanding than that +which at present exists. Of course, I write under +correction. I am an outsider.</p> +<p>‘Can you tell me,’ I said to the Hon. E. Blake, +‘how I am to get to a knowledge of Canadian +politics?’</p> +<p>His reply, and it was delivered with a smile, was:</p> +<p>‘By living in the country some five or six +years.’</p> +<p>Under such circumstances I feel, with the poet, that +‘where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be +wise.’</p> +<p>On one thing Mr. Blake was silent—nor did I allude to +it: that was the question of Canadian independence. It is +raised in many quarters, it is almost daily discussed in the +Canadian newspapers. People are waiting to hear what Mr. +Blake has to say on it. At present the oracle is +dumb. When <a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +91</span>the question is settled you may be sure sentiment will +have little to do with it; on this side of the Atlantic, at any +rate, that sort of thing goes a very little way when the almighty +dollar is at stake. But the question to be asked is, How +long Canadian independence will stand the cry for annexation with +the United States that will then be raised?</p> +<p>One of the pleasures attending my visit to Toronto was the +finding out Mrs. Moodie—whose ‘Roughing It in the +Bush’ did so much to help English people to understand the +hardships of Canadian life some forty years ago. She was +the youngest sister of Agnes Strickland; and, like her, wrote +books for children, and tales and poems for the annuals, then the +rage. She then married a Major Moodie, and went out to +Canada, and I had not seen her since I was a raw lad; but of her +kindness and her talent I had a distinct impression, and it was +with real <a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>pleasure that I found her living at an advanced +age—but in peace and comfort—at her son’s, a +gentleman connected with the Inter-Colonial Railway. The +sprightly lady of 1834, eager and enthusiastic, had become an +elderly one in 1884; yet time had dealt gently with her, and her +youth seemed to me to revive as she talked of her old Suffolk +home, and of men and women long since gone over to the +majority.</p> +<p>I was glad to find that she had made her mark in Canadian +literature. An intelligent Canadian critic, Mr. J. E. +Collins, whose acquaintance I was privileged to make—as +well as that of his friend, Mr. Charles Robins, a poet of whom +Canada may well be proud—writes of Mrs. Moodie: ‘So +perfect a picture is Mrs. Moodie’s book of the struggles, +the hopes, the dark days, and the sun-spots of that obscure life +that fell to her lot in the forest depths, that its whisperings +form a delightful music to the <a name="page93"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 93</span>memory. The style is limpid as +a running brook, picturesque, and abounding with touches that +show a keen insight into character, and an accurate observation +of external things. There is no padding or fustian in the +book, and no word is squandered, Mrs. Moodie regarding the +mission of language to be to convey thought, not to put on a +useless parade.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Moodie has been living in Canada now fifty years, and +loves to talk of the old country, especially of the people with +whom she associated when, as Susannah Strickland, she used to +stay in London with Pringle, the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery +Society, whose beautiful poem, ‘Afar in the desert I love +to ride,’ is still a favourite with the English +public. But she has no wish to come back to +England—her family are all well settled in Canada. +She lives with one of her sons, and her daughter, Mrs. +Chamberlain, of Ottawa, has won <a name="page94"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 94</span>deserved fame by her beautiful +illustrations of Canadian flowers and lichens.</p> +<p>English readers who may remember Mrs. Moodie as one of the +gifted Strickland sisters will be glad to learn that she is +regarded as one of the pioneers of Canadian literature, and +although born near the beginning of the present century, +possesses a mental vigour and active memory rare in one so +aged. She told me anecdotes of myself when a boy that I had +quite forgotten, and retains in old age the enthusiasm for which +she was remarkable when young. Some of her ghost-stories +were capital. For instance, one night, when her sister +Agnes was lying sick, in the old hall at Reydon, Suffolk, and was +being nursed by her sister Jane, there came to them a tall, +stately figure in white, with long garments trailing behind +her. Of course, Agnes and her sister were very much +frightened at the apparition, which stood at the door, pointed +her finger <a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +95</span>at Agnes, hissed at her, and then disappeared. +Other stories followed, equally interesting, in which Mrs. +Moodie, it was evident, firmly believed.</p> +<p>It was during her long and lonely residence in the woods that +Mrs. Moodie performed most of her literary work. While her +husband was away crushing the Rebellion, she wrote her +‘Roughing It in the Bush,’ which did more to +establish her fame in Canada and in England than any of her +previous productions. It is probably the best picture we +have of Canadian life at that time, and written in a style of +composition charming, if only on account of its ease. +Undisturbed by household cares, she wrote no less than fifteen +books for children; a larger work, ‘Life in the +Clearings,’ and in addition contributed a mass of matter to +the old Canadian <i>Literary Garland</i>, sufficient to fill +several large volumes. ‘I remember seeing Carlyle +once,’ she said, ‘but he was <a +name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>such a +crabbed-looking man that I did not care to make his +acquaintance. In fact, his appearance was quite the reverse +of pleasing, but he was an honest, close-fisted man, I dare +say.’ She had a good deal to say of Cruikshank, who +lived next door to Pringle. ‘I went to hear Dan +O’Connell,’ she continued, ‘on the Anti-Slavery +question. He was completely dressed in green—green +coat, green vest, green pants—everything green but his +boots. I was greatly amused at his opening remark, +“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “England +reminds me in this great question of a large lion that has been +sleeping a good many years, commencing to rouse itself, stretch, +yawn, and wag its tail.” For days after, that lion, +with its wagging tail, came visibly before me.’ She +also remembered Shiel, who began his speech in Exeter Hall, then +quite a new building, by saying that he was afraid he would not +be able to make himself heard, <a name="page97"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 97</span>and then roared so that he might have +been heard at Somerset House. She saw the man in armour +proclaim King William in Cheapside, and it touched her to tears +when all the people cried: ‘God save the King!’ +‘At one time,’ she said, ‘I helped Pringle to +edit one of his annuals. Proctor sent in his poem on +“The Sea, the Sea,” and after reading it I +recommended it for publication, but Pringle rejected it. +However, afterwards he found out his mistake when the poem, +published in another channel, brought fame to its +author.’</p> +<p>Mrs. Moodie seemed to think that it was a great privilege to +have been in London while the Catholic Emancipation Act and the +Reform Bills were carried, and still in her comfortable house in +Toronto loves to talk of the bustle and excitement of the +time. I was privileged twice to see her, and then we +parted, never more to meet—in this world, at least.</p> +<p><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>Near +Peterborough, about a hundred and fifty miles from Toronto, I +found another far-famed Canadian authoress, Mrs. Traill, whose +‘Backwoods of Canada,’ published when I was a lad by +the Society for the Diffusion of Useful and Entertaining +Knowledge, and now, I believe, by Messrs. Routledge and Sons, was +a delight to me in my young days. I remember her well as a +young woman, tall and stately, with a wonderful flow of +talk—enthusiastic as a worshipper of nature—ever +ready to write of Suffolk lanes, with all their richness of +floral and animal life; of Suffolk copses, where the birds sang, +and the partridge and the pheasant and the timid hare found +shelter; of farmers, then merry, and of peasants, then contented +with their humble lot.</p> +<p>In person she was attractive, the most so, to my mind, of all +the Strickland family, and she was very stately in manner, for +was <a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>not +her maiden name Katherine Parr Strickland, and had she not some +of the blood of that family allied to royalty in her veins? +The Stricklands came of an ancient and honoured line, and besides +that, there is a great deal in names, as the reader of +‘Tristram Shandy’ and ‘Kenelm Chillingly’ +perfectly understands. What could you expect of a Katherine +Parr Strickland but queenly manner, as assuredly the young lady +who bore that name had?</p> +<p>When I was a lad, she married a Major Traill, and accompanied +her sister, Mrs. Moodie, to Canada. I cannot think how +ladies thus tenderly nursed could have done anything of the +kind—or, having done it, how they could have survived the +hardships they were called to endure. The lot in their case +was by no means cast in pleasant places. Mrs. Moodie, in +her delightful book, ‘Roughing It in the Bush,’ says: +‘A large number of the immigrants were officers of the army +and navy, with their families—a class perfectly <a +name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>unfitted by +their previous habits and standing in society for contending with +the stern realities of emigrant life in the backwoods. A +class formed mainly from the younger scions of great families, +naturally proud, and not only accustomed to command, but to +receive implicit obedience from the people under them, are not +men adapted to the hard toil of the woodman’s +life.’</p> +<p>Yet it was to such a life Major Traill took his handsome and +accomplished wife; but Mrs. Traill in her backwoods settlement +was not forgetful of the literary vocation to which she had +dedicated her early youth. I have already referred to her +‘Backwoods of Canada’; that was in due time followed +by a volume equally worthy of public favour, under the title of +‘Ramblings in a Canadian Forest.’ Indeed, she +and her sister may claim to have been the pioneers of Canadian +literature; and their brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Strickland, may +also claim to be <a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>placed in that category by his work, +‘Twenty-seven Years in Canada West,’ a record of his +own experiences, abounding with numerous realistic touches. +He settled his family near his sister; and at Lakefield, near +Peterborough, the residence of Mrs. Traill, there is quite a +colony of Stricklands, who have all done well, so people tell me, +at the lumber trade.</p> +<p>I am glad I paid Mrs. Traill a visit. It was a long and +wearisome ride, but I was well repaid by a short interview with +one with whom I was familiar half a century back. Lakefield +is a charming spot, and Mrs. Traill’s wooden but +picturesque cottage overlooks a lovely scene of trees and hills, +and water and grass. At any rate, in the early spring it +has a neat little garden; in new countries neat little gardens +are rare.</p> +<p>Mrs. Traill has seen great changes in her time. When she +came there, there were only one or two houses in Peterborough; +all <a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>was +forest, and now it has a mayor and a town-hall, and is one of the +nicest towns in that part of Canada. Mrs. Traill’s +cottage is fitted up with English comfort and taste. She +has around her books and photographs of loving relatives. +She showed me a book of hers recently published by Messrs. Nelson +and Sons. As a Canadian authoress, she has done much to +commemorate the beauty of Canadian forests, and writes of their +floral charms with all the tenderness and grace with which I +remember her sketches of East Anglian rural life were richly +adorned. She is now hard at work with a new volume on +Canadian lichens and flowers.</p> +<p>As we stood talking at the window—the sunbeams played +gaily on the blue waters of the lake or river beneath (in Canada +there are so many rivers and lakes that you can scarcely tell +which is which, or where the one ends or the other +begins)—fairy flowers were beginning to gem her lawn; and +the American <a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>robin redbreast, a far larger bird than ours, and other +birds, still more graceful, flew among the trees—I felt +how, in such a spot, one weary of the world could lead a tranquil +life.</p> +<p>Mrs. Traill must be an advanced octogenarian—she is +older than Mrs. Moodie, and Mrs. Moodie claims to be far over +eighty. Yet Mrs. Traill retains her conversational power +intact, and is full as ever of ‘the lore that nature +brings,’ and is as enthusiastic as ever in its +pursuit. As much as ever her manners are queenlike. +They have never left her, in spite of all the hardships she has +had to undergo as wife and mother in the wilderness, and her face +still retains something of the freshness and fairness of her +youth. She is a wonderful old lady, and Canada must be a +wonderful country for such.</p> +<h2><a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +104</span>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">OFF TO THE NORTH-WEST—NIAGARA—LAKE +SUPERIOR—THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY—AT +WINNIPEG.</p> +<p>As in duty bound, I have reached Niagara Falls, and from +motives equally conscientious forbear to trouble you with either +poetry or prose on the scene that now meets my eye. In +seeing them I have an advantage—that in this early season +of the year I am alone and free from the crowd of visitors that +sometimes infest the spot. As it is, there is quite enough +of modern civilization there to disturb the poetry of the place; +and the scream of the steam-engine sadly interferes with the +enjoyment of that everlasting roar which rises as <a +name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>the vast +body of waters tumbles over the falls—raising up majestic +mountains of mist—and then sweeps grandly to the rapids, in +the raging whirlpools of which poor Captain Webb lost his life, +or, in plainer words, committed suicide. Then there are the +cabmen, who will not give you a moment’s peace, and affect +not to understand you when you intimate that you prefer to walk +rather than to ride; and a grand walk it is, about a mile from +the station on the Canadian side. Far, far below is the +river—a chasm in a mass of old dark rock—into which +you peer with wondering eyes till the brain is almost +dizzy. Words fail to convey the impressions, as passing +cloud and fleeting sunshine add to the marvellous beauty of the +spot. I scrambled down to where the ferry-boat is, and +drank in all the charm of the place, not caring to be ferried +across, quite satisfied with watching the eternal fall of water +as I sat there—a mere human speck in that mysterious +grandeur. <a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>The white man has come and made the place his +own. He has now thrown three bridges across it, and on the +American side has built a brewery, whose ‘Niagara +ales’ are famous all over the American Continent. I +am glad to say that it is only on the Canadian side that you have +a good view of the Falls; but on neither side is there what there +ought to be, a wilderness. On each side there are houses +and hotels, and churches, all the way; and I was offered +Guinness’s Dublin Stout and Bass’s Pale Ale, just as +if I were dining in a Fleet Street restaurant. On my return +I met a funeral procession. Death had come into one of the +wooden houses on the side, and the friends and relatives had +ridden in their buggies and country carts to pay the last tribute +of respect to the deceased. Yes; death is lord of +life—in the New World as well as in the Old.</p> +<p>I went then by way of Hamilton, through a district as fertile +and as well-farmed as any <a name="page107"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 107</span>in England, looking far more +civilized than any part I have yet seen. There are no +stumps of trees in the ground, as there are elsewhere, and the +houses look as if they had been built long enough to allow of +home comforts; and, as Hamilton is the place to which many of our +poor lads are sent, I was glad to feel that in such a district +they would have few hardships to encounter, and would have every +chance of getting on. Here at one time there were bears and +wolves; but they have long since disappeared before the march of +their master, man. It is not so long since there was quail +shooting on the very site of the city of Toronto, and hawks would +carry off the chickens the earlier emigrants were attempting +painfully to rear, and the Indians were also unwelcome +guests. I have heard of an old Scotch settler who, as his +last resort, invoked the aid of bagpipes, wherewith to frighten +his unwelcome guests; but even that did not frighten the Indians, +who <a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +108</span>carried off the contents of his potato ground, +undisturbed by a musical performance which would have struck +terror into the stoutest English heart. Well, all that wild +forest region is now the home of peace and plenty, and distant be +the day when Professor Goldwin Smith’s idea will be +realized, and it has been peacefully annexed by the United +States. Out in Canada that idea finds little favour. +Why should it? It is a favourite boast with Americans that +Canada will ultimately be theirs. I am sure that is not a +favourite idea of the Canadians themselves. Great Britain, +it is to be hoped, will be as loyal to Canada as Canada is to +her.</p> +<p>The thing is not to be settled quite so easily as Professor +Goldwin Smith anticipates. In Quebec Province we have a +million of French Canadians, who make no secret of their +preference to a French rather than an English alliance, and who +are quite prepared to act accordingly, as soon as British +authority <a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +109</span>shall have become relaxed. Then we have the +Acadians of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow the lead of +French Canada; nor could the few Britishers of New Brunswick and +Prince Edward Island escape the same fate. France is quite +prepared to increase her influence in this part of the +world. Indeed, at the present moment there is talk of her +buying the island of Anticosti, which, as you may be aware, +though almost uninhabited now—save in the summer, when the +fishermen go there—makes a very respectable appearance in +the river St. Lawrence. Then we come to Ontario, which, +placed as she is, could not withstand an attack from the United +States.</p> +<p>Once upon a time the Yankees did make an attempt of the +kind—that was in 1837—an attempt which the loyal men +of Canada helped Sir Francis Head to put down. Toronto +escaped, though she had the enemy <a name="page110"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 110</span>at her very gates. I must say +that all the Canadians with whom I have spoken have no wish to +become Americans. For one thing, they say they can’t +afford it. Government is more costly in America than in +Canada. I admit as much as anyone the right of the people +to decide their fate. If the Canadians prefer to live under +the star-spangled banner, it is vain for us to attempt to retain +them. But the danger is the indifference of the English +public as to the value of such a colony as that of Canada, a +country bigger than all Europe, and at present with a sparse +population only equalling that of London. A few brief facts +will show the importance of the North-West to the English, not +merely as a field for emigration, but for other reasons as +well.</p> +<p>From Liverpool to Winnipeg, <i>viâ</i> Hudson’s +Bay, the distance is less by 1,100 miles than by way of the St. +Lawrence, and they are now talking of making a railway along that +<a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>route. From Liverpool to China and Japan, +<i>viâ</i> the northern route, the distance is 1,000 miles +shorter than by any other line. It is really 2,000 miles +shorter than by San Francisco and New York. How immense, +then, will be the power which the possession of Hudson’s +Bay, and of the railway route through to the Pacific, must confer +upon Great Britain, so long as she holds it under safe +control!—and where is the nation that can prevent her so +holding it, as long as her fleets command the North +Atlantic? It is utterly inconceivable that English +statesmen would be found so mad or so unpatriotic as thus to +throw away the key of the world’s commerce, by neglecting +or surrendering British interests in the North-West. Our +great cities would not sanction such a policy for an +instant. England could better afford to give up the Suez +Canal, or be rid of her South African colonies. The +interests of the two countries are inseparable. We require +<a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>the +North-West to send us grain. She requires us as her best +customer. Manitoba has her natural market in Great Britain, +and in the near future Great Britain will have her best customers +in Manitoba and the North-Western Provinces.</p> +<p>It is to the credit of the Canadians—that is, if figures +may be trusted—that they spend less on drink, and more on +education, than we do in the Old Country.</p> +<p>Party feeling runs high; but it is difficult to an outsider to +understand what is the line of separation between the ins and the +outs. An English writer tells us that she once asked a +member of the Greek Opposition in Parliament, what was the +difference between them and the Government. +‘Why,’ was his reply, ‘it is this. If M. +Tricoupi says we want railroads, we say, “No; we want +canals.” If he says a thing must be done by horses, +we say, “No; it must be done by oxen.”’ +It is just the same here. <a name="page113"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 113</span>What one party proposes the other +opposes. The present rulers rode into power on the wings of +Protection. They are Tories; but it is to be feared the +Liberals would have done the same, had they had a chance. +It is the fashion to use very bad language, and to imply the +worst of motives to your opponents; and it is in this easy way +the Canadian newspapers fill up their columns when they are +not—and this seems their great mission—quarrelling +with one another.</p> +<p>The country farmers, who are much keener men of business than +their fellow farmers in the Old Country, care little about +politics. At the last election a friend of mine said to a +farmer, ‘Have you voted?’ ‘Oh yes!’ +was the reply. ‘Well, for which party?’ +Ah, that was a question he could not answer. He had voted +as his neighbour told him; and he knew that his neighbour was a +real good man, and that he would not give him bad advice. +So long as voters <a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>are thus simple, elections will be a mockery and a +sham.</p> +<p>I have left Toronto behind, and here I am on Lake Superior, +the largest body of fresh water in the world—so large is +it, that if you immerse in it Great Britain and Ireland, and add +the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight, there would still be a +respectable amount of water to spare—enough, at any rate, +to make a river as long as the Thames, which we in England hold +to be a very decent sort of river indeed. As I came up the +St. Lawrence, some of the Canadians, who are, as they may well +be, proud of their grand river, asked me what I thought of +it. My reply was that for a colony so young, it was a very +tidy sort of river indeed; and I may say the same of the enormous +body of water on which I am now floating. It is a big thing +indeed—as might be expected, where both Canada and the +United States contribute to its bigness. We are in the +middle of the lake, having Michigan <a name="page115"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 115</span>on one side. Already we have +stopped twice—once to take a pilot, and then again at Le +Sault, where we had to stay while we waited our turn to enter the +canal which connects the Georgian Bay to Lake Superior. +There, indeed, we were made conscious of the fact that we were +within the United States, as the banner of the stars and stripes +floated proudly on each side of us, and there were a few soldiers +in blue regimentals standing on the wharf, to say nothing of +loafers, and boys and girls and half-breeds, to welcome our +arrival.</p> +<p>For one thing I felt proud of my country. The Americans +have nothing here equal to the <i>Algoma</i>, a crack steamer +built on the Clyde for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and to +which, at this present moment, are entrusted Cæsar and his +fortunes. It is only the second trip the <i>Algoma</i> has +made, as for the greater season of the year this immense +water-way, incredible as it seems to us, is a solid block of ice, +and we have it all around us still. I <a +name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>boarded the +<i>Algoma</i> on Saturday afternoon, after a rapid run by rail +from Toronto, which city we left in the morning at half-past +eleven, and I assure you I was glad the journey was safely over, +as once or twice it seemed to me, at one or two of the curves, +the cars were very near leaving the rails; and the boy—they +are all boys here—who had to attend to the brake, gave me a +grin, as if he thought that we had much to be thankful for that +we kept the track at all. I presume I shall get used to +that sort of thing, but at present the sensation experienced in +rounding some of the curves is more novel than agreeable.</p> +<p>We are a very miscellaneous company on board, chiefly Toronto +traders and stalwart boys from Manitoba, who have been enjoying a +holiday in Upper Canada, and emigrants. Gloves are unknown, +likewise hats and shirt-collars are the exception rather than the +rule. As to having one’s boots blackened, that is +rather an expensive luxury, when you recollect <a +name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>the charge +is fivepence a pair, and no one on board apparently has had his +boots blackened for the last week or two; and I question much +whether I shall require any of Day and Martin till I get back to +Toronto again—an event which will take place apparently +about the time of the Greek kalends. Hitherto I have +managed the blacking difficulty most effectively. As far as +Toronto I travelled with my London friend, who, aware of the +custom of the country, had provided himself with the needful +materials for the fitting amount of polish, and who generously +permitted me to reap the benefit of his superior knowledge. +My first attempt, I fear, was a failure. In my bedroom at +the hotel I set to work, and soon acquired the requisite amount +of polish; but, alas! I had forgotten the effect of blacking on +clean sheets, and to my horror I discovered the bed-linen was, at +any rate, as plentifully covered with blacking as ‘them +precious boots.’ However, I <a +name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>did not +regret the catastrophe, as I hoped it might teach the landlord it +would be cheaper to get the boots of his guests blackened in an +efficient manner, than to leave such unskilful amateurs as myself +to do it on their own account.</p> +<p>Life on board the <i>Algoma</i> is as agreeable as can well be +imagined. We have three good meals a day. I am +writing in a magnificent saloon, nearly three hundred feet long, +and if the nights are cold, as they always are on the lakes, I +have a cabin all to myself, and by heaping the bed-clothes for +two berths on my bed, and throwing a heavy great-coat over them, +I manage to keep myself warm for the night. The scenery by +day is magnificent, as we sail in and out among a thousand isles, +all richly wooded to the water’s edge, with here and there +a little village, or small settlement, where the woodmen ply +their calling—the results of which may be seen now in a +raft being towed by a tug, to be shipped lower <a +name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 119</span>down to +Liverpool or Glasgow, or in stacks of planks along the +shore. Further behind is the mainland, with rock and wood +in endless succession. At Sault St. Marie, the river is +celebrated for its fish, and as you pass through the canal, you +have plenty of Indian canoes paddling about, with a man at the +stern to seize the fish by a hand-net: the white fish of Lake +Superior is held to be a great delicacy. After a day and +night, we get into the open lake, out of sight of land, and then +we land at Port Arthur, whence we take the train to Winnipeg, +where I hope to hear a scrap of English news.</p> +<p>I have but one complaint to make, and that is, on the Sunday +we had no service of any kind. I am not, nor ever was, a +stickler for forms; but there are times, especially as many now +on board may be planted far away from any religious observance, +when it seems to me a simple service might be the means of +strengthening old impressions, and perhaps <a +name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>planting +new ones. One thinks of that fine old hymn of Andrew +Marvel’s:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘What can we do but sing His praise,<br /> +Who guides us through the watery maze?’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And an hour or so thus spent, surely may be quite as helpful +to the higher life we all dream of, at any rate, as the favourite +occupation of the majority—smoking and spitting, or the +study of the maps of the district to which we are all rapidly +approaching. I had a queer chat this morning with an old +Canadian farmer who landed at Le Sault. He was pleased to +hear that I had been at Yarmouth in Norfolk. His mother was +a Clarke of Yarmouth. Did I know any of the Clarkes of +Yarmouth? I replied that I had not that pleasure, but that +I knew many of the Clarkes, and that they were a +highly-respectable family indeed.</p> +<p>Well, I have now done with Ontario, and you ask me what I +think of it? I reply that it is a beautiful country, and +that it has room <a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>for any amount of farm labourers and servant +girls. I have been talking with a gentleman this morning, +who tells me that he pays his groom about £6 a month, and +that he boards him as well. He tells me of a Scotch +labourer who came out without £1 in his pocket, and who has +just died worth £12,000.</p> +<p>At Ottawa I saw a large lumber-yard worth many thousand +pounds, which was the property of one who came from England as a +working man. As to mechanics, I fear the case is +different. In Ontario, in all the towns, the mechanics have +strong unions, and they do all they can to keep out emigrants of +that class, fearing that their own wages will be reduced. +This dog-in-the-manger policy prevails everywhere, and many +mechanics, directly they land, are thus frightened by them, and +want to get back to England at once. There are two sides to +every question. All I can say is, that while a +mechanic’s representative, at Montreal, was telling me that +<a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>there +was no room for mechanics, and was doing all he could to induce +those who came out with me to return to England at once, I saw an +advertisement with my own eyes in a local paper (I am sorry I +have forgotten the name) for five hundred mechanics, who were +immediately wanted. A man who has got a good situation in +England would be a fool to give it up and come out; but I believe +a mechanic who has a head on his shoulders—who is young and +in good health, and knows how to take advantage of his +situation—may find a living even in Ontario. This is +my deliberate conviction, after all I have seen and heard, and +with the full knowledge that in Montreal, and Ottawa, and +Toronto, there is a pauper class as badly off as any of the +denizens of our London slums. The people I most pity are +the young fellows who in England have had the training of +gentlemen, and who are sadly out of place in Canada, and whom the +Canadian mothers dread, <a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>fearing that they may corrupt the +native youth. Many of them, however, are decent fellows; +but nevertheless, there is no room for them, unless they go out +to Manitoba, and get some farmer to give them board and lodging +for their work. I parted with quite a pang with one such on +Friday, at Toronto. He was the nephew of a well-known noble +lord, and really seemed a very decent sort of fellow. +‘What can you do?’ I said to him. ‘Oh, I +can row and play cricket,’ was his reply. +Unfortunately, Canada is not much of a country for +cricket—the summer season is too short; and I felt that my +young friend, unless he could turn his hand to something more +useful or lucrative, had better have remained at home.</p> +<p>The pleasant steamship journey ended, I landed at Port +Arthur—a town situated in one of the loveliest bays I have +yet seen, almost surrounded by weird and fantastic +rocks—with a view to run by the Canadian <a +name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>Pacific as +far as Winnipeg. As I landed a bill met my eye: +‘Wanted, a hundred rock-men and fifty labourers;’ and +that seemed to me an indication that emigrants need not go +begging for work in that particular locality. Port Arthur, +which stands near the ancient Hudson Bay Company’s station +of Fort William, was in a state of intense activity. Every +one was building wooden houses and shops who could do so. +According to all appearances, it is certainly a busy place; but +architecturally I cannot say that it is of much account. +The main street opens on to the railway, along which the engines, +ringing a doleful bell in order to bid passengers keep out of the +way, pass every few minutes. Then there are wooden shops +and wooden hotels, and the usual concourse of rough, unwashed, +half-dressed loafers in the streets. Behind them is the +forest and in front the bay, with its waters almost as clear as +those of the Baltic, and almost as blue as those of <a +name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +125</span>Naples. Yet I certainly got very heartily tired +of Port Arthur, and so, I am sure, did all my travelling +companions, who sat on the planks or on the wooden pavement, +which, being raised above the road, made passable seats, or on +the bits of rock which the railway builders had been too busy to +remove, wondering at what hour the train would start. I +pitied the poor emigrants, with their children, and their beds, +and their household furniture, as they sat there, hour after +hour, in that hot and sandy street. We landed at eleven, +having made the whole distance from Toronto—a run of about +eight hundred miles—in exactly two days and two +nights—not quite so long as Jonah was in the whale’s +belly, but we certainly got over more ground than he did. +When were we to start? No one knew. It takes a long +time to get out £4,000 worth of freight and +passengers’ luggage, and that is what the <i>Algoma</i> had +on board. The worst of railway travelling in <a +name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>Canada is +that there is no one of whom you can ask a question. There +may be a station-master, there may be a whole herd of officials, +there may be an army of porters, but Canadians in one respect +resemble the Americans—and that is, that they think it +inconsistent with their manly dignity to wear any kind of garb +which can in any possible way distinguish them from the crowd of +lookers-on, always to be met with in a railway station, so that +the railway traveller is always in a perplexity. When we +got on shore we were told that we should start in half an +hour. Then came word that we were to be off at half-past +one, and so, as soon as the cars were made up, we joyfully +climbed into them—and the steps are in many cases so high +that it is hard work climbing into them; but still we were no +further on our way, and it was not till a little before four +that, after many false starts, we could fairly believe that we +were off. Oh, it was wearisome work, but then it may be <a +name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>asked, +Whoever travels on a railway for pleasure? It is true these +big American cars have certain advantages ours lack. You +can change your position; you can talk without breaking a +blood-vessel; and you can see more of the country, especially as +they do not go the pace we are accustomed to at home; but there +is such a confusion of persons in them, that to one accustomed to +the society to be met with in an English first-class carriage, +the result is anything but pleasing. In the Canadian +first-class carriage Jack and his master ride side by side, +unless the latter takes a berth in a sleeping car, for which he +has to pay extra. As I did not feel inclined to give three +dollars for a night’s unquiet rest, I took my chance with +the first-class car company, and I can assure you that by the +time the dim grey of morning glimmered on the horizon, I had +heartily repented of my decision. The night was so cold +that everything in the way of ventilation was stopped <a +name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>up. +The car was quite full, and few of my fellow travellers seemed to +have had much regard for soap and water. It is true there +was a lavatory attached to the car, but there was neither water +nor soap nor towels, and the neatness of the lavatory in other +respects only seemed to me to make matters worse. I must +say that the car, which was built in Canada, was a remarkably +handsome one, with its dark wood panels beautifully carved, and +its seats all lined with red velvet; yet when I left it in the +morning it was in a filthy state. I also found in it +agreeable society, but there were many who could not truthfully +be included in such a category—rough men and women with +whom in England you would not care to travel in a third-class +carriage: but I am an Englishman, and may be pardoned for not +knowing any better. It is to the same defect, perhaps, that +I may trace the disappointment I felt at the refreshment sheds, +in which we were permitted to snatch <a name="page129"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 129</span>a hasty meal, waited on by a man in +shirt-sleeves. Certainly we do that part of our business +better at home. The Canadian Pacific have a dining-room of +their own at Winnipeg, and there, if possible, the traveller +should endeavour to secure a meal.</p> +<p>But oh, that ride! I shall never forget it. Burns tells +us that Nature tried her ’prentice hand on man</p> +<blockquote><p>‘And then she made the lassies, +oh!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I think Nature must have made that part of Canada which lies +between Port Arthur and Winnipeg before she tried her hand on +Great Britain and Ireland. It is true some part of it has +an exquisite combination of wood and water and rock, but the +greater part was either forest or gigantic plains or valleys of +stone—which seemed to shut all hope from the +spectator. In Canada—that is, along the railway +lines—there is little life in the forest, few flowers +display their loveliness, and no <a name="page130"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 130</span>song-birds warble in the +trees. All is still—or would be, were it not for the +peculiar croaking of the frogs, to be heard like so many hoarse +whistles from afar. You go miles and miles without seeing a +farm or even a log-hut. In one place I saw an Indian +wigwam, much resembling a gipsy’s tent, and a large canoe; +but dwellings of any kind are the exception, not the rule. +The train every now and then stops, but you see no station, and +why we stop is only known to the engine-driver. We take no +passengers up, and we set none down, or hardly ever. The +people who get in at Port Arthur only want to be taken to +Winnipeg. There is no traffic along the line, because there +are no inhabitants along the line, and for the greater part of +the way it is not only a solitary ride, but a rough one as +well. As you get nearer Winnipeg, the road is easier, and +the pace is more rapid. You leave behind you rocks and +forests, and reach an open plain on which you see, <a +name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>perhaps, a +dozen cows, where millions might fatten and feed. A good +deal of this land, I am told, belongs to the half-breeds. +In time it is to be hoped that they may utilize it more than they +seem to do now.</p> +<p>A great change is impending over this part of the world. +Even that stony district of which I wrote, and which seemed to me +as the abomination of desolation, is, I hear, full of mineral +wealth, which will be brought to light as soon as a certain +boundary difficulty is settled—Ontario and Manitoba at +present are each contending for the prize—and the decision +of the question must shortly take place.</p> +<p>Perhaps the one thing that has most struck me with admiration +is the pluck which has given birth to the Canadian Pacific +Railway, by means of which the emigrant is taken from his landing +in Quebec to his destination on the slopes of the Pacific, +without ever leaving the Canadian soil. It is a patriotic +<a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +132</span>enterprise, for under the former system the emigrant +who intended to settle in Canada, and who, in reality, was wanted +there, was often tempted to change his mind and to settle in the +United States. It was a bold enterprise, for the cost was +enormous, and Canada is not a wealthy country. It was an +enterprise which was made the subject of party conflict. +Appalling difficulties have had to be surmounted by the +engineers. Yet all have been vanquished, and in a few +months this grand scheme will be an accomplished fact, and you +will be carried direct from one side of this enormous continent +to the other. I think Sir John Macdonald is to be +congratulated for the courage and tenacity he has displayed on +the subject, through good or bad report, and too much praise +cannot be awarded to Mr. George Stephens, who has been the ruling +spirit and life of the undertaking from the first, and I am sure +that such railway officials as those I have <a +name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>met, such +as Mr. Van Horne, have proved loyal coadjutors, evincing a +similar wide grasp of mind and readiness of resource for which +Sir John himself is distinguished.</p> +<p>In England they are well represented by Mr. Begg, who, as he +knows the district well, can speak of it with a confidence and +certainty possessed by no one else. It is to him the credit +must be given of the Manitoba farm in the Forestry Exhibition at +Edinburgh last autumn, which was visited with much interest by +the Prince of Wales and Mr. Gladstone, and to which I was glad to +see, for I was there several days, the Scotch farmers and +agriculturists paid particular attention. Such men are an +honour to Canada, and may be ranked amongst its best +friends. It is to them that Canada owes her present proud +position and ability to find happy homes for the tens of +thousands of England and the Continent, whom she has rescued from +starvation, and whom she has placed in <a +name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>the way to +insure wealth and health and happiness. I find even poor +persecuted Jews driven from Russia on this fertile land, who, +under these favouring skies, have learned to become prosperous +farmers. One may well be proud of Canada, and be proud to +think Canada belongs to us. When Bret Harte asks,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Is our civilization a failure,<br /> +Is the Caucasian played out?’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I answer in Canada with an emphatic No! Canada is +redolent of industrial success. The very air of the place +is full of hope.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p134.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Second Year on a Prairie Farm, Canadian North-West" +title= +"Second Year on a Prairie Farm, Canadian North-West" +src="images/p134.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Not only has the Canadian Pacific Railway opened up the +country, but it has established experimental farms in different +parts, in order to test the capabilities of the soil and the +advantages or disadvantages of the climate. It is said, and +extensively believed, that the soil between Moose Jaw and Calgary +is made up of desert and alkali lands, and entirely unfit for +cultivation. With a view to correct <a +name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>that idea, +ten farms were established at the following stations: 1, +Secretan; 2, Rush Lake; 3, Swift Current; 4, Gull Lake; 5, Maple +Creek; 6, Forres; 7, Dunmore; 8, Stair (these two being the +nearest stations east and west of Medicine Hat at the crossing of +the Saskatchewan River); 9, Tilley, and 10, Gleichen, the last +being within view of the Rocky Mountains. The breaking +throughout was found to be easy, the soil in every case good and +in most instances excellent, ranking with the choicest lands in +the Company’s more eastern belt: wherever the rating of the +soil is lowered, according to the Company’s standard, owing +to its being of a lighter grade, the inferiority will be +compensated for by the certainty of the grain maturing more +rapidly.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p135.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Calico Island, Saskatchewan River, Canadian North-West" +title= +"Calico Island, Saskatchewan River, Canadian North-West" +src="images/p135.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In a pamphlet just issued it is stated that the average from +all the farms was as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Wheat 21½ bushels; oats, 44¼; +barley, 23¼; peas, 12½.</p> +<p><a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>‘The above yields were ascertained by accurately +chaining the ground and weighing the grain, this work being done +by a qualified Dominion Land Surveyor, and the results, both +favourable and otherwise, have been fully given.</p> +<p>‘At each farm about one acre of spring wheat and oats +were sown and harrowed in in the fall when breaking was +done. Much of this grain germinated during the mild weather +of November and December, at which time it showed green above the +ground, and as a consequence it was nearly all killed during the +winter, and the ground had to be resown in spring. Some +small pieces of wheat which were not entirely killed out were +left; and, though the straw showed a rank growth, with heads and +grain much larger than that sown in spring, the crop ripened very +unevenly and much later. Fall sowing of spring wheat, which +has proved successful in Manitoba, is not likely to be a success +in the <a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>western country, as the winter is much more mild and +open, and the grain liable to germinate and be killed. Fall +wheat has not, as far as we are aware, been tried, and there +seems no reason why it should not prove successful.</p> +<p>‘The results obtained, considering the manner in which +the land was treated, proved much more satisfactory than was +anticipated, and show—</p> +<p>‘1st—That for grain growing, the land in this +section of country is capable of giving as large a wheat yield +per acre as the heavier lands of Manitoba.</p> +<p>‘2nd—That a fair crop can be obtained the first +year of settlement on breaking.</p> +<p>‘3rd—That for fall seeding with spring grain on +the western plains, a satisfactory result cannot be looked for +with any degree of certainty.</p> +<p>‘4th—That cereals, roots, and garden produce <a +name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span>can be +successfully raised at an elevation of 3,000 feet above the +sea-level.</p> +<p>‘5th—That seeding can be done sufficiently early +to allow of all the crop being harvested before the first of +September.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And I hear of many who have done well—some of whom came +out without a rap—and who enjoy a robust health unknown to +them at home.</p> +<p>Perhaps nowhere has a village so suddenly sprung up into a +city as at Winnipeg, which first obtained notoriety by the advent +of Lord Garnet Wolseley, then a young man, who came to suppress +the rebellion raised there by a half-breed of the name of Riel, a +daring young French Canadian, wily as a savage, brilliant and +energetic. In 1870 he appealed to the prejudices and fears +of the half-breeds, and in a few days had 400 men at his +back. Owing to the clemency—perhaps mistaken—of +his captors, Riel escaped the punishment due to his crimes. +In 1873 he was <a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +139</span>enrolled as a member of Parliament, notwithstanding +that at one time a reward of 5,000 dollars had been offered for +his apprehension as a murderer.</p> +<p>The name of Winnipeg was then little known outside +Manitoba. It was built by traders, who wished to rival Fort +Garrey, then the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company, +and to carry on a free trade on their own account. After +the suppression of the rebellion, Manitoba had a local +Parliament, which met at Winnipeg, and also sent its +representatives to the Dominion Parliament. The place grew +rapidly, though even at that time Mr. Mackenzie, Sir John +Macdonald’s political opponent, declared that a cart track +was good enough for Manitoba for many years to come. In +1875 the total population was 3,031 assessed and 2,000 +non-assessed, which was a pretty respectable increase, +considering that in 1869 there were hardly a hundred settlers in +the place. As <a name="page140"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 140</span>late as 1876 the sport of +wolf-hunting was carried on by several of the inhabitants just +outside the city. Now it has churches, banks, schools, +manufactures, and mercantile men of great energy and high +standing; and has become, especially since the Pacific Railway +Company has made it one of their great stations, the gateway of +the North-West. Settlers came crowding in from all +quarters, and in ten months, in 1878, 600,592 acres of land were +located. In 1879 Winnipeg boasted of a street extension of +83 miles, and then came the bridge over the Red River to render +the town easy of access to all new-comers. Intoxicated with +success, what the Americans call a ‘boom’ was created +a year or two since, which seemed to have made everyone lose his +wits. There was no end to speculation in town lots; +merchants, tradesmen, professional men, could think of nothing +else. The bottom, however, soon fell out, and at this time +Winnipeg is in rather a depressed state; but <a +name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>it is +clear, from its peculiar position, that this depression can only +be temporary. It is destined to be the great distributing +and railway centre of the vast North-West. The town has now +a population of 26,000, and three daily papers, besides weekly +ones. Ten years hence, it is predicted, she will be ten +times her present size. Her wharves will be lined with +steamboats; her river-banks with elevators; industries and +manufactures will spring up in her midst, and her streets will be +fuller of life than they are to-day.</p> +<p>Winnipeg stands low, and at certain seasons—that is, +when the thaw commences—it is liable to floods; but the air +is singularly pure and bracing—while I write the sky is an +azure blue—and the hottest days are followed by cool +nights. The inhabitants all seem to be in the possession of +good health. Then the water was said to be bad, whereas I +find it to be quite the reverse. The supply of gas is poor, +and it seems rarely used. The one great drawback is +Winnipeg mud.</p> +<p><a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 142</span>The +streets, all of them, are as broad as Portland Place, only with +handsomer shops. I fear in wet weather they must be almost +impassable. As it is, the sides are now dried up, as if +they were ploughed, and carriages seem to make their way with +considerable difficulty; but there is a magnificent broad wooden +side walk to all the streets, while in the middle sufficient +smoothness has been attained for the due working of street +railways, which seem to be in a satisfactory condition. I +have also been agreeably disappointed with the hotels, which I +was told were all bad and all tremendously dear. On the +contrary, I have found in the new Douglas Hotel, in the main +street, as good accommodation as I require, and at a very +reasonable rate; while the proprietor—Mr. Bennett, a worthy +Scotchman—does all he can for the comfort of his guests, +having introduced into this far distant land all the latest +improvements, such as heating the <a name="page143"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 143</span>place by steam and the use of +electric bells.</p> +<p>A walk in the city is amusing. Grand shops and +well-built offices everywhere attract the eye. Ladies in +the latest fashion meet you one minute, and the next you jostle a +swarthy Indian, half civilized, and his squaw, still less +civilized than himself. Odd fur-skins are exposed for sale, +while a stuffed bear adorns the main street, up and down which +run all day long the newsboys with the latest telegrams from +London, or Paris, or New York. To-day I have seen a +photograph of the original fireman of the ‘Rocket,’ +who lives here, and has made a large fortune by contracts. +Unfortunately, at this time he is absent from home, and I fear I +shall not have a chance of interviewing him. Religion +flourishes here. There are about fifteen churches and +chapels in the city, and the Young Men’s Christian +Association is in a very successful condition. Of +Protestant <a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +144</span>bodies, the leading ones are the Presbyterians, the +Methodists, and the Episcopalians. In connection with the +Cathedral of St. Boniface, the oldest church in the city, it is +interesting to note that the bells came originally from +Birmingham, by Hudson’s Bay, and that after the destruction +of the building the remains of the metal were gathered up and +sent to Birmingham, whence they have again come back after an +interval of three years. The city stands in the midst of a +fertile plain, adequate to the support of any amount of +population. But the land is far better further on. At +Manitoba, for instance, the soil is much finer. Manitoba is +an Indian name denoting the Voice of God. It seems that the +rocks on the river are cavernous, and that at certain seasons of +the year the wind strikes them with such force as to produce a +singular reverberation, which the rude Indian, whose untutored +mind teaches him to see God in the cloud and hear Him in the +wind, <a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>considered to be no less than the utterance of the +Deity Himself.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p145.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Hunting scene on the Souris River, Manitoba" +title= +"Hunting scene on the Souris River, Manitoba" +src="images/p145.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Just now people are rather exercised with the Indians, who +have been placed in reserves where they cannot get a living, and +who, besides, find their location an unhealthy swamp. One +of the Winnipeg journals is very indignant, and says this is what +may be expected from the Government. From all I can learn, +the Indians are sturdy maintainers of their rights, and take care +that the Government shall not easily overreach them; and perhaps, +on the whole, the Indians are better off under Canadian than they +would be under American government. Indeed, people say they +are very good fellows when uncorrupted by Englishmen. The +emigrant in these parts must not be surprised at the occasional +appearance of an Indian; and perhaps it is well that the farmer +takes care of his horses. I am sorry for the poor Indian, +who is the original owner of the soil, and whom, perhaps, <a +name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>one day Mr. +Henry George may see fit to visit with a view to the recovery of +his rights and the redress of his wrongs. When that is the +case, the emigrant will have to pack up and return to his native +land. Till that is the case, however, he may safely cross +the water, and avail himself of the advantages offered him by the +Dominion Government; but to do that he must have at least +£200, and then he can stock his farm and keep himself till +the return for his labours comes in.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p147.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Souris Valley, Manitoba" +title= +"Souris Valley, Manitoba" +src="images/p147.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>‘The worst of all our books on emigration,’ said +the editor of one of the dailies to me, ‘is that they give +too glowing an estimate of the state of affairs. They say a +farmer will do well with £100. This is not sufficient +capital as a rule to start with. It is true there have been +instances where settlers have succeeded on this sum, but with +such a sum as £200, Manitoba offers the farmer advantages +such as no other place offers him.’ Here, also, the +regular farm-hand is sure of his living. I see <a +name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>an attempt +is being made by a gentleman, now in Winnipeg, to plant out a +couple of hundred boys—and I hear there is room for +them. But there is little building going on in Winnipeg, +and the mechanic need not trouble himself to come here. All +in this part are loud in condemnation of emigration from the +East-end of London. Those poor of the East-end—alas! +neither the Old World nor the New seems to know what to do with +them. Since this was written I see the Manitoba Mortgage +and Investment Company have declared a dividend of eight per +cent., an indication that at any rate in their part of the world +money is being made.</p> +<h2><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +148</span>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE.</p> +<p>‘You will find Moose Jaw a very pretty place,’ +said a gentleman to me as I left Winnipeg; and certainly it is a +pretty place, though not exactly according to an +Englishman’s idea of prettiness.</p> +<p>It consists of a railway-station and an assemblage of wooden +huts and shops, which have all been called into existence within +the last twelve months. It boasts a weekly organ (such as +it is), two or three places of worship, one or two +billiard-rooms, and a post-office—not a tent, as in some +parts of the country in which I have been, but a real +wooden-house. The shopkeepers seem to have nothing to do, +<a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>and the +pigs perambulate the streets, evidently enjoying the fine freedom +allowed them in this part of the world. There are at this +time about 700 or 800 settlers, some of the farmers who came out +last year having moved further west.</p> +<p>I am writing in the railway-station, in the waiting-rooms of +which are many farmers, all on their way to Calgary—for +which place, also, I am bound, expecting to start at the very +inconvenient hour of two p.m.</p> +<p>The scene, as I sit, is not cheering. Far as the eye can +reach there is the prairie. It was the same all the way +from Winnipeg. It will be the same all the way to Calgary, +some 400 or 500 miles hence. It is intensely hot, and men +and women sit in the open air, under such shade as the wooden +houses afford. It is intensely cold in the winter. +Not a tree is to be seen, or a hill, or a farmhouse; nothing to +relieve the monotony of the sea of grass land on every side, +except <a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +150</span>here and there a prairie fire—the first step to +be taken before the farmer commences the cultivation of the soil; +and I must own a prairie fire by night is rather a pretty +sight.</p> +<p>I parted last night with a General and his wife, who have come +to settle about forty miles off. At present he and his +family have no fresh meat, and he has to make an arrangement with +a Brandon butcher, about a hundred and fifty miles off, to supply +him with a Sunday joint. Tinned meats his family have +tried, and he has got with him a fresh joint of meat, which he +purchased in Winnipeg; but there are prairie chickens always to +be had, and in some places, as we came along, we saw an abundance +of wild ducks on the Assiniboine River, and in swamps, over which +we rushed in the Pullman car.</p> +<p>This luxury cannot be expected in Moose Jaw. Here there +is no water at all. Last year the farmers had no rain, and +they fear they will have none now. As it is, the <a +name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 151</span>prairie +begins to look a little scorched. I should be loth to spend +the remainder of my days here; but a farmer may make a living, +and so may a farm-labourer. As to any other class of people +here, there is no opening at all. The town is full of +shopkeepers, barristers, auctioneers, and dealers. +Mechanics who come out will starve. When the land around is +taken up they will have a chance, but not till then.</p> +<p>As I sit, a dark figure beckons me to come to him. He +has a Jim Crow hat, a blanket around his martial form, and a +gayer one in front. He has rings in his ears, bracelets on +his arms, and a string of some kind of beads around his +neck. He offers me his hand, and I shake it. Then I +commence a conversation. ‘What you called?’ I +say. He makes an unintelligible reply. ‘You +Smith, or Brown, or Jones, or Robinson?’ I ask; and again +he gives an unintelligent grunt. I offer him a cigar, and +he sits down on his <a name="page152"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 152</span>haunches in the shade. He is +one of the Black Bull men, who have been chased from the States, +in consequence of having made that part of the world too hot for +them. They are not natives of this country, but have +settled in the prairie two or three miles off. I tell him +to be a good boy, and I dare say he will obey my injunction as +literally as any other man in England or anywhere else.</p> +<p>Again I look, and two red-coated warriors greet me. They +are on the look-out for contraband, and are as fine and clean and +well-set fellows as any I have seen anywhere. They belong +to the mounted police, and live chiefly in the saddle, as there +are but five hundred of them to all this gigantic +North-West. I had already made their acquaintance. At +the first station we came to after leaving Manitoba, one of them +came into the car, gave a searching glance all round, and then +walked out. ‘What was that for?’ I asked the +General. ‘Oh! he has come to see if we <a +name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>have any +whisky. They are very particular. I was coming this +way once, when a fellow traveller took out his pocket flask and +began drinking. The mounted policeman who saw him do it +immediately took his flask from him, and emptied it there and +then.’ This strict prohibition is the result, not of +the prevalence of Temperance sentiment in the North-West, but +rather of fear of the Indians, who are better shots than the +mounted police, although not so well provided with +fire-arms. The people seem to anticipate that the law will +be relaxed when the whites are more numerous and the Indians +fewer. The law has had good results, nevertheless. In +obedience to it the German gives up his lager-beer. And +next to the Scotch the Germans make the best emigrants.</p> +<p>The General tells me such is the fineness of the climate that +he finds he can get on very well without his customary glass of +<a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +154</span>grog. At Moose Jaw the inhabitants take to Hop +Bitters instead, and one of the institutions of the place is the +Hop Bitters Brewery.</p> +<p>I believe you may keep whisky if you get a permit, and a +permit is not difficult, I understand, to get.</p> +<p>I am sorry to say the General, in spite of the mounted police, +offered me a drop of whisky, and at a later period a friend, as +we sat smoking, asked me if I was ready for a +‘smile.’ Of course, in my ignorance, I replied +in the affirmative. Diving under his seat, he brought out a +fine bottle of real Scotch, and, mixing it with water, offered me +a ‘smile.’ You may be sure I indignantly +refused. You cannot expect me to be a party to the +violation of the law.</p> +<p>These Indians just now are creating a little apprehension, +especially the tribe under the renowned Yellow Calf, who it was +hoped had taken to farming, and who last year had <a +name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>a good +crop, and bought a reaping machine; but the Indians are very +restless, and Yellow Calf has sent a messenger to rouse the +tribes, and a strong party of the mounted police are detached to +watch his movements. They are dying off the face of the +earth, and we may well suppose that they bear no love to the +white man, who has taken possession of the lands which they once +knew to be their own. Here the people evidently think that +the sooner the Indians are exterminated the better. The men +do not work; all that is done by the squaws—wretched women +with long black hair, and little black eyes as round as beads, +and who rejoice in blankets quite as unromantic, but quite as +comfortable, as those of their lords and masters. Hitherto, +I have not made way with the dusky beauties, but I may be more +successful by-and-by.</p> +<p>I believe the Indians have a real grievance against the +Canadian Government. It was <a name="page156"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 156</span>agreed that they should be settled +in reserves, and that they should have a certain amount of food +supplied. This compact was fairly observed by the Canadian +Government; but in an evil hour they made this part of their duty +over to contractors, and we know what contractors are, all the +world over. The Indians say faith has not been kept with +them, and it is to be feared that they have good reason for +saying so. Just now they are starving, as this is the close +season, and they are not permitted to hunt or fish. They +say that there is no close season as far as the stomach is +concerned, and from personal experience I may say I believe they +are right.</p> +<p>It is now noon on the prairie, and I am dying of the +heat. Oh, for the forest shade! Oh, for the crystal +stream! Alas! the water here is not good for the stranger, +and I fear to touch it. At Toronto I managed pretty well on +Apollinaris water; but out here <a name="page157"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 157</span>nothing of the kind is to be +had. What am I to do? The beef here is so tough that +you can’t cut it with a knife, and must have belonged to +the oldest importation from my native land; and I have to pay a +price for which I can have a luxurious repast in London. O +Spiers and Pond! O Gordon and Co.! O respected Ring +and Brymer, under whose juicy joints and sparkling wines the +ancient Corporation of London renews its youth! How my soul +longs for your flesh-pots in this dry and thirsty land, where no +water is! I have been out on the prairie under the burning +sun. It is cracked, and parched, and bare, and the flowers +refuse to bloom, and only the gigantic grasshopper or the pretty +but repulsive snake meets my eye. That dim line, protracted +to the horizon east and west, is the railroad. That far-off +collection of sheds is the rising town of Moose Jaw. That +blue line on the horizon, which makes me pant for the sea, is a +mirage. Far off are <a name="page158"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 158</span>some white tents glistening in the +sun. They are the wigwams of the Indians.</p> +<p>Like the Wandering Jew, again I urge on my wild career, and +here I am with noble savages—so hideous that words fail to +tell their hideousness. No wonder the squaws are +bashful. They have little to be proud of, though they have +necklaces and rings and ornaments around their belts, and gay +shawls, which have come from some far away factory. Some of +them have put a streak of red paint where the black hair +divides. Others are painted as much as any Dowager of +Mayfair, and have ear ornaments that reach down to the +middle. Not one is fairly passable.</p> +<p>Rousseau and the sentimentalists, who talk of the savage, +greatly err in their estimate of that noble individual. He +is lazy and filthy, gluttonous, and would be a wine-bibber had he +the chance. I looked into his tent, and there he was +sitting naked, whilst his squaw was cooking a bit of a horse with +the hair on <a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +159</span>for his dinner. He is unpleasant as a neighbour +for many reasons, and is indifferent how he gets a dollar, or how +his squaw earns it either. All along the prairie he seems +to have nothing to do but to rush to the nearest railway station, +and sit there all day in the hope that some passing traveller may +give him tobacco or cash, the only two things on earth he seems +to care for. Apparently, the mothers are fond of their +young. The men are clever at stealing horses, and the +traveller must look after his horses by night, or he may find +them, as friends of my own did, gone in the morning. But to +return to the prairie, it is an awful place to travel in alone; +it is so easy to lose one’s way. I heard wonderful +stories in this respect. Fancy being lost on the prairie; +nothing but the grass to eat; nothing but the sky to look at; +nothing in the shape of human speech to listen to. Out here +by myself, I felt more than once how appropriate the language of +the poet beloved by our grandmothers:</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span>‘O Solitude, where are the charms<br /> + That sages have seen in thy face?<br /> +Better dwell in the midst of alarms,<br /> + Than reign in this horrible place.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There is a good deal of hardship to be encountered by any who +would penetrate to the dim and mysterious region we denominate +the North-West. For instance, I left Moose Jaw at half-past +two yesterday morning by a train timed to arrive there at a +quarter-past one; at which unreasonable hour I had to leave my +bed, just as I was getting into a sound sleep, and to catch the +train, which was so crowded that I could scarcely get a seat, and +the atmosphere of which was not redolent of the odours of Araby +the Blest. There I had to sit till the time I mention, as +the engine managed to get off the line. Deeply do I pity +the poor emigrants tempted into this part of the world by the +delusive utterances of sham emigration agents at home and local +journals—which, when they are not abusing one another, seem +to delight in giving representations of <a +name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>the country +by no means literally to be depended on; the only thing to do is +to go to the fountain head—the Government office. +People who make up their minds to come into these parts must +learn to put up with a good deal. Here is a sad case, a +very exceptional one, I admit, but I am bound to tell the whole +truth. I quote from a Winnipeg paper: ‘David +Kirkpatrick, his wife, and nine children, the eldest a girl of +twelve, arrived from Scotland on Wednesday. A part of the +voyage was made on board the <i>Algoma</i>. The cold was +intense, and many of the passengers suffered severely. +Among these was Mrs. Kirkpatrick. The exposure, in her +case, brought on a kind of low fever, and the poor woman died +yesterday morning. The husband’s case is +deplorable. With nine children on his hands, what is he to +do? He has a longing desire to get back to his friends in +Scotland, but has not the means. Will the public come to +his rescue? He and his helpless <a name="page162"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 162</span>children are to be found in the +immigrant sheds.’ I fear such cases are far from +uncommon. Imagine a poor woman leaving her native land, +crossing the restless Atlantic, perhaps feeble with poor living, +and worried with the care of nine helpless children, perhaps +scarce recovered from sea-sickness, put on board an emigrant +train, snatching hasty meals, or such accommodation as is +provided at the expense of Dominion Government (I do not blame +them or the railway authorities, they do all they can), +travelling at uncertain hours, and arriving at her destination +utterly overcome by fatigue. What wonder is it that a poor +woman now and then sacrifices her life in the attempt to build up +a new home in this Promised Land? No wonder that now and +then death comes to such just as they reach Jordan and think that +they are to reap the fruit of all their weary toil.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p162.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Pioneer Store at Brandon in 1882" +title= +"Pioneer Store at Brandon in 1882" +src="images/p162.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>As I left Brandon on my way hither I saw by the side of one of +the stations quite a little <a name="page163"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 163</span>village of tents. ‘What +is that?’ said I to one of the mounted police. +‘The emigrants,’ was his reply. ‘They do +say,’ said he slowly, ‘that there is some sickness +amongst them.’ Whether the rumour was founded on fact +I had no time to inquire, but certainly, when one thinks of the +hardships of the emigrants’ lot, and the peculiar unfitness +of many of them to stand hardships, I should not be surprised to +learn that such was the case. The further I come out, the +less demand I find for emigrants. It is only ploughmen who +are wanted here. The man who will succeed is the farmer +with a small capital. He has a splendid chance. When +the country is settled the mechanic may have his turn.</p> +<p>But remember, after all has been said and done, this is the +Great Lone Land. Emigration here is but a drop in the ocean +as regards results. I am now some 850 miles to the +north-west of Winnipeg. The <a name="page164"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 164</span>country is an unbroken level, and, +with the exception of Brandon and Moose Jaw, you see hardly a +farmhouse, hardly any ploughed land, no sheep grazing on the +downs, no herds fattening in the prairie; not a single tree to +hide one from the snows of winter or the suns of summer. By +day you melt in the sun, by night you shiver with the cold. +When we came to a swamp now and then we saw a few wild +ducks. Once in the course of the weary ride we saw two or +three deer. All the rest was a parched plain, with here and +there some lovely flowers, and with buffalo bones bleaching +wherever you turn your eye. In some parts the soil was +strongly impregnated with alkali, so much so, indeed, that it +made the ground white, and left a crust of what looked like ice +on the lakes and ponds. Can that huge region ever grow +wheat and fatten flocks? The experience of the experimental +farms proves that it will. All I know is that ages must +elapse before Moose <a name="page165"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 165</span>Jaw shall be a Manchester, or +Brandon, in spite of its many advantages, the headquarters of the +agricultural interest, with a corn market equalling that of +Norwich or Ipswich. Yet there are parts of Manitoba which +contain undoubtedly as fine corn-growing country as any in the +world.</p> +<p>This is especially true of the new tract of country opened up +by the Canadian Pacific in the south-west. As a rule, the +further from the railway the land is, the better it is. At +the same time, it is to be remembered that a farmer who has no +railway access is at a great disadvantage, and that in the winter +it is no joke sending a man with a team of oxen and a waggon-load +of produce twenty or thirty miles across the prairie, where a +snowstorm, or ‘a blorrard’ at any time, may +occur.</p> +<p>This is the great drawback of Manitoba: it has no trees. +In Ontario the farmer has his crops protected by a belt of trees +from <a name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>the +inclemency of the weather. But, then, in Manitoba the +farmer has this advantage, that he has not to devote the greater +part of his time and money to the cutting down of his +trees. He has only to plough the soil, and there is an +abundant harvest. If Manitoba lacks trees, it is expected +to yield a plentiful supply of coal. As I came along last +night we saw a station supplied with gas. It appears that +in boring for water they discovered gas, which they now utilize +to light the station and to work a steam engine. This was +not, however, in Manitoba, but in Alberta, just after we had left +Medicine Hat, that pretty oasis in the desert, with the usual +supply of hotels, billiard-rooms, and stores, and where I came +into contact with the Cree Indians, a race even uglier than the +Sioux Indian, whom I found at Moose Jaw. They have higher +cheekbones, and don’t plait their hair, and some of the old +men reminded me not a little in outline of <a +name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>the late +Lord Beaconsfield, whom the Canadians consider Sir John Macdonald +strongly resembles.</p> +<p>It is curious to note how the buffalo has vanished from the +region which was formerly his happy hunting-ground. He has +now forsaken the country; you see only his bones and his +track. Some people say that the railway has done it, and +others that the destruction is the work of the Americans, who +say, ‘Kill the buffalo and you get rid of the +Indians.’ These latter are to be met with everywhere, +clad in flannel garments radiant with all the hues of the +rainbow. Chiefly they affect blankets—red, blue, or +green. At Calgary I came across more of them—this +time of the Blackfoot tribe. There is very little +difference in any of them. In one thing they all resemble +each other, that is, they don’t seem to care much about +work. As English does not happen to be one of their +accomplishments, my intercourse with <a name="page168"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 168</span>them has been of a somewhat limited +character.</p> +<p>For the sake of intending emigrants let me dispel a couple of +popular errors. One that the heat is most enjoyable; +another, that it is a cheap country to come to. Neither +assertion is exactly the truth. As I write the heat is +insufferable, and yet this is early spring. I saw snow +yesterday in a hollow of the hills not yet melted, and last +night, sleeping in a stuffy Pullman car full of people, I was +awoke with the cold. The other fallacy which I would expose +is that this is a cheap country. On the contrary, it is +nothing of the kind. Paxton Hood, if I remember aright, +once gave a lecture on America under the title of the ‘Land +of the Big Dollar.’ If I were to lecture on Canada I +should call it the ‘Land of the Little Dollar.’ +A dollar here is of no account. This morning I went into a +shop and had a bottle of ginger-beer, and the cost was one <a +name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>shilling; +and this, too, after I had been administering a little +‘soft sawder’ to the fair American damsel who waited +on me (she was from Michigan, and was remarkably wide awake), in +the mistaken hope that she would be a little reasonable in her +charge. Everyone smokes cigars all day long, and yet +Canadian cigars are as costly as they are atrocious. +Fortunately one can’t spend money in drink, as that is +prohibited, and the chemists at Calgary have recently got into a +scrape for supplying customers with essence of lemon, by means of +which they manage to fuddle themselves. The price of fruit +is prohibitory; cucumbers, such as you in London would give three +halfpence for, are here at Calgary as much as a shilling. +Eggs are four shillings a dozen; meat and bacon and ham are as +dear as in England, and not a quarter so good. I am +appalled as I see how the money goes; I fear to be stranded at +the foot of the Rockies. <a name="page170"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 170</span>If I get back to the west I shall +have to work my passage back to England as fireman or stoker, or +in some such ignoble capacity. If I was younger I would +turn gardener. I believe anyone who would come out here +with sufficient capital to plant a nursery ground or to stock a +good fruit garden would make a lot of money, as the farmers, of +course, do not think of such things, and the supply is quite +unequal to the demand. In Calgary they did not have three +inches of frost all last winter. It is true they have even +now a sharp nip of frost; but I hear of peas flourishing at a +farmer’s close by, and the region abounds with wild +strawberries and raspberries and cherries. If they grow +wild, surely they will equally prosper under more careful +culture.</p> +<p>A Special Committee of the Dominion House of Commons which was +appointed last session to obtain evidence upon the agricultural +industries of the country, examined <a name="page171"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 171</span>several witnesses as to the +suitability of Canada, and especially of the Canadian North-West, +for the growth of forest and fruit trees. The testimony +given showed that there are many varieties of fruit which thrive +in Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and other European countries, +which would, if transplanted, be equally suited to the climate of +the North-West, it being stated that excellent fruit is grown in +great quantities in Europe at points where the temperature ranges +considerably lower than it does in Canada. It is urged that +the example of the Russian and German Governments should be +followed in the establishment of plantations of fruit trees and +experimental farms in different parts of the Dominion, to test +the kind of trees and fruits best suited to the different +localities.</p> +<p>Since my return the following paper has been put into my +hands:—‘The following is a reliable estimate of this +season’s wheat crop <a name="page172"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 172</span>in Manitoba and the North-West +Territories:—Estimated wheat acreage in Manitoba, 350,000; +yield at 23 bushels per acre, 8,000,000; estimated wheat acreage +in North-West Territories, 65,000; yield at 23 bushels per acre, +or 1,500,000 bushels—a total of 415,000 acres and 9,500,000 +bushels. Deducting 2,760,000 bushels for home consumption +and seed, a surplus remains of 6,740,000 bushels. +Everything now points to a larger yield per acre than that of +1883.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p172.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Harvesting on the Bell Farm, Indian Head, N.W.I." +title= +"Harvesting on the Bell Farm, Indian Head, N.W.I." +src="images/p172.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>‘Operations have been carried on very extensively this +season at the Bell Farm, in the Canadian North-West, which is +said to be the largest farm in the world. Though this is +but the second year of cultivation, there are already 8,000 acres +under crop, 5,000 to 6,000 of which are under wheat, and a +portion of the remainder under flax. Last year 10,000 +bushels were exported from the farm, and the excellence of the +grain secured for it a good price in the market. The crop +<a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>of this +year is estimated to be 40 per cent. better. Experts from +Montana who have recently visited this section of the Canadian +North-West, state that they never saw any grain in the United +States to equal that on and around the Bell Farm.’</p> +<h2><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +174</span>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">AMONGST THE COW-BOYS.</p> +<p>I am writing from Calgary, a little but growing collection of +huts and wooden houses planted on a lovely plain with hills all +around, a river at my feet, on the banks of which some poplars +flourish, and I can almost fancy I am in Derbyshire itself. +It is a gay place, this rising town, at the foot, as it were, of +the Rockies, and just now is unusually gay, as the Queen’s +birthday is being celebrated with athletic sports and a ball; +and, besides, a new clergyman has made his appearance, the Rev. +Parks Smith, from a Bermondsey parish, who is to preach in the +new Assembly Hall, which is to be set apart as a church on <a +name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +175</span>Sundays. I am going to hear him, and already I +feel somewhat of a Pharisee—I have on a clean collar, which +I religiously preserved for the occasion, and have had my boots +blackened. The sight is so novel that I have spent half an +hour on the prairie contemplating the effect of that +operation. Already I feel six inches higher.</p> +<p>I can’t say that I think quite so much of Calgary as do +the people who live in it. In splendour, in wealth, in +dignity, and importance, they evidently anticipate it will be a +second Babylon. Well, a good deal has to be done +first. The situation is pleasant, I admit. You +incline to think well of Calgary after the dreary ride across the +prairie, and you have quite a choice of hotels, and of shops, all +well stocked; but then these shops are little better than huts, +and the hotels certainly don’t throw the shops into the +shade.</p> +<p>For instance, I am in the leading hotel. It is too far +from the railway, but that is because <a name="page176"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 176</span>the C.P.R. have moved their station +a little further on, where the new town of Calgary is springing +up. We have an open room, where I am writing—a dark +dining-room on one side, and then, on the other, a little row of +closets, which they dignify by the name of bedrooms. I am +the proud possessor of one. It holds a bed, whereon, I own, +I slept soundly; a row of pegs, on which to hang one’s +clothes; and a little shelf, on which is placed a tiny wash-hand +basin; while above that is a glass, in which it is impossible to +get a good view of yourself—a matter of very small +consequence, as the glass certainly reflects very poorly the +looker’s personal charms, whatever they may be. I +ought to have said there is a window; and as my bedroom is on the +ground floor (upper rooms are rare in these wooden houses in the +North-West), I am much exercised in my mind as to whether that +window may not be opened in the course of the night, and the roll +of <a name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +177</span>dollars I have hidden under my pillow carried +off. Then, just as I am getting into bed, I discover +somebody else’s boots. That is +awkward—very. It is with a sigh of relief I discover +that they are not feminine. Suppose the owner of those +boots comes into my bedroom and claims to be the rightful +owner? Suppose he resorts to physical force? Suppose, +in such a case, I got the worst of it?</p> +<p>Fortunately, before I can answer these questions +satisfactorily to myself, I am asleep, and yet they are not so +irrelevant as you fancy.</p> +<p>Last night, for instance, as I was sitting in the cool air, +smoking one of the peculiarly bad cigars in which the brave men +of Canada greatly rejoice, and for which they pay as heavily as +if they were of the finest brands, a half-drunken man came up, +abusing me in every possible way, threatening to smash every bone +in my body, and altogether behaving himself in a way the reverse +of polite. <a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +178</span>Perhaps you say, Why did you not knock him down? +In novels heroes always do, and come clear off; but I am not +writing fiction, and in real life I have always found discretion +to be the better part of valour. The fact is, the fellow +was a strapping Hercules, and I could see in a moment, if the +appeal were to force, what the issue might be. Yet I had +not done anything intentionally to offend him. He had come +galloping up to the hotel, as they all do here—the horses +are not trained to trot—and his horse had bucked him +off. I believe I did say something to a friend of a mildly +critical nature, but I question whether the rider heard it. +The fact was, he was angry at having been thrown, and seeing that +I was a stranger, he evidently thought he could pour the vials of +his wrath on me. I must admit that in a little while he +came up and apologized, and there was an end of the matter. +But the worst part of it was that his friend remarked to me that +this drunken <a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +179</span>insulting ruffian was one of the best fellows in the +place. If so, Calgary has to be thankful for very small +mercies indeed.</p> +<p>You ask, How could the fellow be drunk, seeing that there is a +prohibitory liquor-law in existence? I have every reason to +believe that Calgary is a very drunken place, nevertheless. +I have already referred to one case of drunkenness. I may +add that, in the afternoon of the same day, I had seen another in +the shape of an old gentleman who was going to head a revolt +which would cut off the North-West from the Dominion, and which +would make her a Crown colony. He was very drunk as he +stood on the bar opposite me declaiming all this bunkum. I +remarked his state to the landlord, who seemed to feel how unfair +it was that men could get drunk on the sly, and that a decent +landlord, like himself, should be deprived of the privilege of +selling them decent liquor. I own it is very hard on the +publicans. At Moose <a name="page180"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 180</span>Jaw one of them told me he would +give five hundred pounds for a liquor license. ‘They +call this a free country,’ said an indignant English +settler to me, ‘and yet I can’t get a drop of good +liquor. Pretty freedom, ain’t it?’ +Unfortunately, the Government, while it prohibits the sale of +liquor, does not exterminate the desire for it—perhaps only +increases it—as we always cry for what we can’t +get. Unfortunately, also, it is true that, as long as this +demand exists, the supply will be found somehow.</p> +<p>In Montana there are a lot of blackguards and daredevils who +will run the thing in somehow. Liquor is also brought in by +the railway as coal-oil, oatmeal, flour, varnish, and then it is +doctored up and sold at £1 the bottle to the thirsty +souls. Now, what is the consequence? Why, that, as a +local journal remarks, liquor is sold; the dealers are pests and +outlaws; they sell their poison for ten times the price of what +people who don’t <a name="page181"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 181</span>belong to the Blue Ribbon Army call +good liquor, and then vanish with their ill-gotten money out of +the country, excepting such as they may leave behind them in the +shape of fines, when found out. I do think the hotel-keeper +has much reason to complain of prohibition. It presses +hardly on him, and does not put drunkenness down. I +mentioned these facts to a Baptist minister from England, whom I +met in Toronto. He would not believe them; I gave him +cuttings from newspapers to support my view. His reply was +that they were hoaxes. I have now been in Calgary a day, +and already I find that these hoaxes, as my friend calls them, +are veritable facts.</p> +<p>I believe that many of my travelling companions were a little +fresh last night, from their soberness and dejection of manner +this morning. They were away down town, and had not +returned when I retired to rest; and this morning several of the +householders complain <a name="page182"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 182</span>of having had their doors knocked at +at most unseasonable hours.</p> +<p>At meals I meet queer company. We have a Chinese +cook. I have a faint idea that he has murderous designs on +us all, his smile is so childlike and bland; yet I prefer his +placid pleasant round face to those of his female helps, sour and +ill-looking, who earn wages such as an English servant-girl never +dreams of. His messes seem to be appreciated, and little is +left after meal-time. It is enough for me to see the men +eat. Every particle of food is conveyed into the mouth by +means of the knife, which is also freely used if sugar or salt be +required. Our dining-room is simply a shed, and a very dark +one, having a canvas on one side and unpainted deal on the +other. Few houses at Calgary are painted, though a painted +house looks so much prettier than a deal one that I wonder +painting is not more resorted to, especially when you remember +how paint <a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +183</span>preserves the wood. Many of the houses here are +brought all the way from Ontario, and, perhaps, this accounts for +their smallness. They chiefly consist of two rooms, one a +shop, the other a sitting and night-room; and the larger number +have been erected within the last few months. What we call +in England a gentleman’s house, I should say does not exist +in the whole district. A gentleman would find existence +intolerable here, though the air is fine, and the extent of the +prairie is unbounded. There are two newspapers in the town, +and the professions are all well represented.</p> +<p>As to my companions, the less I say of them the better. +They are young and vigorous, and use language not generally +tolerated in polite society. Their talk is chiefly of +horses and bets. They ride recklessly up and down the dusty +path which forms the main street, and would not break their +hearts if they knocked a fellow down; or they drive light <a +name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 184</span>waggons on +four wheels, creating the most overwhelming clouds of dust as +they rush by. As to their saddles, they are as unlike +English ones as can well be imagined, rising at each end, so as +to give the rider a very safe seat, while their stirrups are as +long almost as the foot itself; but the saddles have this +advantage, that they never give the horses sore backs. As +to the horses, they are all branded, and turned loose on to the +prairie when not required. Most of the men are +prospectors—people who go round the country in search of +mines; or cow-boys—that is, men employed in the cattle +ranches in the district. The cowboy is a fearful +sight. His hands and face are as brown as leather, he wears +a straw hat—or one of felt—with a very wide +brim. His coat or jacket is, perhaps, decorated with Indian +work. Around his waist he wears a belt, which he makes +useful in many ways. Then he has brown leather leggings, +ornamented down the sides with leather fringes, <a +name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 185</span>and on his +heels he puts a tremendous pair of spurs. The men on the +mountains have much the same style of dress, and are fine +specimens of muscular, rather than intellectual or moral, +development. On the whole, I am not unduly enamoured of +these pioneers of civilization; but, then, I was born in the old +country, and learned Dr. Watts’s hymns, and was taught +to—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Thank the goodness and the grace<br /> + That on my birth has smiled,<br /> +And made me in these Christian days<br /> + A happy English child.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I see a good deal more of Calgary than I wish to. I feel +that I have been made a fool of by the station-master. I +am, as you may be aware, at the foot of the Rocky +Mountains. They are some 60 miles off, yet; already I have +seen their far-off peaks, glistening with snow, rising into the +summer sky. As I have got so far, I must see them. +There are trees up there, and the sight of a <a +name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 186</span>tree would +be good for sore eyes; there are cooling shades out there, and +here, though it is but early morning, it is too hot to +stir. The scenery out there is the finest to be seen in all +the Canadian continent, and I would carry away with me, to think +of in after years, something of their beauty. I travelled +all this way for that purpose, and hoped to have been off before, +and now find I must wait, owing to a blunder on the part of the +station-master. He promised he would let me know if he sent +a freight-train to the Rocky Mountains. Well, he sent off a +train at one o’clock this morning, and never let me know +anything about it, and the consequence is I must stay two more +days in this dreary spot, without conveniences such as I could +find in the meanest cottage in England, and at a cost which would +enable me to live in luxury and fare sumptuously at home. +One lesson I have learned, which I repeat for the benefit of my +readers. Never <a name="page187"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 187</span>depend upon other people; hear all +they say, and then act for yourself. Had I done so, I +should have been now in the Rocky Mountains. I trusted in +others, and I am, in consequence, the victim of misplaced +confidence.</p> +<p>I gather a few items of interest to intending emigrants. +Crops raised in the vicinity of Calgary during 1883 gave the +following yields per acre:—Wheat, 33 bushels; barley, 40 +bushels; oats, 60 bushels. The Government farm a few miles +off, which I have visited, does well. The country round +offers especial advantages to sheep and dairy farmers, cheese +manufacturers, and hog raisers. My own impression is, and I +have mentioned it to several persons who all think it excellent, +that any man would easily make his fortune who set up a poultry +farm. Eggs and fowls are almost entirely unknown, and if +the producer did not find a market here, he could easily send his +produce by the railway to where it was wanted. Eggs and +fowls <a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +188</span>help one as well as anything to keep body and soul +together.</p> +<p>I am glad I went to church yesterday. My presence there +gave quite a tone to the place (said the head man to me this +morning), and so far I may presume I did good service. The +congregation consisted chiefly of men, and the collection +amounted to nearly 16 dollars—pretty good, considering +(said the above mentioned gentleman) there are two or three +schism shops in the place. In the evening I went to the +Wesleyan Methodist schism shop, as he called it, and heard a +sermon, which touched me more than any sermon I have heard a long +time. As I came out the effect was startling. The sun +was sinking in crimson glory just behind the green hills by which +Calgary is surrounded. Far off a dim splendour of pink +testified to the existence of a prairie fire, while before me +stood a gigantic Indian, with his big black head rising out of a +pyramid of gorgeous robes, <a name="page189"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 189</span>really dazzling to behold. +There is an Indian Mission near here, but the Indians are not the +only heathens out here.</p> +<p>I have just had a ride in a buck-cart, which is the kind of +vehicle the colonists use. It is of boards on four wheels, +on which is placed a seat for a couple of persons, while the +luggage is piled up behind. Some of them have springs, as +fortunately was the case with the one on which I rode, or I +should have had a very uncomfortable ride indeed. Perhaps I +ought not to be so angry with the station-master as I was when I +interviewed him this morning. I have just seen a man who +got on to the freight train, but he tells me it was so +uncomfortable that he preferred to wait, and got off after he had +taken his passage.</p> +<p>Money seems scarce. I have just been to the post-office +to send a letter to England. The postmaster could give me +no change, and I had to take post-cards instead. I <a +name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 190</span>suppose all +the money goes to the smugglers. In this small town 500 +dollars are sent weekly to Winnipeg for liquor; so much for +prohibition in Calgary.</p> +<p>As there is no bank here, people find it hard to get +money. A young man waiting here to make up a mining party +for the Rockies, tells me he had to telegraph to Toronto for 500 +dollars, which were sent in the shape of a post-office +order. The postmaster charged him five dollars for cashing +the order. I have just heard of a loan of 300 dollars +effected; the borrower has agreed to pay, in the shape of +interest, the moderate sum of four dollars a month.</p> +<p>Calgary, according to some, can have no enduring prosperity; +if so, the land-grabbers who have scattered themselves all over +it will be deeply disappointed.</p> +<p>Edmonton, where they get gold out of the river sand, and where +they have already a kind of dredging machine employed for that <a +name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>purpose, it +is said, will shortly have a railway to itself, and the men from +the mountains, who are the mainstay of Calgary, will go that +way.</p> +<p>I fancy I hear some one exclaim: On those wide plains over +which sweeps the ice-laden air of the Rockies, what pleasant +walks you must have! My dear sir, you are quite +mistaken. Perhaps, as you set out, there comes a herd of +wild horses—and then I remember how poor George Moore was +knocked down by one, and avoid the boundless prairie +accordingly.</p> +<p>Then there are the dogs, ‘their name is Legion,’ +and they are big, and as wild as they are big, and I am not +partial to hydrophobia. No; it is better to sit at the door +of my tent and watch the flight of the horses, the fights of the +dogs, and the stream of dust a mile long which denotes that some +Jehu is at hand, who will pull up at the door, deeply drink +water, smoke a cigar, use a little <a name="page192"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 192</span>strong language, and then mount +again and ride off into boundless space.</p> +<p>Here and there a pedestrian may be seen making his way to his +solitary hut or shop, where at no time do you see any sign of +life; and how the people here make a living (with the exception +of the hotel-keepers, who are always busy) puzzles me. I +meet good fellows, I own. They are friendly in their +way. As humour is a thing unknown in Canada and the +North-West, they generally grin when I make a remark, which I do +at very protracted intervals, fearing to be worn out before the +long day is done. Nevertheless, I begin to doubt whether I +am not relapsing into the wild life of those around me. +Fortunately, I have not yet acquired the habit of speaking +through my nose, nor do I make that fearful sound—a hawking +in the throat—which is a signal that your neighbour is +preparing to expectorate, and which renders travelling, even in a +first-class car, <a name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +193</span>almost insupportable; but my hands are tanned. I +sit with my waistcoat open, and occasionally in my +shirt-sleeves. I care little to make any effort to be +polite; I am clean forgetting all my manners, and feel that in a +little while I shall be as rough as a cow-boy, or as the wild +wolf of the prairie. It is clear I must not tarry at +Calgary too long.</p> +<h2><a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +194</span>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">IN THE ROCKIES—HOLT CITY—LIFE IN +THE CAMP—A ROUGH RIDE—THE KICKING HORSE +LAKE—BRITISH COLUMBIA.</p> +<p>I am writing from Holt City—so named after a famous +contractor out here—in the middle of the Rocky +Mountains. Here the rail comes, but no further, as yet, +though some 2,000 men are at work a few miles ahead, and making +incredible speed in the construction of this gigantic +intercolonial undertaking—an undertaking which would have +been completed by this time had the late Sir Hugh Allan (the +founder of the Allan line of steamers) and Sir John Macdonald had +their way.</p> +<p><a name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>I +left Calgary without shedding a tear—the train was only +three hours late—after remarking to the manager of the +leading hotel that, much as I had enjoyed myself under his humble +but hospitable roof, I would give him leave to charge me twenty +dollars a day if ever he caught me within his doors again.</p> +<p>When the train arrived, of course there was no room. +This is the working season, and the C.P.R., as everyone calls it +in Canada, is hurrying on men to the front as fast as they can be +got.</p> +<p>However, I was permitted to get inside the mail van, in +company with a contractor, his wife, and a baby, which behaved +itself as well as could be expected under the circumstances; a +lady who was going to visit her husband, one of the contractors +on the line; and an invalid from Pennsylvania, who did not seem +much to enjoy that rough mode of travelling. We reached +Holt City about <a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +196</span>eleven, when it was quite dark, and the only bed I +could find was a shelf in the van, on which I was glad to lie +down—but not, alas! to sleep. Had I got out, I should +have been lost, or run over by an engine—that is positive, +as there is no road, only divers rails, as, for instance, the +Continental Hotel at Newhaven. I am now writing in the +post-office, which seems the great social centre of the place, +though the mail only leaves twice a week. It is a +decent-sized tent, with a desk and counter in the middle for the +sale of stamps and cigars and the delivery of letters. +Behind it are a couple of beds on which men are reposing in a way +that I envy, and covered with buffalo skins—the possession +of which I envy them still more. In front is a table, +fitted up with old papers and a couple of uncommonly +uncomfortable benches, whereon are sitting various loafers, +smoking and talking, and warming themselves as best they can at +the big stove—one of which you now <a +name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 197</span>see in +every Canadian house, and which but feebly keeps out the raw cold +of the morning.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p197.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Mount Stephen in the Rocky Mountains on the Line of the Canadian +Pacific Railway" +title= +"Mount Stephen in the Rocky Mountains on the Line of the Canadian +Pacific Railway" +src="images/p197.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Holt City is admirably located, to use an American phrase +which I heartily detest. It is a clearance in the forest, +bordered by the Bow River, which dashes foaming along. +There is a shed, which does duty for a railway station; a +collection of tents, in which the <i>employés</i> of the +company dwell, or which hold the large stores it collects here; a +large shed for meals, a railway car, in which Mr. John Ross, the +able administrator of the C.P.R. in these parts, resides with his +accomplished wife; and further off are other tents, which do duty +as hotels, billiard-rooms, and shops. Up here, I see little +to remind me of the Old Country, except bottles of +Stephens’ inks, of Aldersgate Street, London, which, says +the head accountant, are the only inks on which they can +rely.</p> +<p>We are in a valley—a valley high up among the +mountains—as fair as that in <a name="page198"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 198</span>which Rasselas studied to be a +virtuous prince, but of a character common in the length and +breadth of the Rockies. I have seen scores of valleys as +fair; and yet I own the exquisite loveliness of the spot—at +any rate, in summer time—is marvellous. Around me +rise Alps on Alps, up into the cloudless blue. Firs, all +larch and pine, in all the freshness of their new-found greenery, +clothe their base; while the snow, in wreaths like marble, +glistens on their dark sides or crowns their rugged peaks. +It would seem as if there could be no world beyond. It is +really wonderful what pleasant nooks of this kind one sees +everywhere. I stopped at one such last night, a station +called Canmore, which, however, seemed to be the fairest of them +all—and so the fish think, as the station-master tells me +he often catches speckled trout seven or eight pounds in +weight. Very near are valuable sulphur and other springs, +and when the railway shall be completed, I look forward <a +name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 199</span>to the time +when Pullman cars shall come here laden with health seekers from +all parts of the world, who are fond of fishing and fine air.</p> +<p>I had a narrow escape from not coming here at all. When +we stopped at Canmore for our evening meal, I found I was utterly +unable to climb back into the mail van. I may be young in +heart, but, alas! I have lost somewhat of the agility of +early youth. I mentioned this to the station-master and +guard, who both promised me repeatedly that they would have the +train drawn up for me. Knowing this, I listened +unconcernedly to the cry of ‘All on board!’ +Judge, then, of my horror when I saw the train gradually gliding +past.</p> +<p>‘Jump into the last car,’ cried the guard, as he +saw me looking daggers at him.</p> +<p>Fortunately I succeeded in doing so: it is easier to get on to +an American car when in motion than on an English one, on account +of <a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 200</span>its +peculiar construction. This is fortunate, as the railway +passenger in Canada has to trust entirely to himself. He is +ignored by guards and porters and station-master +altogether. Unfortunately, I jumped on to the car sacred to +the person of Sir John McNeil, and I was requested by the black +cook to move off, which I declined doing till we reached the next +station, when I moved into another car, and created not a little +laughter as I told my story. It is to be trusted that Sir +John enjoyed himself all the more for having got rid of my vulgar +presence. I hope Sir John may enlighten his friends on his +return; but I fear he will gain little knowledge of the people or +the country, travelling in such a way. Perhaps he will +learn as much about it as the Marquis of Lorne, or the Earl of +Carnarvon, who recommends the poor people of the East-end to come +to Canada, where the chances are they will be worse off than they +are at home. Canada requires <a name="page201"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 201</span>hardy, muscular men—if with +money in their pockets so much the better—not the refuse of +our towns.</p> +<p>Again, I repeat, people in England ought to have fuller +information about Canada ere they go thither. It is a +fortune for the strong man, but even he has to run risks. +Everywhere I hear of what is called mountain fever, or Red River +fever, or fever with some other name which stands for typhoid +disease. Grand and beautiful as is the country, fertile as +is the soil, people forget to observe sanitary laws at times and +suffer in consequence. But I must own that all the men I +met in Holt City were pictures of health and strength. For +one thing, the company feeds them well. I have just +breakfasted in camp with the men. We had good coffee and +fried ham and other good things for breakfast, and good tins of +preserved fruits, to which everyone did justice. Everyone +here has to rough it. I washed this morning in the open +air, having myself ladled <a name="page202"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 202</span>into a tin basin the water out of a +cask in which still floated the broken ice.</p> +<p>Holt City is, I suppose, the head-quarters of the C.P.R. +Yet it is a place by itself. Nothing can be rougher than +the rail from here to Calgary, or finer than the view. It +is an advantage that the trains are so slow, as you have more +time to enjoy the scenery, which has almost shaken my attachment +to the Hebrides, though one misses the purple heather which lends +such a charm to the grey hills of the North. But +comparisons are odious, and the Rockies, in all their charms, +must be seen to be appreciated. It was a wonderful view I +had last night as I sat on the steps of the last car, drinking in +all the strange beauties of the place. We were climbing +hour by hour a wilderness of mountains. We were hemmed in +by them from afternoon till night came down upon the face of the +earth. Mostly they were black, with snowy variations; some +were bare, others <a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +203</span>clothed with verdure. Some raised their heads in +the clear blue sky as fortresses, others were peaks, others +ragged and uneven, shapeless masses of matter growing out of one +another. Some seemed to like good company, others stood +solitary and apart.</p> +<p>In the dells and shadows there are tales yet to be told. +For instance, here are some remains of the ancient road to +British Columbia. Here, a man tells me, last year there was +a terrible tragedy. An English gentleman and his son were +camping near the spot. There came a forest fire. +Awful to relate, when the son had time to look around him, his +father was burnt to death. Fearful are some of the +solitudes through which the passenger plunges. The bear and +the eagle have them entirely to themselves. Few have +explored them; fewer still have scaled the mountain heights by +which they are girdled. But nowadays one is in search of +silver or gold or coal, and has no time to think of <a +name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 204</span>mountain +grandeur. Cities rise and fall very quickly here. +Silver City, for instance, where we stopped last night, was all +the rage a year or two ago. It is now deserted. Yet +people say silver is still to be found there, and at Calgary, as +an illustration of the fact, a ‘prospector’ showed me +a fine specimen of silver, at the same time asking me to come and +see the shaft. I replied I was as fond of silver as he was, +but I sought it in another way.</p> +<p>But to return to the Rockies. I wonder not that in times +past the Indians saw in them the home of the gods, or that there +the scientist discovers in them the source of the whirlwind or +the storm.</p> +<p>I am again train-bound. No one knows when we may have a +train from the east, and till we have one it is impossible for me +to get away. Physically, perhaps, this is a good thing for +me, as it enables me to recuperate. Here I am, 5,000 or +6,000 feet above the level of the <a name="page205"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 205</span>sea, breathing mountain air, and +luxuriating in mountain scenery. Last night I slept in a +caboose, and it was the best night’s rest I have had for a +long time. I went to bed at nine and was up again at +five. Do my readers know what a caboose is? It is a +railway luggage-car on wheels. Mine is rather a superior +one, and has an upper and a lower chamber, and has in the upper +chamber a row of shelves, which do service as beds. I had +one of these to myself, and, as I was well provided with +blankets, did not much grieve at the absence of linen sheets.</p> +<p>My dear old friend, Mrs. Moodie, wrote a capital book, called +‘Roughing It in the Bush.’ Assuredly I may, one +of these days, write one on roughing it in the Rockies, though +the keeper of the caboose, out of respect for my age and +infirmities, does all he can to make me comfortable. +Already I feel the better for the air. For the first time +since I have been in Canada I have felt hungry; for the <a +name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 206</span>first time, +also, since I have been in Canada I have not had to physic myself +with chlorodyne. A month up here in the Rockies would make +a young man of me or of anyone else. I must be off before I +become as gay as a horse fed on beans. This is, I take it, +the real and sufficient reason of the peculiar spirits of the +mountaineers, who rather alarmed me with their liveliness at +Calgary. Their exuberance is due to air, and air +alone. As I sit, a long row of mules files past; a man is +riding at the head, the others follow with their burdens packed +on their backs. He is a ‘prospector,’ and is on +his way to the other side. Already as many as a thousand +such have gone the same road this summer.</p> +<p>The mountains are full of wealth—in the shape of gold or +silver, or coal or slate, or other precious commodities. +Hitherto the cost of conveyance has kept people away. The +opening of the C.P.R. will remove that inconvenience. They +will have a chance now <a name="page207"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 207</span>of getting rid of their minerals, +when discovered, and of fetching up their stores from the East at +less expense. As it is, things are dear enough in Holt +City. For instance, if I send or receive a letter, I have +to pay the postmaster a few cents in addition to the usual +postage-stamp. Calgary I thought bad enough, but up here +prices may be quoted as much higher. Yesterday I had a ride +over the mountains. It will be long before I take such a +ride again. No English coachman would drive such a road for +five hundred a year. No English carriage could stand it, +nor English horses either. I expected the buggy, as it was +called, to be shattered into atoms every minute—it looked +so light and frail, and the horses—a handsome pair, the +property of Mr. Ross—to be ruined for life; yet we got +safely to the front—where the men are hard at work cutting +down trees, removing earth, tunnelling, and pushing on the work +with all their might; and there, I must say, there are <a +name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span>openings +for any number of men who like to come out. Last year +little was done in the winter, because the contractors believed +the climate would be against them. No one before then had +wintered in the Rockies, and everyone believed the climate to be +much worse than it really is.</p> +<p>But to return to the ride. I yet feel it in every bone +in my body, as all the time I had to hold on to my seat like grim +death. Sometimes the coachman was high above me; sometimes +I was at the top and he at the bottom; now we were deep in the +mud, the next moment high and dry on a formidable boulder, bigger +than a hogshead, and came down with a bang, which sent me +quivering all over. Here we were with the water up to the +floor; and then we came on a mudbank quite as deep. Not an +inch of the ground was level. It was all collar work or the +reverse. Fortunately we were shaded by the firs which climb +all the mountains out <a name="page209"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 209</span>here, or the heat would have been +unbearable. As to conversation, that was quite out of the +question, though the ‘boy’ who drove me came when a +child from Devonshire, and had a strong wish to see the old +country again, of whose lanes, yellow with primroses, and +cottages bright with roses and honeysuckles, and farmhouses green +with ivy, he had a very vivid recollection. He made a lot +of money, he said. Indeed, he had more than he knew what to +do with. Last winter, for instance, he stopped a month in +Winnipeg, and spent there four hundred dollars. ‘How +did it all go?’ ‘Oh! in treating the +boys!’ was his answer. I rather intimated that was a +poor way of using his money. ‘Oh!’ said he, +‘they all do it. That is the way of the boys in this +country!’ I was glad to hear him say that he thought +of taking a farm soon, and was putting by the money for that +purpose. The Rocky Mountains cannot be a bad place for a +‘boy.’ One of them yesterday <a +name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 210</span>told me how +he had vainly written to his father to come out, who was now in +the old country breaking stones on the road. Here, at any +rate, he would have been better off. It is a long journey, +I know, for the British emigrant. We are more than 1,000 +miles from Winnipeg, and the ride is a dreary one till you reach +the Rockies. The run to Winnipeg from Toronto by Port +Arthur and Owen Sound is a real enjoyment. It took us two +days and two nights to reach Port Arthur from Toronto, and the +trip from Port Arthur to Winnipeg is accomplished easily in +twenty hours.</p> +<p>‘Any bears about here?’ said I to the +‘boy,’ in one of the few minutes allowed for +conversation in the course of our rough ride yesterday.</p> +<p>‘Not many. I seed one near where we are +passing. He was a black bear, and stood up and looked at +me, and then I looked at him. I wished I’d had a gun, +and then I would have shot him.’</p> +<p><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>Fortunately I saw no bear, black or brown, in the woods +as we drove amongst them; scarcely a bird—only one, an owl +I think, on the top of a tree, which never moved, though we were +close upon it. ‘Do you make any difference in work on +Sunday?’ I asked of one of the men. ‘Oh no; +Sunday ain’t of much account here.’ This is to +be regretted, if only for physical considerations. Everyone +can work all the better for a day of rest. Again, I think +the C.P.R. injures itself in this way, that it may lose the +services of useful men who like to keep the Sabbath, either from +physical or religious considerations. As a matter of fact, +I found many did take a rest on Sunday, and it was amusing to see +how the morning was devoted to haircutting and shaving and +mending clothes in the open air. A man, I know, can spend +his Sunday at honest work better than in drinking. But when +we think of the wild life of the miners and navvies in the <a +name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 212</span>ends of the +earth—a life so wild that the C.P.R. has got a law passed +to forbid the sale of intoxicating drink, and people are appalled +when they read, in spite of the law, whisky is supplied to men +who have a large number of revolvers at their side—it seems +that a little provision might be made for the religious wants of +the community. The philosopher will laugh, I admit. +My reply is: Men were lifted out of degradation by the Christian +religion in some form or other, and as we root that out we may +expect society to retrograde. These men to the front will +pay for looking after. They are fine fellows mostly. +At any rate, they are the pioneers of modern civilization, and +should be reverenced as such. They are to be honoured for +their work’s sake. They plant, we gather the +fruit. They sow the seed, we reap the harvest, and their +work remains a monument of perseverance, of the benefits of the +Union, of enterprise, and capital and skill. That <a +name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 213</span>Canada has +thus carried the railway and the telegraph across the Rockies +shows that England and America will have to look to their +industrial laurels.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>I am alive, I am thankful to say; but it seems to me that I +should have left my bones on the Kicking Horse Lake, which lies +on the slope of the Rockies, situated in British Columbia, where +the scenery becomes grander and the air balmier as it comes up +laden with the soft breeze of the Pacific. You see that at +once in the superior size of the trees which clothe the sides of +that part of the Rockies.</p> +<p>As far as what the navvies call the front, I had the benefit +of the temporary railway by which Mr. Ross sends his +labourers. It is then the great difficulties of the work +commence, as the rocks are tremendous, and one of the tunnels +making will be three-quarters of a mile long.</p> +<p><a name="page214"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 214</span>This +hot weather I can scarce imagine how the men and horses stand the +work; of the former, some were digging, others cutting down the +trees, others removing rocks, others filling up the swamps. +Here the waggons were being laden with stores to be sent further +to the front; now and then a long trail of mules sweeps by with +miners and miners’ stores, and I plunge into the forest, +shaded from the fierce sun by the tall firs, and as I struggle in +the swamps caused by the melting snows, I can realize something +of the hardships of the early travellers—hardships of which +the tourist, when the rail is completed, will have no idea, +though he will be a little alarmed as the mountains drop away +beneath his feet for more than a hundred miles to the Columbia +river, while the narrow track of rails winds along its +sides. In the winter this pass, when covered with snow, is +very dangerous, and many are the mules and horses dashed to +pieces over the precipice.</p> +<p><a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 215</span>The +lake, when I reach it, is full of ice and snow, and all round the +mountains rear their snow-capped heads. One of the +peculiarities of this region is the abundance of water in some +shape or other, and the shadows on the lakes reflect as a mirror +all the surrounding scene—the dark forest at the base, the +masses of slate-like rock above, the snow in all its radiant +white higher up, the unclouded azure that crowns and glorifies +all.</p> +<p>Heated and tired, I throw myself on the moss, and realize, in +all its intensity, the appalling loneliness of forest +life—I startle three wild ducks, that is all. Down on +my left comes the rushing torrent in a series of picturesque +waterfalls into the lake. I climb the mountain by the side +of them. The water sends to me an ice-laden air, which +revives me as I struggle upwards and onwards, watching the +whirlpools and cascades as the water angrily struggles to force +its way through the iron barriers by which it is <a +name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 216</span>hemmed +in. I secure a fine specimen of petrified moss from a +stream close by. But I may not linger. Already I feel +weak as I plunge into the frozen snow, or sink where the sun has +melted it into morass, or stumble over an old moss-grown trunk, +or climb the big trunks which the axeman has already levelled, or +pass the streams which intersect the plain on logs off which I +expect to slip every moment. Then I come to the railway +men, and avail myself of the imperfect and unconnected track +which they have formed; but now the sun beats fiercely on me, and +I can scarcely put one foot before another. The spirit is +willing, but the flesh is weak. Fortunately, I reach the +tent of a good Samaritan. I refresh myself with water from +the crystal stream. I lunch on bread and cheese, with tea +kindly fetched from the company’s hut, but I have to lie +down three hours before I feel myself equal to urging on my wild +career again.</p> +<p><a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>British Columbia seems at present to be chiefly +occupied by miners. No other kind of emigrants are needed +there. The country is mountainous—a regular sea of +mountains; but, writes an occasional correspondent of <i>The +Toronto Mail</i>, ‘there are beautiful valleys, far +surpassing anything you have in Ontario, and the mountains and +hills furnish pasture. Considering the climate, the rich +soil, and the high price paid for all farming produce, I believe +there cannot be a more desirable place for the farmer. I +have no hesitation in saying that a farm of fifty acres is worth +more than a hundred in the East. All you have to do is to +sow your land with good seed and you are sure of a bountiful +return. No weevil, midge, wire-worm, potato bug, nor, in +fact, any farmers’ pests, exist here. There are no +scorching hot days and sultry nights; no heavy frost or deep snow +to impede work; consequently you are not driven like a slave for +six months and frozen <a name="page218"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 218</span>in for the other six, but have +steady work all the year round.’</p> +<p>Other writers bear a similar testimony. With all its +advantages, however, the country has one drawback—the +scarcity and high price of labour. It seems well looked +after by the Episcopalians, who have a Bishop here and several +clergymen, and, as I may suppose the other denominations are +equally in earnest and equally active, it is clear settlers may +enjoy the advantages of the forms of religious life with which +they are familiar, and under which they have been reared.</p> +<p>British Columbia, which entered the Canadian Confederation in +1871, is the most westerly of the Canadian Provinces. It +has a coast-line on the Pacific Ocean of about 600 miles, that +is, in a straight line. If its almost innumerable +indentations and bays were measured, the coast-line would extend +to several thousands of miles.</p> +<p>The area of the Province, according to the <a +name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 219</span>Census +measurement, is 341,305 square miles. Its position on the +American continent is one of great commercial importance, and its +resources are in keeping with its position. If it were to +be described from the characteristics of its climate, its mineral +wealth, and its natural commercial relations, it might be said to +be the Great Britain and California combined of the Dominion of +Canada.</p> +<p>The Province is divided into two parts: the Islands, of which +Vancouver is the principal, and the Mainland. Vancouver is +about 300 miles long, with an average breadth of about sixty +miles, containing an area of about 20,000 square miles.</p> +<p>British Columbia has numerous harbours and rivers, some of +which are of importance, and all are remarkable for their +bountiful, in fact wonderful, supplies of fish. The scenery +which it possesses is magnificently beautiful.</p> +<p>The climate on the coast is more equable and much milder in +winter than in any other <a name="page220"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 220</span>part of Canada; but as the mountains +are ascended, greater cold prevails, with more snow, and the +characteristics of greater dryness of atmosphere which mark the +climate of the interior of the continent are found.</p> +<p>The population of British Columbia, by the Census of 1881, did +not exceed 49,459, of which 25,661 were Indians. This +comparatively sparse population is due to the hitherto isolated +position of the Province; but now that railway communication +between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Dominion of +Canada is being rapidly pushed forward to completion by a route +which offers the easiest gradients and the most important natural +commercial advantages of any possible line across the continent +of America, the inducements the Province offers to settlers are +beginning to attract the attention, as well of the emigrating +classes of the Old World, as of the migrating classes of this +continent; and population is already beginning to flow <a +name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 221</span>rapidly +in. It is beyond doubt that the percentage of increase +which will be shown at the next decennial Census will be a +statistical fact to excite men’s wonder. Its +fisheries, its forests, its mineral resources, will provide work +for thousands who are starving at home. And it will be +easily reached when the Canadian Pacific Railway is +completed.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>I have now reached the end of my journey, and I sum up my +emigration experiences. The emigrant, if strong and +industrious, and ready to take advantage of opportunities, and +not averse to roughing it, will be sure to find work; but he must +be shy, if he has cash, of land schemers, and I would advise him, +if he thinks of settling, not to be in a hurry about it, but to +take time to look around. I have seen as fine farming +country as anywhere in the world. I have seen other parts +where no one can get a living. Amongst the emigrants I see +many who must succeed anywhere, <a name="page222"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 222</span>and many who will go to the wall +wherever they may be.</p> +<p>Let me give you another illustration of the bursting of an +emigration scheme. The London dailies often have +advertisements offering for a certain bonus to provide young men +with homes where farming in all its branches is taught. The +London (Ont.) papers tell how a number of young fellows have been +taken in in this way. They paid the advertisers sums from +thirty pounds upwards, in addition to their passage money, the +consideration being that on their arrival in Ontario they were to +be placed on farms and kept there at the agent’s +expense. Of course, when they reached their journey’s +end, no farmers were to be found. If a young Englishman +wishes to try farming in Canada, he cannot do better than hire +himself to a farmer for a year or two and keep his money in his +pocket for the purchase of a farm.</p> +<p><a name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 223</span>But +even then he must not buy a farm till he knows something about +it, and he cannot be long out here before he will find out where +the good land is. A Canadian whom I met at Calgary, told me +that he knew a farm near Toronto which was regularly in the +market every year. It is safe to be bought by an +Englishman, who tries it for a time, gives it up in despair, and +then it comes into the market again.</p> +<p>‘Are there any stones on the farm?’ asked an +Englishman, after he had purchased his farm.</p> +<p>‘I only saw one,’ was the encouraging reply: and +it was a truthful one. There was but one stone, but then it +embraced the surface of the whole farm.</p> +<p>The English purchaser must have his wits about him. Here +he is by many regarded as a stranger, and they take him in. +The poet tells us where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be +wise. Ignorance is not bliss in <a name="page224"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 224</span>Canada, emigrants really must have +their wits about them or they will suffer much.</p> +<p>Near Moosomin there is some fine country where many English +have settled. Only last week an Englishman selected a farm +in that locality for a homestead. He at once proceeded +there, having at considerable expense hired a conveyance for his +wife and four children. When he got there he found the land +already occupied. To add to his troubles, when he returned +to Moosomin one of his children died; the result is that the wife +has grown home-sick, the poor man disheartened; he wants to +return to England, but he has already exhausted his means. +This want of harmony between the land office and the guides, +according to <i>The Manitoba Free Press</i>, is said to be of +frequent occurrence. The Dominion Government ought to see +to this. They are eager to promote emigration, but many +such cases will make English farmers naturally a little reluctant +to come out.</p> +<h2><a name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +225</span>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">DANGERS OF THE ROCKIES.—PRAIRIE +FIRES.—THE RETURN.—PORT ARTHUR.—MIGRANTS.</p> +<p>There is a great deal of snow in the Rockies. In June +that snow begins to melt. The result is, a violent body of +water rushes down, which makes the railway people very +uncomfortable.</p> +<p>On Sunday I met the engine-driver of the train by which I was +to travel east next morning. At Holt City it seems no one +knows from what particular spot the train will start.</p> +<p>‘You won’t start without me?’ I said.</p> +<p>‘No; I will look to see whether you are on +board.’</p> +<p><a name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +226</span>‘But,’ said I, ‘you must leave at +five, whether I am on board or not.’</p> +<p>‘Oh! as to that,’ he said, ‘no one can make +me start before I am ready. But,’ said he, +‘perhaps we may not get away at all. I don’t +like the look of the bridge, and there is a deal of water +about.’</p> +<p>I smiled incredulously. Had not I seen, only an hour +before, with my own eyes, a special train arrive from the west +filled with labourers and freight? If that could cross in +safety, surely our lighter train could do the same.</p> +<p>Thus reasoning, I lay down with a light heart in my caboose, +having invoked, not the saints, but every decent Christian I +could find, to take care that I might be aroused at four p.m., in +order that I might have a good wash before I started on my little +run of 1,500 miles, as far as Port Arthur.</p> +<p>Just as I was falling into the arms of Morpheus, to speak +poetically—a habit to <a name="page227"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 227</span>which I was much given in my earlier +days—a fellow-traveller came rushing into the caboose, +saying timidly:</p> +<p>‘You’d better get on board at once. The +bridge has given way, and they may go across at once,’ and +so saying, he left me in the dark.</p> +<p>However, I managed to jump out of my bed, collect my luggage, +and scramble down the plank, the only and somewhat perilous means +of access to my caboose, and stumble along the confusing lines of +railway by which Holt City is adorned, and climb up into a car, +wondering much all the while why we should start at all, when the +bridge had partly given way, or whether I had come all that +distance merely to find a watery grave. In the car I found +a company as grotesque and rough as any I had yet seen anywhere, +discussing the situation with more or less earnestness.</p> +<p>The bridge, I heard, was being repaired; <a +name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 228</span>that was a +comfort. But still no one knew when we should start. +Now and then we moved a few feet forward, or a few feet backward; +but, in reality, I believe we remained in the same position all +night, and started at the usual hour next morning. But the +horror of that night was something inexpressible. Sleep was +quite out of the question. You can’t sleep in an +American railway-car unless you are a navvy or a +contractor—who can sleep anywhere. In England, even +in a third-class carriage, the chances are you can lie down at +your full length and sleep. In Canada you can’t do +that, as the seats are too short. So there I sat, bolt +upright, all through that tedious night, watching for the light +of day, while my companions sat smoking and talking and +expectorating. In a playful moment one of them suggested +that they should all take off their boots. Fortunately the +proposition did not meet with universal approval, and I was saved +that horror.</p> +<p><a name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 229</span>In +the Rockies life is not all beer and ’baccy. One day +there was an alarm of fire. It seems the woods are on fire +all day long, and week after week. In this way much +valuable timber is destroyed, and no one knows who does the +mischief, or how it will terminate. Daily we saw the smoke +of a forest fire; one day the flames came so close to Holt City +that everyone was alarmed. If a spark or two reached the +place where the explosives were stored, Holt City and all its +inhabitants might have been blown to atoms. Down in the +prairies fire does a vast amount of mischief to the settler, who +awakes in the night to find his tent or house reduced to ashes, +and all his worldly goods destroyed. Such cases are of +frequent occurrence, especially at this season of the year, when +the settler sets fire to the prairie before ploughing, or to +insure a better crop of grass. One dark night, in +particular, I remember the prairie fire lent quite a mournful +grandeur to <a name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +230</span>the scene. Then there came a day I shall never +forget as long as I live. A Canadian summer may have its +peculiar charms, but I candidly own, not being a salamander, it +is far too hot for me. On that particular day the heat was +intense. It affected everyone. Those who dared drank +gallons of iced water, others pulled off their coats and collars +and lay down on the cushions with which the sleeping-car is +plentifully provided, and went off to sleep. It was in vain +one tried to pass away the time in smoking—it was too hot +for that. Newspapers and cheap novels were all +neglected—conversation was out of the question. +Everyone seemed on the point of giving up the ghost. Even +the blackie, who invariably acts as conductor to the +sleeping-car—and who is about the only civil official (with +the exception of the steamboat attendants, who are models of good +behaviour) one meets in Canadian travel, seemed, thinly clad as +he was, quite overcome. <a name="page231"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 231</span>The sun took all the colour out of +his cheeks, and he became quite pale—almost white.</p> +<p>In the course of our return journey we stopped at Moose Jaw +for supper, and then I witnessed a new development of prairie +life in the shape of a thunder-storm, which seemed to me +unusually vivid and protracted. The lightning was grand as +it swept over the wide sea of grass, making everything as bright +as noon-day, and then all was dark again. It brought us a +rain that had really healing in its wings. While the heat +lasted I was a martyr to prickly heat. It seemed to me that +I was going to have small-pox or measles. I had little +pimples all over me, and as to my wrists, they were really +painful, and I could not keep from scratching with a vivacity +which a Scotchman might have envied. Was it that vulgar +disease to which, it is said, the gallant Scot is peculiarly +liable? I could not say. I had shaken hands with <a +name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 232</span>so many +filthy Indians, and it might be that, as I learn they are much +afflicted in that way. Happily the thunder-storm cooled the +air, and I felt all the better for it. When I got as far as +Port Arthur, and inhaled the cool air of Lake Superior, I +suffered no more from unpleasant irritation of the skin. It +was with joy I embarked on the C.P.R.’s fine steamer, the +<i>Alberta</i>, for Owen Sound. But even travelling on Lake +Superior has its disadvantages. The water of the Lake is +intensely cold, and when the sun beats fiercely on it there is +sure to be a fog. Such happened to be the case on my +return, and we ploughed slowly along for a while, seeing hardly +anything of the beauty of the scene, while every few minutes we +were cheered by the dismal notes of the fog-horn. +Fortunately the fog lifted, and then what a display we had of +islands, green as emerald, on the tranquil sea! I must add, +also, I had good company everywhere, with the exception of <a +name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 233</span>the great +Sir John M’Neill, who had his meals apart from us at a +table all to himself, and an English clergyman from +Staffordshire, whom a Canadian gentleman described to me as +‘a regular crank,’ whatever that may mean. The +parson is going to write a book, so he tells the people; but he +shuns me, which is a pity, as I met a friend at Calgary who told +me they had great fun with the parson on their way up from +Winnipeg, telling him all sorts of cock-and-bull stories, which +he greedily entered in his note-book.</p> +<p>I must give you one more sketch of a Canadian town as an +illustration of the enterprise and pluck which are the main +characteristics of the Canadian of to-day. If you look at +the map, you will see Port Arthur is situated in Thunder Bay, and +Thunder Bay, when you pass the rocky barrier by which it is +encircled, opens out into Lake Superior.</p> +<p>Thunder Bay is a sheet of water some 13 by 19 miles in area, +sheltered from the wild <a name="page234"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 234</span>storms which sweep over the northern +lakes by the Pie and Welcome Islands and the Thunder Cape on one +side, and by the terraced bluffs of ever-green forest on the +other; forming thus an unsurpassed harbour for extent and +accommodation, and having claim to be what its admirers say it +is, the prettiest of all the American Lakes.</p> +<p>It is not an agricultural district that surrounds Port Arthur, +though it is a fact that there are vast stretches of rich lands +within its borders, including the Kamanistique and other valleys, +on which at least 3,000 families could settle and get a good +living by agriculture.</p> +<p>The timber resources of the surrounding country, which must +find its centre and point of collection in the quiet waters of +the bay, comprise thousands of square miles of spruce and other +trees; while iron, copper, zinc, and silver are to be found in +the neighbouring <a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +235</span>rocks. Gold also is said to be hidden in the +bowels of the earth; though not yet discovered in paying +quantities. However this may be, one thing is clear, that +from Thunder Bay the whole agricultural exports of the countless +fertile acres of the Canadian North-West must find an +outlet. Truly did the Marquis of Lorne, when here, describe +it as ‘The Silver Gate.’</p> +<p>Port Arthur—as it was termed when Sir Garnet Wolseley +arrived here on his way to suppress the Riel revolt in the +North-West, out of compliment to the Duke of Connaught—is +in reality one of the few places in Canada that have a +history. As early as the beginning of the sixteenth +century, some of the French settlers had formed an idea that the +great Lake Superior was a highway to the vast fur-producing +countries of the North-West, although not till 1641 did any white +man venture upon its waters. In 1678 a Frenchman built +himself a house in the vicinity of <a name="page236"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 236</span>Port Arthur, and commenced trading +with the surrounding Indians for their furs.</p> +<p>In 1857 the attention of the Canadian Government was called to +the spot, and they sent out commissioners to explore, who, in +1859, published a report which created quite a sensation all over +Canada. In due time the C.P.R., which is the great +mainspring of all the North-West, took up Port Arthur, had all +their stores and men carted there, and now Port Arthur has a +grand future before it, of which it is impossible to predict the +whole extent. I have great faith in Port Arthur. It +must in time be another Montreal or Toronto. Moose Jaw is +going down. It will be long before Calgary will be much of +a place. The Silver City is half deserted; and at Winnipeg +the boom has burst and bankruptcy prevails; but Port Arthur is +bound to go ahead.</p> +<p>I spent there a night on my return, and saw a marvellous +change—even since my visit <a name="page237"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 237</span>there a fortnight previously. +Then people were hard at work putting up wooden shops; now those +shops are fitted up with glass fronts, and already filled with +merchandise from all quarters of the earth, though in many cases +the upper parts of the building are in an incomplete state. +Every day ships arrive from the American side; thus, within a +couple of days previous to my arrival, 20,000 tons of coal had +been landed. There are steamers of all sorts and sizes in +the harbour, constantly coming in or going out. On one side +a new elevator has been erected, on the other side is a great +store of lumber and a saw-mill.</p> +<p>Yesterday Port Arthur was a township, now it is incorporated +as a city, and rejoices in a mayor. The place is full of +hotels, which charge high prices, give very little for the money, +and do a roaring trade. A very handsome English church is +being erected; just by, the Presbyterians are building one +equally handsome, only a little smaller. The <a +name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>Roman +Catholics make quite a grand show with their brick church and +convent and schools, while the Methodists have a very plain and +ugly imitation of an English church, with its steeple all in wood +and painted white, which attests, at any rate, if not their +taste, their influence and wealth. I visited the +school-room, which was filled with bright and well-fed boys and +girls, where the children are taught free, as they are all over +Canada—where they have, by-the-bye, a compulsory law, which +is never enforced, as it is impossible to do so. And then I +made my way to the best-looking building in the town—the +emigrants’ shed—where already 3,600 emigrants have +this season been lodged gratis by the Dominion Government +previous to their passing onwards to the North-West.</p> +<p>People tell me there is no room for mechanics in Canada. +In Port Arthur I see them in constant demand. At one shop +window I see a notice to the effect that 10 carpenters are <a +name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 239</span>required, +at another a demand for painters, while a third shop window seeks +to secure good tinsmiths. At the chief draper’s shop +there is a notice stating four good assistants are +required. What a pity the discontented men whom I left at +Montreal, because work was not offered them immediately they +landed, did not come thus far! As to rockmen and labourers, +they are wanted by the hundred. Surely, Port Arthur must be +a good place for the working man and the working girl. Even +at Calgary they were paying the female helps at the +hotel—as sour a set as I ever saw—and who were +constantly quarrelling with John Smith, the Chinaman +cook—as much as 40 dollars a month. But even out here +a man must have brains.</p> +<p>‘I came out here seven years ago,’ said a +gentleman to me as we sat on one of the rocks which line Port +Arthur, ‘and could find nothing to do. I was brought +up in a foundry, and had saved 1,100 dollars. I went all +round; <a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +240</span>no one could give me a job. Then I began buying a +few hides; this brought me into contact with a great fur merchant +at Chicago—he employed me as his agent at 80 dollars a +month. Then I gave that up and turned miller, and the year +before last I traded to the extent of a quarter of a million +dollars. Last year I was too eager, and lost a lot of +money; but this year I hope to get it all back again.’</p> +<p>Why cannot an English emigrant be equally successful? Is +it because we do not send out the right sort of men?</p> +<p>‘There is not one man in a hundred that comes out here +from London who is of any use,’ said an old Toronto +trader—himself an Englishman—to me. ‘I +never call myself an Englishman,’ said he. +‘When I go to London I always say I am a Canadian. I +am ashamed of the name of Englishman. What would Sir Garnet +Wolseley have done when he was here had it not have been for the +Canadian Volunteers?’</p> +<p><a name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 241</span>I am +glad to hear, however, that he had nothing but praise for the +Scotch settlers Lady Cathcart was sending out. She advances +them money, and they pay her back a good rate of interest. +Why cannot other people do the same? Another question, +also, may be asked: Why cannot certain Canadian land companies, +who really offer purchasers a fair bargain, put up a few houses +on their separate farms? The settler has to build his house +under every disadvantage. I am sure they could build the +houses by contract at half the expense; and they could have a +mortgage on the farm, which would ensure them in every case +against loss, and which might add materially to their profits as +well.</p> +<p>If the crops this year turn out well in the North-West, and, +according to present prospects, there is every reason to suppose +they will, the farmers will pour into the country in a way which +they have never done before, and the prosperity of the North-West +will be <a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +242</span>placed on a solid basis. Be that as it may, there +are bright days in store for Port Arthur.</p> +<p>On the green forest, rising up above the town and overlooking +Thunder Bay, it is intended to build a first-class summer hotel +for the comfort of holiday makers and health seekers. There +the visitor will enjoy fine cool air in the sultry heat of +summer, while bathing in the lake will invigorate his enfeebled +frame. The waters abound with fish. Islands and lakes +and rivers tempt the yachtsman. If the workmen who squander +their hard-earned wages in reckless drunkenness would but learn +to be sober, few places on the Canadian lakes would be more +enjoyable than Port Arthur.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p242.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Thunder Bay, Lake Superior" +title= +"Thunder Bay, Lake Superior" +src="images/p242.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>I cannot leave Canada without speaking of its Grand Trunk +Railway, which meets the emigrant at Port Levi when he lands at +Quebec, and which he will undoubtedly often patronise if he +tarries long in the land. It has built the Victoria Bridge +at Montreal, one <a name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +243</span>of the wonders of Canada—a tubular structure of +magnificent proportions, which spans the St. Lawrence, and gives +uninterrupted communication to the western traffic with that of +the United States. Including the abutments, the bridge is +9,084 feet in length. The tubes rest on twenty-four piers, +the main tubes being sixty feet above the level of the +river. It may well be called the Grand Trunk Railway, as it +operates under one management over six thousand miles of +first-class railway road. Having close connection at Port +Huron, Detroit and Chicago with the principal Western American +lines, it offers great advantages to emigrants to all parts of +the compass. At Montreal I had the pleasure of a long chat +with Mr. Joseph Hickson, the general manager, who takes a deep +interest in the subject of emigration, and Mr. W. Wainwright, the +assistant-manager, to whom I am indebted and grateful for many +acts of kindness, especially welcome to the <a +name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 244</span>stranger in +a strange land. It is the Grand Trunk that takes the +traveller over Niagara Falls—on the International +Suspension Bridge connecting the Canadian Railways with those of +the States. This structure, which is 250 feet above the +water, commands a fine view up to the Falls. It is to be +feared that as long as Canada and the United States have separate +tariffs there will be not a little smuggling along this +bridge. When I was there I heard of a Canadian judge, who +with his family had been stopping at one or other of the hotels +on the Canadian side. One fine morning some of the ladies +of the party walked off to the American side, and returned laden +with bargains which had paid no duty. In their innocence +they boasted of the little transaction to the judge. +‘How can I,’ said he indignantly, ‘punish +people for smuggling, if I find my own family do it?’ and +the ladies had to pay the duty, so the story goes, after all.</p> +<h2><a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +245</span>CHAPTER XI.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">BACK TO ENGLAND.—CANADIAN +HOSPITALITY.—THE ASSYRIAN MONARCH.—HOME.</p> +<p>My time was up, and I had to be off, after we got a look at +pleasant London in the wood, as my Canadian friends who have been +to England call it. I came back from Chicago to New York, +and had again to encounter the horrors of nights in a Pullman +sleeping-car. Why cannot the railway authorities separate +the part of the car devoted to the gentlemen from that part +inhabited by the ladies? The way in which the sexes are +mixed up at night is, to say the least, unpleasant. I shall +never forget my last experience in a Pullman sleeping-car. +An <a name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +246</span>ancient dame with blue spectacles, my +<i>vis-à-vis</i>, as the shades of evening came on, gave +me the horrors. In my despair I began undressing, thinking +that the outraged female would rush away in disgust. Alas! +she had stronger nerves than I calculated, and there she sat +gazing serenely with her tinted orbs till I plunged myself behind +my curtained berth, to encounter, early in the morning, once more +those eyes.</p> +<p>New York and Boston are full of fairy forms. Why +don’t they travel? The change would be pleasant for +sore eyes like mine.</p> +<p>No wonder I sat all that night thinking of the great kindness +I had received in Canada, and regretting especially that I had +refused an invitation to dine that evening at the home of one of +the leading barristers of Toronto, to meet some clergymen there +who were familiar with my name, and who wished to meet me.</p> +<p>Surely I did wrong to leave Toronto, with <a +name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 247</span>all its +friendly faces and kindly hearts. It will be long ere I +cease to remember how the Canadians made me at home, as I met +them on the rail, or on the boat, or in the hotel.</p> +<p>Said a London Evangelist to me: ‘You will find the +Canadians a cold people, who will show you no hospitality. +While I was there not one of them invited me to have a cup of +tea.’</p> +<p>All I can say is, I found the Canadians quite the +reverse. But then my friend went on a mission, and is a man +of very serious views, while I travelled merely to see a land of +whose wonders I had heard much, to talk to sinners as well as +saints, and to learn from them what I could.</p> +<p>I was a great reformer once myself, and had glorious visions +which never came to pass. In youth we have all such +dreams. Now, as the days darken round me and the years, I +seek to put up with the shortcomings of my brother-man, trusting +that he in his <a name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +248</span>Christian charity may extend a similar forbearance to +my own.</p> +<p>I came back in the <i>Assyrian Monarch</i>. I was glad I +did so. That fine ship has a distinguished record. It +has carried no end of theatricals to New York; it did the same +kind office for Jumbo: it carried troops and horses to Egypt; and +when we English undertook to punish Arabi, it was a home for the +refugees for a while.</p> +<p>Perhaps we have no ship more noticeable than the <i>Assyrian +Monarch</i>, belonging to the Monarch Line, which runs weekly, I +fancy, between New York and London.</p> +<p>It is a great treat in the fine weather to take that +route. You are a little longer at sea—you glide along +the south coast till you reach the Scilly Isles, and the ships of +the company are all that can be desired.</p> +<p>It is a great deal of trouble and expense to some to go with +all their goods and chattels to Liverpool, then unpack them, and +get them <a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +249</span>down to the landing-stage, and then repack them in one +or other of the far-famed steamers of that busy spot, and all +this you save if you patronize the ships of the Monarch Line, +which carry chiefly cargo, with a few saloon passengers as +well.</p> +<p>We had a very heavy cargo on board the <i>Assyrian Monarch</i> +as we came back from New York. We carried 260 bullocks, +besides cheese and grain, to make glad the heart and fill the +stomach, and thus one felt that if the screw were to fail or the +fog to hinder a rapid transit, there was corn in Egypt, and that +there was something to fall back on. Happily, we were not +driven to that alternative. We fared well in the saloon of +the <i>Assyrian Monarch</i>; so well, indeed, that a poor elderly +lady, who seemed at death’s door when we started, became +quite vigorous, comparatively speaking, by the time we ended our +voyage.</p> +<p>We had more freedom in the way of sitting <a +name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 250</span>up late and +having lights than is possible in a crowded passenger ship, and +we came more into contact with the captain of the ship and his +merry men.</p> +<p>In the case of the <i>Assyrian Monarch</i> this was a great +advantage, as Captain Harrison is a good companion as well as an +able navigator, and I felt myself safe in his hands, that is, as +far as anyone can be safe at sea.</p> +<p>Further, I felt that the chances were in my favour. The +<i>Assyrian Monarch</i> had carried over the Atlantic, in stormy +weather, the highly-respected and ever-to-be-regretted by +Londoners Jumbo; surely it could be trusted to perform the same +kind office for myself in the summer season, when the air is +still and the seas are calm; and so it did, though every now and +then we encountered that greatest of all dangers at sea, fog, +more or less dense, especially on the Banks of Newfoundland, +where the ice-laden waters of the Arctic come in contact with the +warmer waves of the Gulf <a name="page251"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 251</span>Stream. As our course was very +fortunately much to the south, we had a good deal of the +latter.</p> +<p>That Gulf Stream was a revelation to me. When I took my +morning bath it seemed as if I were in warm water, and the new +forms of life it fostered and developed were particularly +pleasant to a casual observer like myself. There one could +see the nautilus, or the Portugeuse man-of-war, as it is +familiarly termed, in the language of the poet,</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Put out a tier of oars on either side,<br +/> +Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and cruel, big-headed sharks, which, indeed, followed us +almost all the way to England (the fact is that now, when so many +cattle are thrown overboard, the Atlantic abounds with sharks), +and lovely flying-fish like streaks of silver flashing along the +deep and boundless blue ocean. Of these latter one flew on +board. It met with a cruel fate. It was <a +name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 252</span>eaten by +the first officer of the <i>Assyrian Monarch</i> for +breakfast. It ought to have choked him. It did +nothing of the kind; he, hardened sinner that he was, enjoyed it +greatly, and said that it was as good as a whiting.</p> +<p>In the Gulf Stream we found the usual number of whales and +porpoises. The latter would play around the bow or race +along the side of the ship in considerable quantities of all +sorts of sizes. There were other fish of which I know not +the names to be seen occasionally leaping out of the water as +high and repeatedly as possible, as if a shark were in their +midst seeking whom he might devour.</p> +<p>One sight I shall never forget in the Gulf Stream. It +was that of a tortoise. I was leaning over the ship’s +side, when something big and round seemed to be coming to the +surface. I could not make out what it was; then all at once +the truth flashed upon me as <a name="page253"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 253</span>he wobbled along, paddling with his +fins, his head erect, his little eyes peering at the ship as if +he wondered what the dickens it was, and what business it had +there. He seemed to be treading the water.</p> +<blockquote><p>‘I saw him but a moment,<br /> +But methinks I see him now.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The sight gave me quite an appetite, though my friend Sir +Henry Thompson will insist upon it that turtle soup is made of +conger-eel, but in the wide Atlantic one has time to think of +such things; day by day passes and you see nothing but the +ocean—not even a distant sail, or the smoke of a passing +steamer.</p> +<p>People complain of the uneventfulness of life on board a +ship. That, however, is a matter of great +thankfulness. A collision or a shipwreck are exciting, but +they are disagreeable, nevertheless. It seems the homeward +voyage is always the pleasantest as far <a +name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 254</span>as the sea +is concerned, the wind being more frequently in the west than in +any other quarter. Perhaps that is one reason why the +Americans are so ready to cross the Atlantic. When I left +New York, Cook’s office, in the Broadway, was full of +tourists, including Mrs. Langtry and other distinguished +personages. Mr. John Cook seems as popular in New York as +he is elsewhere. Indeed, I was confidentially informed that +he was engaged in organizing a personally-conducted tour for the +relief of Gordon and the capture of the Mahdi, and I hear from +Egypt that he has a chance of being made Khedive, a position +which I am certain he would fill with credit to himself and +advantage to the people. Of course, there is a little +exaggeration in this, but the American tourist has good reason to +revere the name of Cook, and so have we all. As much as +anyone he has promoted travel between the Old World and the New, +and has made us better friends. It is to <a +name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 255</span>be hoped +that every steamer that crosses the Atlantic does something +similar.</p> +<p>I must own, however, that the nearer I approached England the +more I felt ashamed of my native land. The weather was +villainous. It rained every day, and the worst of it was, I +had had the audacity to assure the Americans on board that we had +dry weather in England, that occasionally we saw the sun, and +that we were not a web-footed race. Fortunately, at the +time of writing this I have not yet encountered any of my +American friends, or I should feel, as they say, uncommonly +mean. However, the weather was fine enough to admit of a +good look at Bishop’s Rock, the name of the lighthouse at +the Scilly Isles, where we got our first sight of land; you can +imagine how we all rushed on deck to see that. In fine +weather, I say, by all means return from America in one of the +fine, steady, well-built ships of the Monarch Line. The +scenery is <a name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +256</span>far finer than that offered by Queenstown and +Liverpool. You have the Scilly Isles to look at, and the +Land’s End, and the Lizards. At Portland Bill we laid +off till a pilot came on board, and we had a good look at the +establishment where so many smart men are sent for a season, and +Weymouth heading the distant bay; and then what a fine sweep you +have up the Channel—crowded with craft of all kinds, from +the eight thousand ton steamer to the frail and awkward fishing +lugger—and round the Nore; whilst old towns and castles, +speaking not alone of the living present, but of the dead and +buried past, are to be seen. Even Americans, fond as they +are of modern life, feel the charm of that; whilst to the +returning traveller the landscape speaks of ‘home, sweet +home.’</p> +<h2><a name="page257"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +257</span>CHAPTER XII.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">COLONIZATION IN CANADA.</p> +<p>I was glad to see, the other day, Mr. Morley’s letter +advocating the propriety of taking up land and settling on it +some of the too numerous class who drift into our great cities, +finding no work to do in the country, there to lead indifferent +lives and come to an untimely end.</p> +<p>It is a step I have repeatedly advocated. Land is cheap +enough now; there is no occasion to wait for an Act of +Parliament. It is as easy to buy an estate, and to split it +up into small portions, of which each shareholder will become in +time the proprietor, as to form a building society, and thus +enable any man <a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +258</span>to become his own landlord. But there are certain +drawbacks. There is the parson to be dealt with, who will +be sure to claim his higher tithes; there are burdens on +property, of which the working man, who is told by Mr. +Chamberlain that he is more heavily taxed than any other class of +the community (is not the reverse of this the case?), has no +idea; and last, and not least, there is the unfitness for peasant +proprietorship of the average English workman, who has no idea of +living on the scant fare of the peasant proprietor of Belgium or +France, or, I fear, of working as hard. Granting, however, +that he does, the great fact remains, that peasant proprietorship +is no remedy for all the ills of life, and that France has its +surplus population quite as badly off, and a great deal more +difficult to deal with than our own.</p> +<p>What is to be done to relieve the distress, the existence of +which all must own and deplore? I answer, Emigrate.</p> +<p><a name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +259</span>Emigration is the natural means of relieving the +poverty of a nation. Every man is an emigrant. No one +lives and dies in the village in which he was born. He +finds his way to the neighbouring town in search of work; then to +the great metropolis; then across the water to one or other of +our colonies.</p> +<p>Greece and Rome realized the fact that under no conditions +could a certain tract of territory maintain more than a certain +number of people, and had their settled plans of +emigration. In England, at any rate since the days of the +Pilgrim Fathers, we have too much left the matter to chance, and +an ordinary emigrant, with the ordinary want of backbone, it +seems to me, is just as likely to go to the dogs in New York, or +Toronto, or Melbourne, as in London. What we want is what +is now being attempted by the Society for Promoting Christian +Knowledge, the leading members of which have established <a +name="page260"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 260</span>a Church +Colonization Land Society. Its object is to assist, in a +practicable, businesslike manner, on a remunerative basis, the +great and pressing work of emigration to the British colonies in +connection with the Church of England.</p> +<p>This society, I learn from a proof of a circular just placed +in my hands, issued by Canon Prothero, the chairman, will, under +proper safeguards, render temporary pecuniary aid in such cases +as approve themselves to the council, take charge of the +emigrants on the journey to the colony, provide for their +settlement on lands selected, from those acquired by the society, +provide temporary dwellings until the emigrants can put together +their own (the materials for which may be bought ready to hand, +or the society itself can erect dwellings for them), will break +up the land if desired, and secure for the emigrant religious +services similar to those enjoyed at home.</p> +<p><a name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 261</span>The +society have secured land in Manitoba, near the railway, which +land has been selected by a practical farmer, a Yorkshireman, who +is to act as local manager. The Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge have laid particular stress in looking after +the spiritual welfare of emigrants in all our colonies; and in +Liverpool, as some of my readers may be aware, the society have +placed the Rev. J. Bridger, of St. Nicholas Church, as +emigrants’ chaplain; chaplains have also been appointed at +several other ports, such as Plymouth, Glasgow, Cork, and +Londonderry; but, as is manifest, the great centre of emigration +is Liverpool, and there Mr. Bridger finds his hands full.</p> +<p>No pains are spared to show every attention to emigrants going +from or arriving at Liverpool, and occasionally Mr. Bridger sails +with the first party of emigrants to their new homes. It +seems to me that the idea of the Church Colonization Society is +the right <a name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +262</span>one; but that it might be further extended by sending +out at the same time the schoolmaster, and the doctor, and the +storekeeper, and the shoemaker, and tailor, and baker, and +butcher, and thus forming a village community.</p> +<p>It is at home impossible to realize the solitariness of the +settler’s life, far away from friends and the civilizing +and elevating influences of home. I met men in the +North-West who seemed to have almost lost the power of speech, so +long had they been left on their homesteads alone. +Emigration in communities would do away with this state of +things. At present it is a serious sacrifice for a man with +a family to emigrate into a new country. It is not good for +man to be alone. As a rule, he degenerates on the prairie; +civilization is the gift of towns to humanity. A man does +not live on bread alone. He needs that his heart and head +be stimulated by contact with his fellow-men; <a +name="page263"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 263</span>not, as in +the old country, in consequence of the extensive competition, by +rivalry for the crust of bread, but by mutual aid and +companionship in the great work of subduing the wilderness and +making it to rejoice and blossom as the rose.</p> +<p>In a month or two the emigration season will have commenced, +and there is no time to spare. Why cannot other +denominations do what the Church of England is now preparing to +do? Canada can feed and fatten millions, who in England +will have to live as a burden on the community. There is +many a man who does ill here who would do well there. We +are all more or less the creatures of circumstances. In +England the beershop has degraded the community, and many a man +finds it hard to get away from its foul companionship: here, he +declines into a criminal or a sot; there, not only will he be +neither the one nor the other, but he will develop all the better +<a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +264</span>tendencies of his character, and become a man. +Make him a peasant-proprietor at home, and the chances are the +old Adam in him will be too strong. Plant him in a colony, +he feels in a new world, with a new aim. Here, he is looked +down on: there, he is hailed as a man and a brother. We who +are old must stop at home; but there is no reason why our sons +should do so. Why should a young man be a drudge because +his father was a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water, when in +a colony there are many ways of becoming well-off to a man who +has good muscles and brains, has the sense to avail himself of +opportunity when it occurs, and to keep his money in his +pocket? I say Canada, because Canada is easy to get at, and +is yet almost in a virgin state. It is only recently that +it has been opened up by the Canadian Government and the Canadian +Pacific Railway. I say Canada, because Canada is English, +and I am an Englishman; <a name="page265"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 265</span>because the Canadian Government does +all it can to help the emigrant; and because the Canadians are +mostly healthy, honest men. Englishmen thrive there better, +at any rate, than they do in the United States, or in South +Africa. Arrangements for a colony can easily be made. +In London, the Canadian Pacific Railway have a fine office in +Cannon Street, where you can see for yourself what are the +results of farming in the North-West, and where you will find its +courteous and intelligent representative, Mr. Alexander Begg, +whose only fault is that he will persist in maintaining that the +English climate is killing him, and that he enjoys much better +health in that frosty Canada, the cold of which is a bugbear that +has kept too many away. Go to him, and he will tell you +where to plant your colony. The money which is now +squandered in keeping paupers at home surely might be better +spent in forming village communities in the boundless <a +name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 266</span>plains of +the North-West. Let Dissenters imitate the Church. +Let them have their communities as the Church of England seek to +have theirs. Some people say the Salvationists are a +nuisance in our crowded cities: let General Booth betake himself +to Manitoba; he will find few people to complain of his +processions there.</p> +<p>But this is no subject to trifle about; day by day the poor +are becoming poorer, and the middle-classes and the rich +also. The leaders of the coming democracy seem unwilling to +recognise that fact, and are angry when I tell them it is better +to emigrate than to agitate in the old country for the ruin of +the capitalist, the destruction of our trade, the abolition of +the landlord, the advent of the working man’s candidate, +and the rights of man. Are they the friends of the poor who +bid him stay where he is to cheapen the labour market, already +overstocked; to crowd the cities with an unwholesome pauperism; +<a name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 267</span>to see +his sons ripen into thieves, and his daughters cast on the +streets; and to look forward to the workhouse as the refuge of +his old age? Even if we had a revolution as complete as +that of France, what then? Over-population will breed +sorrow and sickness and want and despair all the same. In +Canada, the man who cares to work is sure of his reward; he has a +future before him and his.</p> +<p>I am glad to find, since the above was written, there has been +formed by the Congregational Union a special emigration scheme, +of which the Rev. Andrew Mearns, of the Memorial Hall, Farringdon +Street, is Secretary, and that they have already sent out over a +hundred qualified emigrants. The outfit and passage money +of each man costs £7, and it is proposed to give each +£2 when he arrives in Canada. The men to be selected +are drawn from the ranks of the unemployed who are brought +together at the various Mission <a name="page268"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 268</span>Halls. The case of each +applicant is fully examined, and the men themselves are +thoroughly tested as to their honest desire and ability to +work. The men having been approved and their record found +satisfactory, they are sent to the emigration agent of the +colony, who also examines into the cases of the various +applicants. This acceptance having been notified, the next +and, perhaps, the greatest difficulty is to provide a temporary +home for them in the colony to which they are to be sent. +As the result of much labour, each man will be sent to the care +of some gentleman in the colony, who will see that he is properly +provided for, and started in a fair way to obtain work. +They are thus going to various towns in the Dominion, such as +Kingston, Ontario, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Toronto, St. +Thomas’s, Bellville, and Guelph. Among those to whom +introduction has been given are directors of railways, officers +of Christian Associations, <a name="page269"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 269</span>gardeners, farmers, merchants, and +various ministers of influence. It is almost unnecessary to +add that the spiritual needs of the men have not been forgotten, +and in the kit of each one have been packed a Bible, supplied by +the kindness of the Bible Society—who have intimated their +willingness to make a similar presentation to every man the Union +sends out—and an assortment of suitable and practical +religious literature.</p> +<p>Thus far have I told the story of my Canadian +experiences. Those who wish to fully pursue the subject +will do well to get ‘Picturesque Canada,’ now being +published by Messrs. Cassell and Co.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the +end</span>.</p> +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">billing and +sons</span>, <span class="smcap">printers</span>, <span +class="smcap">guildford</span>, <span +class="smcap">surrey</span>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICTURES OF CANADIAN LIFE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 38858-h.htm or 38858-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/8/5/38858 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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