TORONTO—THE TOWN—THE PEOPLE—CANADIAN AUTHORS—THE LEADER OF THE
OPPOSITION.
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 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. 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 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.
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—
‘The blue hills of old Toronto shed
Their evening shadows o’er Ontario’s bed.’
[Picture: King Street, Toronto]
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, _The
Toronto Mail_, 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 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 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 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.
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 _Chichester_ and
_Arethusa_, 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 _adoption_, to be treated in every respect as children of the
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 _adopted_ 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 terms
the child comes into the family; what length of engagement is desired;
what church the child will attend; and so on.
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.
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 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.
But Dr. Barnardo says in his magazine, _Night and Day_, that much injury
to the work of emigration has been effected by supposing that boys who
have committed grave moral faults can do well, if only shipped off to
Canada. He contends that a number of young fellows of _that_ 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.
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 on my personal interview with the subject of their praise.
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.
Taking me to the map hanging up in his 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 an emigration
from the United States; and then the wages in Canada would go down.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
‘Can you tell me,’ I said to the Hon. E. Blake, ‘how I am to get to a
knowledge of Canadian politics?’
His reply, and it was delivered with a smile, was:
‘By living in the country some five or six years.’
Under such circumstances I feel, with the poet, that ‘where ignorance is
bliss ’tis folly to be wise.’
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 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?
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 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.
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
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.’
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 deserved fame by her beautiful
illustrations of Canadian flowers and lichens.
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 at Agnes,
hissed at her, and then disappeared. Other stories followed, equally
interesting, in which Mrs. Moodie, it was evident, firmly believed.
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
_Literary Garland_, sufficient to fill several large volumes. ‘I
remember seeing Carlyle once,’ she said, ‘but he was 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, 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.’
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.
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.
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 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?
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 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.’
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 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.
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.
Mrs. Traill has seen great changes in her time. When she came there,
there were only one or two houses in Peterborough; all 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.
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 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.
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.