TORONTO--THE CITY--THE LADIES--THE SPORTS--STRANGE CONTRASTS--THE
CANADIAN SCHOOLS.
_Toronto, February 9._
Have passed three very pleasant days in this city, and had two beautiful
audiences in the Pavilion.
Toronto is a thoroughly American city in appearance, but only in
appearance, for I find the inhabitants British in heart, in tastes, and
habits. When I say that it is an American city, I mean to say that
Toronto is a large area, covered with blocks of parallelograms and dirty
streets, overspread with tangles of telegraph and telephone wires. The
hotels are perfectly American in every respect.
The suburbs are exceedingly pretty. Here once more are fine villas
standing in large gardens, a sight rarely seen near an American city. It
reminds me of England. I admire many buildings, the University[2]
especially.
English-looking, too, are the rosy faces of the Toronto ladies whom I
passed in my drive. How charming they are with the peach-like bloom that
their outdoor exercise gives them!
I should like to be able to describe, as it deserves, the sight of
these Canadian women in their sleighs, as the horses fly along with
bells merrily jingling, the coachman in his curly black dogskin and huge
busby on his head. Furs float over the back of the sleigh, and, in it,
muffled up to the chin in sumptuous skins and also capped in furs, sits
the radiant, lovely Canadienne, the milk and roses of her complexion
enhanced by the proximity of the dark furs. As they skim past over the
white snow, under a glorious sunlit blue sky, I can call to mind no
prettier sight, no more beautiful picture, to be seen on this huge
continent, so far as I have got yet.
One cannot help being struck, on coming here from the United States, at
the number of lady pedestrians in the streets. They are not merely
shopping, I am assured, nor going straight from one point to another of
the town, but taking their constitutional walks in true English fashion.
My impresario took me in the afternoon to a club for ladies and
gentlemen, and there I had the, to me, novel sight of a game of hockey.
On a large frozen pond there was a party of young people engaged in this
graceful and invigorating game, and not far off was a group of little
girls and boys imitating their elders very sensibly and, as it seemed to
me, successfully. The clear, healthy complexion of the Canadian women is
easy to account for, when one sees how deep-rooted, even after
transplantation, is the good British love of exercise in the open air.
Last evening I was taken to a ball, and was able to see more of the
Canadian ladies than is possible in furs, and on further acquaintance I
found them as delightful in manners as in appearance; English in their
coloring and in their simplicity of dress, American in their natural
bearing and in their frankness of speech.
* * * * *
[Illustration: A HOCKEY PLAYER.]
Churches, churches, everywhere. In my drive this afternoon, I counted
twenty-eight in a quarter of an hour. They are of all denominations,
Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, etc., etc. The
Canadians must be still more religious--I mean still more
church-going--than the English.
From seven in the evening on Saturday, all the taverns are closed, and
remain closed throughout Sunday. In England the Bible has to compete
with the gin bottle, but here the Bible has all its own way on Sundays.
Neither tram-car, omnibus, cab, nor hired carriage of any description is
to be seen abroad. Scotland itself is outdone completely; the land of
John Knox has to take a back seat.
The walls of this city of churches and chapels are at the present moment
covered with huge coarse posters announcing in loud colors the arrival
of a company of performing women. Of these posters, one represents
Cleopatra in a bark drawn through the water by nude female slaves.
Another shows a cavalcade of women dressed in little more than a
fig-leaf. Yet another represents the booking-office of the theater
stormed by a crowd of _blase_-looking, single eye-glassed old _beaux_,
grinning with pleasure in anticipation of the show within. Another
poster displays the charms of the proprietress of the undertaking. You
must not, however, imagine any harm of the performers whose attractions
are so liberally placarded. They are taken to their cars in the depot
immediately after the performance and locked up; there is an
announcement to that effect. These placards are merely eye-ticklers. But
this mixture of churches, strict sabbatarianism, and posters of this
kind, is part of the eternal history of the Anglo-Saxon race--violent
contrast.
* * * * *
Aschool inspector has kindly shown me several schools in the town.
The children of rich and poor alike are educated together in the public
schools, from which they get promoted to the high schools. All these
schools are free. Boys and girls sit on the same benches and receive the
same education, as in the United States. This enables the women in the
New World to compete with men for all the posts that we Europeans
consider the monopoly of man; it also enables them to enjoy all the
intellectual pleasures of life. If it does not prevent them, as it has
yet to be proved that it does, from being good wives and mothers, the
educational system of the New World is much superior to the European
one. It is essentially democratic. Europe will have to adopt it.
Society in the Old World will not stand long on its present basis. There
will always be rich and poor, but every child that is born will require
to be given a chance, and, according as he avails himself of it or not,
will be successful or a failure. But give him a chance, and the greatest
and most real grievance of mankind in the present day will be removed.
Every child that is born in America, whether in the United States or in
Canada, has that chance.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Destroyed by fire three days after I left Toronto.