Montreal covers a surface five miles long by two miles wide, and its
situation gives it great commercial importance. The people call it
"the Queen of the St. Lawrence," standing at the head of ship
navigation, where cargoes are exchanged with the internal canal and
lake navigation system, the Grand Trunk Railway and the Canadian
Pacific Railway crossing the continent, and both also having many
connections with the United States. In 1809, the "Accommodation," the
second steamboat in America, was built in Montreal, and began running
to Quebec. The lion of Montreal is the Victoria Tubular Bridge, which
was formally opened by the Prince of Wales on his American visit in
1860. It was designed by Robert Stephenson and built by James Hodges
at a cost of over $6,000,000. It is nearly ninety-two hundred feet
long and stands upon twenty-six piers and abutments, the centre being
about sixty feet above the summer level of the river, which flows
beneath at the rate of seven miles an hour. Elaborate ice-fenders are
on the up-stream side of the piers, there being an enormous
ice-pressure when the spring freshets are running. It is the greatest
bridge in the Dominion, and near it stands a huge boulder, marking the
burial-place of the army of Irish emigrants who came over in 1847,
sixty-five hundred dying at Montreal of ship-fever.
The Sulpician Order has always been the great educator of priests in
all French-speaking peoples, and it was founded by the Abbé Olier.
Carrying out his intention, the "Seminary of St. Sulpice" was opened
in Montreal in 1647. This is now an enormous and prosperous religious
establishment, holding large possessions in and around the city. The
"Gentlemen of the Seminary," as the members of the Order of Sulpicians
are called in Montreal, are the successors of the first owners of the
island, and they conduct a large secular business as landlords. Down
in the heart of the old city, at the Place d'Armes, they have an
antique quadrangle, surrounding a quiet garden, which is the official
headquarters, and was the location of their ancient house. The curious
French-looking towers fronting the Seminary were at one time
loop-holed for musketry, and were garrisoned, when necessary, to beat
off Indian raids upon the infant settlement. In the western suburbs
there is a broad domain, known as the "Priests' Farm," where are an
elaborate mass of buildings, making their present noted foundation,
the "Great Seminary" and Montreal College, the former for the
education of priests and the latter for the general education of
youth, the delicious surrounding gardens being regarded as the finest
on the fertile island.
The "Hospital of the Hotel-Dieu de Ville Marie" is on the northeastern
edge of the city, almost under the shadow of the mountain, and is one
of the largest buildings in Canada, its dome rising one hundred and
fifty feet over the spacious chapel. It was in this hospital, when
first founded in a small way in 1647, that Mademoiselle Mance took up
her abode. There are now over five hundred persons in the building,
and it is conducted by eighty cloistered nuns, who never go outside
the grounds. They are of the Order of St. Joseph, caring for the sick,
the orphan, and the old and infirm. The "Sisters of the Congregation
of Notre Dame," the "Black Nuns," as they are called, have their
Mother House in Montreal, this being the teaching order founded by
Marguerite Bourgeoys in 1653, she having then come out to Canada with
Maisonneuve on his second voyage. "To this day," writes Parkman, "in
crowded schoolrooms of Montreal and Quebec, fit monuments of her
unobtrusive virtue, her successors instruct the children of the poor
and embalm the pleasant memory of Marguerite Bourgeoys. In the martial
figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form of this gentle nun, we find
the true heroes of Montreal." These "Black Nuns" conduct seventeen
schools in the city, with over five thousand pupils. Their most
extensive establishment is just out of town, on what are known as the
"Monk Lands," and is called "Ville Marie." There are no less than six
hundred nuns and novices in this order, and their pupils number twenty
thousand in Canada and the United States.
Another important Montreal institution is the "General Hospital of the
Grey Sisters," popularly known as the "Grey Nunnery," occupying an
extensive array of stone buildings in the southwestern part of the
city. This order was first founded in 1692, but languished for nearly
a half century, when a pious Canadian lady took it up. Originally it
cared for the aged and infirm, but in 1755 this lady, Madame de
Youville, discovered the body of a murdered infant, where is now
Foundling Street, then a stream of water, into which the child had
been thrown, and this led her to extend the objects of the institution
so as to embrace orphans and foundlings. This is the great foundling
hospital of Montreal. The order has the revenues of large estates, and
there are about four hundred nuns and novices, over half being
detailed in a large number of establishments throughout Canada.
Several hundred foundlings are received every year, and over five
hundred patients are cared for in Montreal, mostly the aged and
infirm. The daughter of Ethan Allen, of Vermont, was a nun of this
order, dying in 1819. This nunnery has many visitors, who attend
worship with the Sisters in the beautiful chapel, and then go through
the hospital, where the poor are cared for both in the morning and the
evening of life. The crowds of little French children, dressed in the
curious clothing of past centuries, sing for their visitors, and then
comically scramble for the small coins tossed among them, which, after
doing duty as playthings for a brief time, find their way into the
charity box.
Montreal is the headquarters in America of the well-known teaching
order of the Christian Brothers. The Jesuits have St. Mary's College;
and the Convent of the Sacred Heart and Hochelaga Convent, the Asylum
of the Sisters of Providence and the Convent of the Good Shepherd are
also prominent. The chief Protestant educational institution is McGill
University, with a thousand students and seventy-five instructors,
originally founded in 1821, through a bequest of $150,000, by James
McGill, a native of Glasgow, who was one of the early successful
merchants of Montreal. It has since been richly endowed, its
properties being valued at over $1,000,000, and it has fine buildings
and grounds near the mountain. Closely affiliated is the Presbyterian
College of Montreal, devoted to the training of missionaries and
clergymen, also provided with noble buildings. There is also a
Wesleyan Theological College affiliated with McGill University. The
peculiar religious conditions of Quebec Province have vested the
educational management of the public schools in two Boards, one
Protestant and the other Roman Catholic, separately governing each
class of schools, and working in harmony under the Provincial
Superintendent of Education, each Board having an office in Montreal.