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Original copiaa in printad papar covara ara filmad beginning with tha front covar and ending on tha laat page with a printad or illuatratad impraa- sion, or tha back covar whan appropriate. All oth«>M^ i^e^uA^iiiie^AjIkitiJf^it^j^'^t 44" thli^i " LOOK AT THESE. PRICE, $i.oo. ■'■# Db. Ohasb'b New Reobift ai^d Medical Book. Handsomely bound in oilcloth. The lloMB Cook Book. Compiled by ladies of Toronto and chief Cities and Towns in C'anada. Acknowledged the Greatest Cook Book in the World. Tried, Teattd and Proven. The Transmission of Life. Counsels on the Nature and Hygiene of the Masculine Functions. By Geo. H. Napheys, A.M., M.D. The Phtsioal Life of Woman. Advice to the Maiden, Wife |^ and Mother. By Geo. H. Napheys, A.M., M.D. Gliason's Yetbbinabt Handbook and System of Hobse Tbain- ino. Handtiomely bound in cloth, and Illustrated. By Oliver W. Gleason. In two parts. Common Sense in the Household . By Marion Harland. (Cook Book.)* Advice to ik. Wife and Advice to a Motheb. Hand- somely bound in one volume. By Pye Henry Cha- yasse, M.D, , price ] 26 T We have just issued New Editions of IN THE DAYS (W THE MUTINY. In Haiidsome Cloth Binding. Price, 60c. Ditto in Paper Bindin^^. Prict;, 50o. V A New Boole, by Q. A. HENTY, A TALE OF THE PENINSULAR WAR Only bound in Cloth. Price, 60o, O. M. ROSE & SONS, Publishers & Wholesale Booksellers, TOHONTO. ^{ ¥-0: '*.*• ." ^j,fr^ ^.V»V r^^^ • 7-^^»fr ' ■ ■;> ■-. w^- ' »k 26 J^' h< r^-^ ** ^-n ;? ,^' The WcTOi?/>? Diamond I . JUBILEE HISTORY OF CANADA '■^1 ' ^1 ■ '^s '' i, rf #' ■ -i^ *^,-: W-J (Vi» ^ r i,- THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE HISTORY OF CANADA. BY flLUAl PETER SlITH, ESQ., I.L, F.R.C.S. (AND OTHERS)* Member oC the Historical Society of Cape Breton, the Calgrary Lothe« poorindian Association, the Winnipeg Folk Lower Institution, the Dundas and Hamilton First Settlers' Club, the Toronto Automatic Research Society, Les Trois Rivieres Institut Historique, the Montreal Saurian Syndicate of Investigators, the London (Ontario) Twentymological Society, and of the Best Society in Ottawa : — Author of more than fifty political and theological pamphlets on Single aiid Double Tax, Beet Root Syrup, Repatriation, RainfitU on the Rockiet, EdMcation A* It Was, Canals, Prohibition, Coercion, Moral Suasion, Justification, Corruption, Monocles, Bicycles, Proprietary Medicines, etc., etc.,. etc. G. M. ROSE & SONS, F^UBLISHERS. 1897. * T^iis is ptohalfty the first title page that ever had a foot*iiote, but it is dMttable to explain that the "ouers" tare not members of these societic»-«f!ly I. myself. W. P. S., M.A.. F.R.C.S. .r;i iJ- : ( ■ ■ r f^(^37-M7i.UiS Entered according to the Act of the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety'Seven, by G. M. Rose & Sons, at the Department of Agriculture. % ■> 5I*.-V - lis;'-';/ f ~ ^^' r • w ix-^ W- ■-• r, .,*', ■': :%a ■•\' ANNOUNCEMENT. inion of y-seven, >1 IT is imperative that every magnum opus should have an announcement. This his- tory is a magnum opus, as the reader will perceive from the names of its illustrious collab- orateurs to whom have been submitted, in manuscript, numerous passages difficult o*^ ex- planation, or demanding elucidation. The re- marks and criticisms of the learned gentlemen are given in foot-notes, which we beg to an- nounce as a totally novel literary method. " It should be said that in all cases the contributors hav6 been free to sign their names or not, as they prefer,"* and they always do so, or have done so, or did so. * This is put of the closing sentence in the " Announce- ment" to the first Vol. of " University Studies in History," •T. -0ii 8 • ANNOUNCEMENT. It will be observM by the " gentle reader," as he proceeds, that the hiutorian has been resident in various places while engaged in his great work, but this need not lead to much, if any, confusion. We also beg most loyally to announce that the country owes this history entirely to the fact that our Most Gracious Sovereign Lady, Victoria, whose reign has been longer and better than that of any oth«^r crowned Jiead anywhere since the close of the patriarchp.1 period, has ex« pressed a genuine womanly wish that this year should be commemorated by deeds of mercy and charity. Send her Tictorious — Happy and glorioi^, Long to reign orer us — God Savb THE Quern. Kemptville, April 1st, 1897. just out, and ii Quoted }:;epau8e it !■ exactly what ire want to say, cnily that we would prefer pr^erred to "prefer," aip^ we would also prefer to omit " as they prefer," because th4», liberty to prefer is implied when we ars^k^d that the con- t(ril^a|«>cs were '* free." However, as we'^iave nothing, better th^^^a^liigh school in our x>wn, it is not improbable tliat To- ronto Uciyersity usage is right, wrong as it appears'to vm. MM,,::. :, ■ I '■'■n> INTRODUCTION* Thus your encomium, to be strong, MuBt be applied directly wrong. Dean Swift. 'T 18 a matter of serious complaint that no one has yet written a real good history of this country— that is, not o ily a veracious his- tory, but a readable history — a history that the average man can take up with unfeigned pleasure and read for the delectation of his family if he has one ; a treatise to which he can- refer for the solution of knotty points,* and which, for this reason, may be regarded as in some measure comparable with Herodotus, Xenophon, Tacitus, * It is not very clear to the historian himself how the " solution of knotty points " is accomplished, but as the ex- preflBion is one that is 3mplQyed by the "Flaneur" maa^ thff^ iip^lild appear to be some authority, however doubt- ful it may be, for the use of the expression. (9) f ^5 w 10 INTRODUCTION. i'l " i J. Gaesar, Blackett Robinson's County of^ York, Hopkins' Gladstone, and many other standard * works of history and fiction that might be named did space permit. To remedy, in some measure, this "long-felt want " has been the historian's desire for nearly a quarter of a century, and having at lasi deter- mined upon throwing himself, as it- were, into the breach, by reason of Her Majesty's sugges- tion — see Announcement — he has made every possible arrangement for the prqsecution of his task in a manner befitting the momentous char- E^ter of the subject. . With this abject in view (i. e., the 'throwing of himself into the breach) he has called upon a num- ber of distinguished specialists for counsel and direction. He is not one of those who pretend to possess universal knowledge; he recognizes that man's sphere is necessarily a limited one, although he modestly claims to have a loftier, wider, more profound and more longitudinal grasp of this subject than any oiiher man in North Ameri& — he draws the \\^ at Spiith America, and he excepts the editor of the New YotTc Sun. ' » INTRODUCTION. U All doubts that may arise in the treatmeut of questions trending on astronomy, alchemy, apoplexy, aromatics, atavism, axioms, biology, benzine, bee-hives, conchology, cataclysms, cab- bages, demonology, dead-houses, dithyrambics, entrees, etiology, emmets, ecclesiasticism, fakirs, foreknowledge, flute-playing, geology, gram- puses, ghosts, graveyards, and so on right through to Z, we shall hand over to a worthy ex- .president of the Canadian Institution, and if he fail to cope successfully with them, then may that learned Svociety write over its imposing King Street portals, "Ichabod," the interpreta- tion of which it is needless to insult the intelli- gence of our readers by giving in this place or anywhere else. N.B.— ^It may be observed that the only im- portant subject the historiar has treated some- what gingerly, is that of Sunday street cars. Ajs his views thereupon did not coincide with those of a Mr. Sam. Black or Blaikie, (or some such name), who declared that all 'who were not on his side were on the Devil's. This was too ter- rible, too awfully infernal, in fact, and a whole V ,3 bf, l",1* 12 INTBODUCTION. chapter on Sunday trolleys ha. Iwjen cancelled for this reason. The historian has completely changed his mind, and now feels groteful that he and Beelzebub are not partners. if V^&i-a^i^A^i. '••i'.-i -iM CONTENTS. Announcement Intboduction • CHAPTER J. Discovery CHAPTEH 11. The Real Discovbreks • • • • CHAPTER HI. Several People CHAPTER IV. Two or Three Frenchmen . .. CHAPTER V. Kafls Sugar and Lingo . PAGE 7 17 22 20 34 41 /'I 14 CONTENTS CHAPTER Vr. Wolfs and Montcalm CHAPTER Vll. TOBOtiOANING . . . CHAPTER VIII. The U.E.L.'(? . PAOB 56 67 CHAPTER IX. Niagara and York 63 CHAPTER X. Colonial Titles . 67 m- CHAPTER XI. Caledonian Tsrborihm . . CHAPTER XII; The Rebellion CHAPTER XIII. Brown . .. CHAPTER XIV. Education and the C. P. R. 71 74 78 82 CONTENTS 15 CHAPTER XV. Th« Chow's Nest '. . 87 CHAPTER XVI. The Fbnians 90 CHAPTER XVII, Sir John A. Macdonald, K.C.M.G. . . . . 93 CHAPTER XVIII. Lauribr . . • . • • .... 97 CHAPTER XIX. Manitoba Schools . . 100 CHAPTER XX. Thb North- West Rebellions 106 CHAPTER XXI. Signal Victory . . ..... ^ . . ... 110 ^H CHAPTER XXII. Thb Patrons 115 CHAPTER XXIII. Canadian LiTTERATURE .. .. 119 16 C0KTBMT8 CHAPTER XXIV. Natural History CHAPTER XXV. Ou&. Canals . . • • • • CHAPTER XXVI. Ou* Minks • • • • CHAPTER XXVir. Imperial Distinctions 124 .. 132 . . 136 • • • • CHAPTER XXIX. How to Succeed in Canada CHAPTER XXX. A Word in Conclusion 144 CHAPTER XXVIII. Our Moral, Social and Churohioal Condition 163 168 171 M-f TV i?«c-' ;•• [THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE HISTORY OF CANADA. CHAPTER I. ' DISCOVERY. '* So, to begin at the beginnin' An' come directly to the pint, I think the country's underpinnin- , la some consid'ble out o' jint. I ain't agoin' to try your patience, By tellin' who done this or thetl ^ I don't make no insinooations, I jist let on I smell a rat. Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so, But ef the public think I'm wrong, I want deny but what I be so — An'," fact, it don't smell very strong : My mind's too fair^to lose its balance An' say wich party hez most sense : There may be folks* o' greater tal^nce Thet can't set stiddier on the fence.' Jas. Russell Lowbuu ■ W^^^JI^if'm^ 7^^ ^^WfW^ •O'far, so good — now for our history, which shall be begun as all histories should begin, at the beginning, at least as far as we know. ' Very well. There are many who claim the discovery of America for this, that, and the other person or persons, Some say it was the Ice- landers. A writer here and there is in favor of laying all the blame on Prince Madoc, or Modoc, an ancestor of the villain Te,£fy, who in baby- hood's epic is said to have stolen " a leg of beef." Others take the ground that this country was found out by a saint somebody froxn Ireland — I think his name begins with an O, but I have forgotten. Should it come to my mind, I may put it in the appendix. It is a poor history that hasn't an appendix, anyhow. Mobt people, however, are agreed that it was an Italian who discovered America. After years of thought and investigation I have come to the conclusion that all the claims referred to occupy but a secondary ,,or a tertiary, or a quaternary, or a very or'nary place. Amer- ica was discovered by the Indians ! That's who HISTORY OP CANADA. 19 discovered this country, and what's more, they didn't go around making any fuss ahout it either. They just went on living here and enjoying themselves the best way they knew how, having a brush with each other now and again merely for the fun of the thing; sometimes they felt sorry for people that had died suddenly in the excitement of their'little " scraps," and they were in the habit of testifying their affection for the " dear departed " by preserving small souvenirs of them in the shape of discs neatly peeled off the crowns of the defunct heads ; and so eager were they to express their attachment in this way, that they very often effected the (detach- ment before the poor deceased fellows had quite concluded to go off " for good." When an Indian had thus been present at the death-bed of many other Indians, his keepsakes became too cumbersome to carry in his pockets, and he used to hang them up in his residence, which, for this reason, jbecame known as his wig-warn.* * Warn is probably, a corruption of warmy and a contraction of vmrm-place, or place of •heher. W.P.S. 4 /'-'^ 20 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILER. These Indians, or, as they called themselves, "Injuns," were excellent shootists. The bow was their principal engine (hence the name In- jun, by an easy transposition), and their aim was generally so true, that any man who was missed used to say that he had made an " arrow escape."* Their money was made of shell, and thus orig- inated the phrase first heaM by the sailors of Amerigo Vespucci, " shell out." Says the chron- icler, " Whaune we dydde buye from ye bloodie Salvages summe Furres or othere Commoditys, thenne sayde they unto us in horrifyinge Tones, and withe Yoyces like unto ye Howies of ye camivora Brute Beestes, ' Shell out, shell out !' and we shelled out." The same writer continues : " On certayne Oc. caisiones whenne two or more are lambastingeOne the Othere, thenne will ye Lookers on exclayme, * Give hymme Tommie 1 give| himme Tommie !' and with one felle Swoope, On^ wille kuocke ye Othere downe with a Hack from his Battail-Axe *See Archaeological Report for 1884, p. 57, by David Boyle. Jhere seems to be a play on words here, reminding one of Joe Miller and Tom Hood. ^ W.P.S, / • BISTORT OF CANADA. 21 on yo skulle, and soe do they calle ye fiattail- Axes Tommie-Haoks." That this affords us the true etymology of our word tomahawk, Prof. Wrong says is an " ax-ual fact" / o*i> saj' ^ »'■*.'»';?; ^ ft CHAPTER II. THE REAL DISCOVERERS. Here the Red Injun * WuDst had his delights ' Fisht, fit, and bled. — Now moBt of the inhabitants Is Whites, And * nary red.' Cornwall **Fbbeholdbr." He could shoot an arrow from him, And run forward with such fleetness That the arrow fell behind him. Henry Wadswobth Longfellow. And the reascii why this happened, Was because he was a poor shot — Was ashamed he'd shot so badly, — Turned and ran away reversely. WiLi^fjoi Pbter Smith. *|^^\0W it must be plain to the dullest com- I =¥ prehension that as the Indians were -■- ^^.i^ here before the arrival of the Scandi- navians, the Iri^' the Welsh, the Chinese, the (22) HISTOHT OF CANADA. 23 Taps, the U. E. Loyalists, the Christian Scientists tnd the Theosophists, to the Noble Eed Man lust be attributed the credit of having found Lmerica. Still, there can be no doubt that at very early >eriods visits were paid to this continent by [representatives of all the nationalities aforesaid, each of which has left traces of its presence in ithe language, manners and customs of the indig- i enous inhabitants. A lineal descendant of Eric, [who led the Icelanders, is the proprietor of that well-known patent medicine, " Herrick's Com and Consumption Cure,"* and it is a matter of history that numbers of these people jaow reside at a place called Gimli in Manitoba. A strain of Milesian blood is said to be traceable among a few of the best families in New York, Chicago, Toronto and Dundas, and if any dependence may be placed on topographical designations, some of the " first families " must have found their way into Canada, e.g.j Manitoulin, from Man-0'Toole- For testimonials relating to the e£Bcaoy of this wonderful elixir (25 cents a bottle, and five bottles for a dollar), see appendix. W.P.S. 24 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. m' m'- in, just as we find in the extreme south of the continent Patagonia, from the famous nawygator, Capt. Patrick O'Gonia, who was there murdered with^most of his crew in the year 975, A.D. But whatever doubt may rest on this phase of our early history, and we frankly confess there is a halo of dubiety about it, there cannot be any hesitancy regarding the advent of the Welsh under Madoc, or Modoc. To their admixture with the native races is due the present multiplicity of languages, and the unpronounceable character of nine-tenths of the words. , Prince Madoc was not long in America before he found fault with the euphonjT of the Indian tongue, and deter- mined to double the number of consonants. His diabolical intention was by this means to super- induce bronchial, pulmonary and cardiac ailments among the people, so that with the consequently tapid death-rate he might bec|me supreme. He was successful. They soon begar. to die like sheep. The Modoc Indians of Idaho are of pure Cymric stock, and Madoc, in the County of Has- tings, was no doubt for many years one of the sanguinary Welshman's abiding-places, HISTORY OF CANADA. 25 ■ "M 'H ■.■i;i It is quite needless to refer more particularly the Chinese. They landed here several years igo, and here they have laundried ever since.* •Prof. Cox, of MoGill, says : ** We can confidently recom- lend Shing Wang of this city as one of the best in his line, [e always rinses his mouth before he sprinkles the shirts and Icollars." CHAPTER III. SEVERAL PEOPLE. A Castilla y k Loon ^ 4h. Nuevo mundo dio Colon. Gabcia Feknandbz. He bumped agin An»urrikay, And thought as Spain would nab it — But the English 'ad a word to saj, And sent out Captain Cabot. Old Sung. fHERE is no reasonable reason to doubt that in 1492 a person iftimed Columbus did make a trip from Spain to America. In fact, he has told us so himself. The first In- dians he met were notorious liars. When he asked them the name of their island some said it was Cat Island, some said Guanahani, and others declared that it was San Salvador. Just (26) HISTORY OP CANADA. 27 bely it has been proved that he didn't land at [at Island at all, and we thus see in some mea- be how totally depraved these natives must ive been. No sense of shame about them any [ore than if they were nineteenth century poli- sians ! It would be interesting to know the 3ry island, for here it was that he composed id sung for the first time) " Hail Columbia, pappy Land."* He afterwards died. The English claim that Captain Cabot got [ore before Capt. Columbus. This man was a ronderful fellow to talk. In Italy, where he ras bom, they called him for this reason Gabotti, >r the gabbler. In England he talked the King [nto letting him have a ship to go to America. [e intended to land at New York, but the Gulf >tream carried him northwards, and when he reached the shore he was told it was Newfound- land.f It was this event that led to the subse- *" The words of another song, * There is a Happy Land,' Ido not refer to this continent." — Prof. H. G. D. Roberts. t" Newfoundland. This spelling arises from a total mis- I conception of the origin of the name. Fortunately, however, the correct pronunciation possesses all the original signifi- cance. It should be pronounced with the accent on the first 28 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. quent discovery of the cod,* in the capture of] which both English and French have become very pro-fish-ent. Not long after this he saw Labrador for the first time, and really, for any good it is, or is ever likely to be, he might just as well have left it undiscovered. The origin and meaning of the name are now under consideration by the presi- dent of the Cercle Parisien, but it is not likely any sound conclusion will be arrived at during the present century. Both John and Sebastian Cabot died some years ago. But, as Gibbon says in his Decline and Fallf etc., " here we must pause to make a digression," although it may be somewhat difficult to under- stand how this sort of thing is done. At any rate. Gibbon is good authority in| English, and syllable, ^ew-fim-land. Whether the new fun had reference to cod-fishing or shooting down the Boethuc Indians is not certain — probably both kinds of amusement were meant." — Prof. G. Smith. '"" It may be necessary to mention here that these fish as sold in the i:hops have been split open and the backbone ex- tracted. They are also headless. Hence the expressive ex- pression ' Codfish Aristocracy,' so often heard in Hamilton, Toronto, and Quebec." — Editor Glbaneb. HISTORY OP CANADA. 29 re repeat — ^here we must pause to make a digres- ion. Just about ' the time that Cabot ran ashore on fewfoundland, a small boy was born in France )mewhere. No doubt at that time a good many ^mall boys were born in France, but reference is lere made to a particular small boy. He was a bundling shortly afterwards, and being brought tp in a hospital for that class of small boy, he Ihad no name — he simply had a number. When [fiye years of age he was adopted by a market- gardener who went by the name, or, as they say in France, by the soubriquet* of Jack, who em- ployed him to drive his donkey-cart, so that he m became known in Paris, Toulon, St. Malo and other cities as Jack's Carter, or, according to the absurd method of French spelling, Jacques Car- tier. On account of his marvellous dexterity in directing the donkey's course by merely twisting his tail (that is, of course, the donkey's tail), he very naturally came to the conclusion that he *ThiB is not the French way to spell aobriqu^^ but as the Toronto GM>e always spells it so, the method cannot be called a novel one. — W.P.S. 30 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. could manage a ship, and soon after this he ar- rived at St. Malo, whence he set sail for Canada. His first voyage was a total failure, as the only land he saw was the Maritime Provinces, which he called by this name for the reason that nearly all his men deserted the ship and took wives among the natives. The following is an extract from his log-book : *' Parbleu ! Such un temps ! ilka homme took une femme. C'est en veritie un Marrie temps. J'ai avez nomme le place le Baie des Marrie Temps."* The story of Mari- time being a corruption of merry-time is noth- ing but a hoax. Some years after this an aboriginal tribe from Scotland settled here, and called the country Scova Notia, or Nova Scotia, and the Indians to a man — also to a woman — deserted the country. They regarded the advent of the other savages with blank dismay. Jacques Cartier returned home. It was neces- sary that he should do so before he could make «(( The grand old French may present the learned reader with a few difficulties, but with the aid of a good dictionary one may gather the drift of the quotation."— Prof. J. Squair. \. iU lipilUllpiiillUlllJJI: lliil,. HISTORY OF CANADA. 31 another trip to this side. In 1585 he is said to have struck this country somewhere down in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is also said that the mark is yet visible. The Americans have tried to do so more than once since, but always unsuccessfully. But here we must pause to make another digression for the purpose of settUng forever the long-fought battle regarding the ori^^nn of the name Canada. An examination of Oartier's account book, now in the care of Dr. Brymner, the profound and highlyt respected Dominion Archivist at Ottawsi., reveals to us the secret so long hidden. We find the following as the ship's officers names : " Monsieur le Oapitaine, Jacques Cartier. Monsieur le premier Mate, F. X. Nardou. Monsieur le deuxieme Mate, Adtoine Leduc. (Drownded on the voiage). Monsieur le Cooque, Pierre de Dablon." Then follow the names of the common sailors. Here the matter becomes as plain as the nose oh one's face. Le grande Capitaine Cartier has sim- ply taken the first two letters of his own name, 32 THE VICTORIA DJAMOND JUBILEE. and the first two of his only surviving mate, and of the " cooque's," which gave him the euphoni- ous compound Ca-na-da. That this origin of the name is not far-fetched, reference may be made to a " modem instance." In Muskoka, Ontario, is a certain island which was at one time much affected by Prof. Young, A. M. Hoskin, the late Prof. Campbell, Judge Camer- on, and a Mr. Ballantyne. Prof. Young, who was (although a Scotchman) in many respects a greater n^n than Jack's Carter, christened this island Yo-ho-ca-ca-ba, by adopting the very same plan, viz., beheading each surname and hypben- izing the syllables — ^another instance of history repeating itself ! There is little doubt that fur- ther search would show Sta-da-co-ne (Quebec), and Ho-che-la-ga (Montreal), to have originated similarly, fpr the names we have parentheticated above were not applied to these places until after* " Le Capitaine Jacques Cartier " had retired vo " sleep with his fathers," whom, according to tra- dition, he had never known during his life- time. We are thus led to perceive that about all HISTORY OF CANADA. 33 )apitaine Cartier did for this country was to dub It Canada, the origin and meaning of which cog- lomen may now be considered as finally and satisfactorily settled. CHAPTER IV. TWO OR THREE FRENCHMEN. Oe loiit toujours let ayentariera qui font des grandes ohoMB, et non pas lea aouTerains dea grande empires. Lamartine. '* Of oourae you have read all about Champlain, Mr. Mogridge." *' Read about it ! Why, look 'ee here, parson, I oncet had two drinks of i'j at a as^ricultural banket in Hairkes- bury, an' p'raps I didn't want to keel over next momin*. " *'Anov," in Ottawa Vallxt Skbtohbs. ^JThe HE next son of Qaul (who was of any jl account) to visit Canada, was named Champlain — ^in full, Samuel de Cham- plain.* He was a genius, was Sam, as his inti- *Le President de le Cerole Parisien, of Toronto, writes as to this name : " I do most sincerely trust that you will give an explanatory note referring to the pronunciation of Cham- plain. It ought to be pronounced' Shaumplawng. Only the (34) .4k HISTORY OF CANADA. 35 mates called him. He started QueW in 1608, but it stopped very soon afterwards, and ^has never made a fresh spurt. Should Samuel re- turn, he would have no difficulty in recognizing the old spot. One day he set off up the River Ottawa, or as Tom Moore calls it, with the accent on the second syllable, iTtawa, but at that time it was gener- ally known as the Ou-kau-ah-gon-ah-wa-ke-mij- e-nig^-ou-ut-ah-wah, or "The river that flows from the country where the bright lights appear in the sky when the nights are cold." How truly sad it is to contemplate the fearful havoc that we of European origin have made of the extremely expressive and euphonious appellations of Indian origin ! Here we have utterly homi- cided all but that portion of the word which sig- nifies " nights are cold." Hoping to reach the Pacific Ocean if he went far enough, he was the first white man to see Lake Nipissing; On the way there he lost his vuIgArest of .yi^lgar canaUU caU it ShampUme. I have de- voted much of my lifetime to the cultivation of a pure Paris- ian ^ooent, and I may say I have it. '*Alr ■i^<^^^- 'mm 36 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. reckoning. All the days of the week were the same to him, and he didn't know how far he had travelled. In fact, he became so confused that he was losing other things as well as his reckoning, every day. One day he lost his what-you-may- call-it, the thingumy surveyors use for something or other, and a Toronto gentleman, whose name I forget just now, has it at the present moment in his possession. He canoed the lake, and going down French Biver, he reached what he took to be Lake Huron, but the Indians who lived along the shore told him it was only the Georgian Bay. He was amazed, but satisfied. Sailing south he managed by some means to reach Lake Cou-chi- ching-ah-na-ma-wa-kwa-ping. Subsequently the English cut or the last six syllables, on the plea that three were enough for the smaller northern part of the lake, and then they called the larger portion Lake Simcoe. This substitution of Eng- lish names is a paltry English trick. The same game has been worked successfully at Halifax, Hamilton, St. Johns, London, Davisville, and other places. But for the indefatigable exertions of the editor of the Independent^ a similar fa^e Wf!- HISTORY OP CANADA. 37 would have befallen Bobcaygeon,the last attempt I having been to substitute Robert for the .first syllable. Coboconk also remains in all its pris- tine glory, and so does St. Thomas. But this is a digression for which no pause was made. En- tering a river which he was informed was the Talbot, it is recorded that Samuel de Champlain (pronoumjed Shaumplawng) got mad, and, raising his voice to a high pitch, declared that he would give a name of his own to the very next river or lake of any account he came to. This is why. Balsam Lake is so called,* for although he for- got his threat (he was not a bad-natured soul), the Indians gave it this name. He was the first white man to survey the route of the Trent Val- ley Canal, following which he eventually reached Lake Ontario. - Omitting the story of his brush with the Iro- quois, or rather, considering the sequel, the brush of the Iroquois with him, he got back to Quebec after having performed one of the most remark- able journeys ever undertaken by a European *Bawl Sam, the Indians called it, but now Balsam. See Charlevoix Vol. ix, p. 902, et seq., Cf. Parkman, et al. 38 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. explorer in America, if we except that of the plucky fellow who only a few years ago travelled from New York to San Francisco, wheeling a barrow, and flaunting the stars and stripes through more than a score of hostile states and territories. By-and-by a Free-mason called Neuve settled in Hochelaga, and founded there a village of set- tlers from "La Belle France." He called hh settlement Ville Marie, and he htmself is usually known as Mason Neuve, or Maisonneuve. In course of time the masons fell into disrepute, and to obliterate Free Mason Neuve's* connection with the settlement the name was changed to Mont Real, because- near by was the first real mountain many of the French settlers had ever seen. This village even at the present day is sometimes spoken of as Montreal. But the biggest of all the big Frenchmen who ever stepped on these shores was he of whon» it *Mr. J. Ross Robertson, ex-Grand Master, G.R.C., A.F. and A.M., is now engaged in a diligent search for records that may tend to show what degree Sieur de Maisonneuve worked in, and to what Lodge he belonged in old France. We may give the result in the appendix. W.P.S. *ilf^. HISTORY OF CANADA. 39 was first said that he was " Front en paix, front en gueiTe, et front en les coeurs des son compat- riots." In English this would read, "Front in peace, front in war, and front in the hearts of his countrymen." Gay Lassac, a witty contem* porary, evaporated these sentiments to the sim- ple form Front en act, and according to Lower Canadian patois it has become Frontenac-^a noble naine for a noble man ! He instituted the celebrated unive^ities of Laval, McGill, and Lennoxville, and projected the Victoria Tubular Bridge, but his greatest achievement, the deed which must forever remain connected with the renown of Frontenac, is the establishment of Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, without which it would be simply impossible to have Kingston Penitentiary, and Queen's University, and Prin- cipal Grant of Kingston. We can never be too grateful to Frontenac " Vive le Frontenac !" " Vive le Grant." Kingston, however, has behaved much after the manner of Quebec; shortly subsequent to getting a start the impetus became monotonous — wearisome, in fact, and the village stopped to 40 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE, rest. The rest may be briefly told. Had Kings- ton not fooled away its time — if, for example, it had only pushed ahead moderately, like Chicago or Port Dalhousie, its population at this date would have been less than 10,983,764. It is sincerely to be hoped that Mimico and Chester will profit by the sad example, otherwise one or other of them may in the distant future become the seat of a provincial penitentiary. Perhaps in view of the fact that they are contiguous to To- ronto, the supply of necessary material will be large enough to keep up flourishing inatitu- tions of this kind in each of these towns. So much for Frontenac. "Requiescat in pace," as Solicitor -General Fitz- gerald would say, or " Pace to his ashes." Those who desire to learn more about the lead- ing men of this period may consult the admir- able list of books recommended in the Ontario School History of Canada. The complete out- fit may be purchased for the trifling sum of three hundred or three hundred and fifty dollars, the selection having been made with a view to en- able teachers to supply themselves at an out- lay not much exceeding one year's salary. CHAPTER V. MAPLE SUGAR AND LINGO. ' *' I axed the old gent, Mr. Lalonde, was he a habitaw, an' he said be wasn't ; wfts he a Quebecker, he said 'No;' then, says I, * Ain^'t you a Frenchman V He got a bit mad, an' says he, * I'm^ Canadian. I was born in Twa Pis- toles, Quebec' By gosh ! if this didn't make me feel mean, fur t had said to him Lwas English, an' here I was born in 0«)hawa !" W "ADrummbr," In the Ottawa Free Press of last week. ^ S to the socUl and political manners and customs of the habitana* a few eluci- datory remarks may be judiciously made right here. The habitana (see foot-note) came originally from France. Those who did not were born in *Pronounce this word Ha?i-bee-tong, but not taking the hyphens into account. Do not say Hahhyphenheehyphen- ''^f^r} .■'«s"W)'»^^'^T«5ww g^»^^^!l*^r^TiP?n^ 52 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. an aide-de-camp* came into his dressing-room and exclaimed, "You've jusfc hit it, General— c'est un loup, the British Wolfe' is playing le diable out there." Montcalm immediately dropped all that is involved in the last syllable of his name and made use of the first one to get on his horse. He was not out very long when Sergeant McSlogan inflicted upon him the coup de grace with his claymore, and the French seeing him in this plight took to their heels, and to the woods at the same time. Wolfe had been mor- tally wounded before, and perhaps behind ; but the records are imperfect. An English soldier seeing the Frenchies' wild dispersal, shouted, " They run, they run like sixty ! " When Wolfe heard this he said very eagerly, " Who run ?" and when the Englishman (who was an old bird) saw Wolfe cock his ear for a reply, he said, " The heriQmy, sir, the henemyj'f Immediately after •'* Pronounce this aide kong. Camp is the French for field, and the word means " field aid." It is a mark of low- breeding to say aide-de-camp, sounding the p." — President Cercle Parisien. V* The Flaneur " man says this is probably the only ground the London Time a had about that date for referring to the sad event as "The foul death of GeneralJames Wolfe at Quebeck." ^^^^ %•;;:. vj -i '•■■wj HISTORY OF CANADA. ■•.',' '- '' '' 53 this General Wolfe expired, and Canada may be said to have changed owners from that moment. Indeed, so far as > Lower Canada was concerned, that was almost the only change — nearly every- thing else remains just as it was. Bourinot ascribes a very plausible reason as to why in the treaty of capitulation, the Canadians of that day insisted on the retention of their own lan- guage. " Quite naturally," he says, " the inhabi- tants of Quebec, most of whom now came into personal contact with the British for the first time, took it for granted that the speech em- ployed by the captors was English. Now, it is well known that those who did not make use of Gaelic spoke that abominable gibberish known as Yorkshire, from which county a goodly number of Wolfe's soldiery had been enlisted. Is it then to be wondered at that the population to a man should have preferred expatriation, renewed war- fare, annihilation, anything, in fact, in preference to having thrust upon them the barbaric guttur- als of the one class, and the truly awful mala- phonic mouthings of the other, both of which were supposed to be English ? We may pity the ^i .■*,i 54 THE VICTOKIA DIAMOND JUBILEK. Ignorance of the habitans, but from their point of view we can but give them their due meed of credit for the exercise of so much linguistic taste, and so high a conception of what was justly due to civilization." • ■«<••■ .^"-; (■> .'-':• : -^it \ jil^k'vl;44'i>^^.H '. A£iG4i• ; . Frustrate their kiiavish tricks, ' . ! : On Thee our hopes vre fix, V" y ' ff y God save our King. Dr. John Bull. Ain't it cute to see a Yankee • Take such everlastin' pains, All to git the Devil's thankee Helpin' on 'em weld their chains ? James Russell Lowell. ELL, for some time after the British conquered Canada, or, we ought rather to say, for some time after the French relin- quished their claim on these "few arpents of snow," what is now Ontario did not amount to shucks,* and never would have either, which is *Will some one kindly tell us what "shucks " are? Our application to Prof. Wrongf for an elucidation met with no response. — W.P.S. (57) '!?dl i'''f^rw7?Wff«' 68 THK VICTORIA DIAMOND .HfBILEE. more, had it not been for the wicked rebellion of the American Colonies. i: * This reminds us of an old saying — so old, in- deed, that possibly many modern readers have not heard it, so we quote it here : " It is an ill wind that blows nobody good."* It came about this way. When Washington and other miscre- ants drew the parricidal, matricidal, and fratri- cidal sword to steep it in the gore of persons having a relationship indicated by these adjec- tives, there Were a good many " poor but honest" persons living in the various rebellious colonies who " refused to bow the knee to Baal " as it were. They were British to the backbone and beyond it. They were proud of the old flag, " the flag that braved," and so on — they believed in King, Lords and Commons (not including short commons) — they absolutely, and 'in tones of horror, repudiated Red Republicanism — they felt, and what is more, they very properly felt that civil, political and religious liberty would be «<< My grandmother's version was slightly different. She had it thus, ' It's a hill winde as don't ^low hanybody no good.' Hone thinks this is the original form, and rttfers to' %h% mod«m form as a varia&l."— Prof. Snitk. iPiPPPippmii HISTORY OF CANADA. 59 endangered under the rule of tlie mob — in other words, they foresaw "Secesh," they foresaw Aaron Burr, they foresaw Boss Tweed and Tammany, they foresaw Blaine and the seal trouble, they foresaw McKinley, they foresaw — but why re- hearse ? They foresaw Chauncey Depew and all these and other evils resulting from the un- bridled license that universally accompanies free self-government. And what did these noble fel- lows do ? Did they snivellingly swallow their principles ? Did they "bow the knee to Baal ?" (I have already used this qiictation and didn't tnean to do so again, but let it go). Did they— language fails here, gexitle reader, but we know they did not. They up and left the land — the land they tilled — their native land, for which they were not allowed one cent; and driving their cattle and sheep, and pigs and poultry ahead of them, thousands of these self-sacrificing people came to Upper Canada and laid the foundations of society and log-buildings, broad and deep, all around the Bay of Quinte, and the Falls of Niagara, so much so that even at this distant date the former locality is as celebrated li 60 T:IK VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. for its growth of barley as the latter is for its fruit.* Neither should it be forgotten that those brave people brought with them an extraordinarily large number of old wooden- wheel work clocks, now regarded as heir- looms, but not at all like the air-looms used in France for the manufacture of silk fabrics. No ancient family of the type is complete without a wooden clock, and it has been recorded th. t certain upstart people from Europe, happening by some means to become possessed of a wooden clock, have actually set up a claim for connection with the old U. E."f* Loyalist stock ! ! ! i^ 4 Mr. Joseph Haycock, Patron of Industry, in a speech at Mimico in 1867, among other good things said of these settlers : " Ladies and Gentle- men, were I not an Irish Canadian I should wish to be a U. E. L. Ladies and Gentlemen, they are the vertebral column of Upper Canada, and, ladies and gentlemen, they are as easily *'* Natural gas, too, has been struck in the Niagara Penin- sula quite recently." — Eugene Coste, F.G.S. t" U. E. means United Empire. Other interpretations have been suggested, but this is the only genuine one." This we have from a distinguished military man. HISTORY OF CANADA. 61 distinguished by their names as are the O'Gradys and the McTavishes. Among their number are the Doblinsons, the Van Snickers, the Joneses, the Rippingtons, the Joddarts, the Schantzes, the Smiths, and the Grellers — names the very men- tion of which recalls to our imagination the stormy events that ensued the Declaration of Independence by the misguided colonists to- wards the close of the 17th century."* Only for the magnificent spirit those settlers have infused in the community we should at this date have been devoid of military drill in the city schools, and we should have had no flags on the court-houses, no protective tariflT, no palatial residence for the Lieutenant-Governor, no schemes for Imperial Federation — no nothing, in fact, worth mentioning. Ah, no ! To the Crown they are a tower of strength, and to the lewd Americans they are at once a detestation and a wholesome terror. Some silly persons laugh at * "The exact date was 1776, we believe, but this was towards the close of the 18th, not the 17th ceotury. Not long since a Toronto paper spoke of the present year as being in the last decade of the 18th century, instead of the 19th." —Dr. G. Stewart. 1*53 62 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. the claims of the U. E. Loyalists to superior con- sideration, but this arises from pure jealously — they are only sorry they oan boast of no such origin themselves, and that's what's the matter. What signifies it being a Canadian if your father was only an emigrant from the Old Country, even if he did pay his own passage ? Let this dispose of the question forever. *i9C 'r^ 4- ^ ^:....=_ ;: CHAPTER IX. NIAGARA AND YORK. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely — Edmund Burke. Canada is one of the loveliest countries in the whole world. William Peter Smith. fN the WasHingtonian squabble with Great Britain, the United Statesers claim they " licked the Britishers." This is just like their impudence. Licked us, indeed ! Not much. We could have knocked them higher than Gilderoy's Kite,* but we simply didn't want to lie bothered just at that time. We had pretty *The Editor of the Caimdian Magazine says of this ex- preBsion : " There can scarcely be a doubt relative to certain archaic euphemisms that must strike every one with more than ordinary force on frequent perusal, and it is barely open to doubt that this often is the casw." (63) ■;a 64 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND .TURILEE. 1/^'/, m much all the rest of the world on our hands then, and we found it answered our purpose much better to let the youngsters go than to be oothered with them, as they were always kick- ing up didoes about taxes, and duties, and one thing and another. v:. See what tiiey are themselves now, after all the fuss they made about taxes in those days ! We all remember the 5 o'clock tea party at Boston. They wanted Canada to " jine " in the ridicu- lous revolt, but we wouldn't, and when they sent one Montgomery to seize Quebec, we just killed him — killed him like a dawg, and served him right. Sic Semper Tyrannis* Next! , After this Canada got along tolerably well for some years. Sometimes Upper and Lower Canada were united and sometimes thev were not. Just about a hundred years or so ago Colonel Simcoe, who took his name from a lake so-called, started a new Government machine for •''Everybody knows what this means. It means, 'This is always the way to make tyrants feel sick.'" We merely mention this for the benefit of classical tyros. — W.P.S. '-'■•, , HISTORY OP CANADA. 65 Upper Canada, at a place called Newagara, or Niark, or some such name, situated according to tradition between thirty and forty miles south of Toronto, but there are many grave doubts sur- rouncling the legend. Our worthy townsman, ex-Mayor D. B. Reid, Q.C., has consumed millions of cubic yards of the Consumers' Gas Company's coal-petroleum-water-gas (warranted to kill at ten thousand feet in small and close bedrooms), in attempting to unravel the mystery of Navy Hall, a barn in which the first parliament is said to have met, and he is not vet certain he has succeeded; neither is anv one else. However this may be, Simcoe hankered to get nearer home — he longed for some sort of society as it were, and knowing that the original inhab- itants (genuine blue-blooded fellows) of the country often spent a portion of every year at Fort Rouille,inthe Industrial Exhibition grounds, he set sail northward determined to mingle with his kind. When digging the cellar of his guber- natorial residence his spade struck a skull, see* ing which he gazed upon it thoughtfully and ex- claimed with a heavy sigh, " Alas ! Poor Yorick. ' '-'t^f mm Wm m ^iBlM 1.'. -j^H 1 m :'m i^fcj^v. .>i Aii^it^Jii riJ^M 6<> THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. The residence was thereafter known as Yorick Place, or Yorick Hall, some went so far as to call it Yorick Castle, but, at any rate, as settle- ment increased, the name stuck to it, although a few years afterwards it had diminished to York, then it grew to Little York, and finally became Muddy Little York. Sic transit gloria mundi^"* *"This must not be understood as having the remotest re- ference to the day of the week when this important event happened. It may in rea ity have been Tuesday, Wednes- day, or any other day."' — Joshua C. Hopkins. ; ; : -^v -CHAPTER X. COLONIAL TITLES. I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I 'who doth feed upon my cost ; > It yearns me not if men my garments wear ; Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. . . ., William Shaksper. [ am not a mon, little boy, I am a magistrate. Scotch Alderman. 'IMCOE was madly in love with titles of nobility, and wrote to the Prime Minister of England suggesting the desirability of an aristocracy for Upper Canada. We are indebted to the Dominion Archivist for the following copy of a letter written by Simcoe on the subject : (67) i^-^'vyj^'i'S^V 68 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. YoRiCK Hall, Upper Canada, April 1, 1794. My Lord, — Yours of June Srd, 1793, duly received and Contents noted. It is the humble Duty, my Lord, of your Lordship's humble and devoted Servante, to lay before your Lordship the Affayres of this Colony since I sent my last Despatch to your Lordship, nearly two Years agoe. I am thwough- ly convinced, my Lord, and I am sure your Lord- ship will perceive the f uUe Force of my Convic- tion, that the ultimate Well Being of His Majes- ties Colony here, depends wholly upon the In- stitution 6f Families bearing Titles, who shall hold in Awe the Common People whom we ex- pect to swarm here during the coming Century, before the Expiration of which we have reason to believe there will be here a Towne of 4,000 or 5,000 Inhabitants, and as these will probably consist mainly of Peasants and Mechanicks from England, it behooves us to keep them in Awe by the Presence of a titled Aristocracy. I w'd therefore, my Lord, recommend to your Lord- ship's distinguished Consideration the Propriety, HISTORY OP CANADA. 69 nay the prime Necessity, of creating at once not fewer than ten noble Heads of Families, three of whom should be Knights, two Baronets, two Mar- quises, one Earl, and one Duke. For Knight- hood, my Lord, I beg to suggest to your Lord- ship the names of Peter Smith,* John Jones, and Ebenezer Morgan; for Baronets, Henry James Johnson and William Scott ; for Marquises, Jacob Schneider and Edgar Porter; for Earl, Elkanah Ransom. I w'd also recommend that the Mar- quises should be known as the Marquis of Pene- tanguishene, and the Marquis of Ebpbicoke ; and the Earl, as the Earl of Niagara Falls South. I have not ventured to suggest for your Lordship's distinguished Consideration the name of any Person for the Title of Duke of Upper Canada, as doubtless your Lordship is better qualified than your Lordship's humble and obedient ser- vant to select some One for that Title. I have the Honour to be, my Lord, your Lord- * This was my own great-grandfather. My mother ivas a Ransom, and her mother was a daughter of William Scott — hence my Christian names, William Peter. Wc ha,\e no connection with any other SmithSi '>'^:->i 70 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. ship's devoted admirer, and Most Obedient Hum- ble Servant, J. Graves Simcoe, Governor of Upper Gaimda. Very singularly, " My Lord, his Lordship " did not jump to this proposition; Governor Simcoe did not become " Duke of Upper Canada," deli- cately as he broached the subject, and the nomi- nees of his governorship were permitted to die " unwept, unhonoredf and unsung." This seems a great pity, otherwise we might have had in our midst to-day not a few " belted knights " only, but a " Marquis, Duke and a' that," galore. How awfully jolly it would be if we could have now, say, Lord Mallorytown, the Marquis of Muskoka, the Earl of Couchiching, and the Duke of To- ronto Junction! This would be real Society, and not the mockery that does duty for it at present. * 4 CHAPTER XI. CALEDONIAN TERRORISM. I don't like to have Scots or rats about my feet. Samuel Johnson. (SThIIs HINGS turned out just as Simcoe presaged, &l for in less than fifty years, the ignorant and besotted " peasants and mechanicks" who came to Upper Canada did raise a racket. They wanted this, and they wanted that, and they didn't seem to know what they wanted. Down in Lower Canada, where there was no English nobility either, things were just as bad, and no doubt for the very same reason. There a doctor named Papineau, and a person named Cartier, a lineal descendant of " Le Capitaine,'* who invented the name of this country, were at the bottom as well as at the top of all the mis* chief. (71) .M 72 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. In Upper Canada the pestilent fellows were two Scotchmen named Gourlay and Mackenzie. People may talk about Irish agitators, but they are not a patch to the Scotch in this line. Scotch- men are never satisfied with things as they find them. They are etern».lly grumbling, and they seem to think Providence has endow- ed thom with peculiar qualifications for the rectification of all grievances. They are always prating about the liberty of the subject, and when they get it the first thing they do is to fill all the best offices in the State with representatives of the various clans. To use one of their own uncouth expressions, they are forever in a state of ** disgruntlement." Even at this moment in the Old Land, the Dear Old Land, they are clamoring for Home Kule, just as if they didn't rule in Scotland already, and in England too, for that matter J Then look at them in Australia in New Zealand,* and in Africa ! Drat the Scotch. * Max O'Rell is responsible for the statement that the Chinese laundrymen in New Zealand call themselves " Mac Yen," "Mac Sen," "Mac Sing," and so on, before they can hope to get any Scotch garments to purify. » m DISTORT OF CANADA. 78 Where Sim. missed it was not in having an act of the legislature passed, like the one they have in the States, absolutely prohibiting the Chinese from coming to the country.* Had he taken this course at the outset, it is probable we should now be enjoying all the amenities of a government that could and would elect itself and run the legislative machinery without bothering the people about anything at all beyond paying the necessary taxes to keep things in a reasonably respectable condition. * Passed in Congress April 6th, 1892. All Chinese and Scotchmen now in this country should be banished, and for- bidden to return on pain of death. '^''^ -j*<^ ^ W ■ ■■K.,..<< '<^iMm CHAPTER XIL, THE REBELLION. Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason ? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason. Sir John Harrington. Tell me what find we to admire In epaulets and scarlet coats, In men because they load and fire, And know the art of cutting throats. I Wm. M. Thackeray. (^The HE Rebellion broke out in 1837, but it all didn't last very long. Many of the bloody R-r-rebels were banished, two of them were hanged in Toronto (one who was not is yet alive), but the Arch- traitor, W. Lyon T'^ackenzie, skipped to Yankeedom, the home of all rene- gades, scoundrels, villains, thieves, swindlers, boodjers and bigamists, only to return a short . (74) HISTORY or CANADA. 75 time afterwards when he was elected to Parlia- ment and to the mayoralty of the city of To- ronto. Mr. G. Etienne Cartier, (a lineal descendant of " Jack's Carter,") another chief conspirator and desperado, subsequently became Premier of Cana- da, a full fly-blown knight, and one of Her Majesty's Privy Counsellors. "0 tempore, mores ! " kickers ! Things are no doubt in better shape now than before the treasonable outbreak ; but they would have improved any- how, so no thanks to the desperadoes who would have sold their country. During the row the loyal party threw all the contents of Mackenzie's printing office into Lake Ontario, and it was a great pity they did not throw him in too. As the filthy type that printed his filthy paper is still lying in the Bay, is it any wonder that the Toronto people con- stantly complain of impure water from this source ? Lord Elgin was sent out here by the Queen to settle little difficulties connected with the fiasco, and just because he didn't do exactly m the '■■ '/■ 'i ¥'^ nr/..-&.i tlt.".'^ *" iJ.^] 76 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILIB. malcontents thought he ought to do, what do you think they did ? Why, you may not believe it, but they actually stoned him with decayed eggs, and, what is more, they burned down the Par- liament Buildings, which were then in the place called Montreal, which lies about 333 miles east of the city of Toronto. Some apologists for those out- rages have attempted to throw the whole of the blame on the Iroquois, but we have the authority of Mr. David Boyle, the Indianologist, for the statement that there is no record on the wampum belts of the aborigines that would give a sem- blance of color to this vile insinuation. These are his own words : " The Six-Nation Indians, sometimes spoken of as the Iroquois, were truly a bloodthirsty and a vengeful people — they were guilty of many atrocities — they do not deny that they have, as opportunity served, gouged out the eyes of their victims, pulled out finger- nails by the rootb, cut off noses, slit ears, burned prisoners alive, sometimes have actually eat^n them, and have appropriated scalps innumerable; but they indignantly repudiate the commiasion of an act so utterly reprehensible as rotten-egg* HISTORY or CANADA. 77 ing Her Majesty's Great Onontio, and applying the torch to the Council House of the nation." My own belief is that, if the truth were known, the Tories of that day were responsible for the outrage, notwithstanding their loud-mouthed lip-loyalty at the present time.* *To Mr. Boyle's fire-eating radicaliun must be imputed this expression of his personal belief, which is quite contrary to tradition. Prof. Chamberlain, however, corroborates the above statement regarding the wampum records being desti- tute of any reference to the flagrant acts in question. This settles it. CHAPTER XIII. ■^,-.,-^;.-,:>/'^:^-' ,; BROWN. Oh ! he was an el^ant blade, As you'd see from Fair Head to Kilcrumper, And though under the sod he is laid, Yet here goes his health in a bumper ! I wish he was herd that my glass He might by art magic replenish ; But as he is not, why, alas ! • My ditty must come to a finish. Dr. Wm. Maqinn. GJaTP to this time Lower Canada had been //^J likely to keep ahead in the matter of ^-^V" ^ population, i-ad so long as this was the case the good people of Upper Canada never said a word about the number of legislators being in proportion to the number of people; but very soon after this time the '' common peasants and mechanicks," whose arrival was anticipated by Gov. Simcoe, began to swarm out here— «i- (78) HISTORY OP CANADA. 79 pecially after the union in lo^O — and Upper Canadians at once perceived the iniquity of per- mitting the Frenchies to have as much influence in the law-factory as the English-speaking set- tlers had, so they begun a rumpus in favor of P'^p. by Pop., and they kept up the rumpus until it led to that great and glorious achievement of political science known as the Confederation of the Provinces. A person named Brown — Tom Brown, or John Brown, or George Brown, or some such name — was at the bottom of this trouble. It is needless to say that this man Brown was a Scot; ! He was always nag, nag, nagging at one thing or another. A special object of his dislike was an arrangement made years before he came to this country, by means of which immense quan- tities of land were set apart for the benefit of the Catholic clergy.* Nobody ever doubted, or *This history would be nothing if not in consonance with modern ideas. We therefore speak advisedly of the ' ' Catho- lic clergy," as the name of those whom a sort of half-and-half people style i' Anglicans," and who are known to old-fash- ioned folk as " Episcopalians " or the ** Church of England.' In accordance with this nomenclature those whom wt form- M 80 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. could reasonably doubt, that the Reserves in question were meant exclusively for the behoof of the Epis — we mean the Catholic clergy ; and in the face of religion, justice, common sense, and— and^-every thing, this man Brown ups and claims that all the Dissenters, and even the Romanists, had just as good a right to go snooks in the pro- fits as the — as the — Catholics! One might suppose that this outrageous piece of Scotch Presbyterian impudence would have been only laughed at, and so it was foi a few years ; but this Brown, he just kept on nagging, and nagging, and nagging in a newspaper he ran, and on the stump, and in the Legislature too, where he managed to get in, until the Catholic party were fatigued with the iteration and said, " Let us hdive peace at any price,"* and agreed to " divvy up " with a lot of people who were never once taken into account when the arrange- erly called " Catholics" are now to be spoken of as " Rom- anists." It is also gratifying to note that PreSbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and other low trash are nothing but "Dissenters," anyway. — W.P.S. *'* This is how the now celebrated phrase originated." 6. Smith, in the Forum for April, p. 193. Putnam k Sons, Boa- ton and Chi«ago. N«w 8«ri«f. HISTORY OF CANADA. 81 ment was first made. No similar act of spoliation has ever been recorded in the history of any other country ; but this Brown had no advanced ideas on meum et tuum, for it is recorded of him that on one occasion he actually insisted on paying out of his own pocket a sum of money a friend of his had been unable to pay some years long past. This was the kind of impracticable person Brown was, and when he once got a thing into his head, he just made the wilderness howl till everybody else was compelled to say, " Well, well, for goodness' sake have it your own way. and give us a rest." Many stupid people contend that the whole Clergy Keser>^e business was wicked from its in- ception to its settlement, but these belong to the same degraded set who clamor for the abolition of Separate Schools, and all that sort of thing, in- cluding the total severance of Chutch and State ! Faugh ! They are the raw supply of Atheists, Anarchists, Socialists, Demagogues, Iconoclasts, Single-Taxists, Nationalists, Grits, and, worse than all, E(][ual Righters ! ^Mid CHAPTER XIV. ' EDUCATION AND THE C.P.R. Never mind how tlie pedagogue proses, You want not antiquity's stamp, The lip that's so scented by roses, Oh I never must smell of the lamp. And, oh I if a fellow like me Mjiy confer a diploma of hearts, With my lips thus I seal your degree, My divine little Mistress of Arts ! ' Thos. Moore. , LONG about here some time, Upper Canada derived a very important " cas- ual advantage " in the establishment of its Common School System, which, according to Mr. Jas. L. Hughes, is the best in the whole world ; that is to say, it includes the best school- houses, the best teachers, the largest attendance, the best text-books, the best met!;L\l^j II;? best (82) iJ'- ~ ■ 4- :'iii^^ HISTORY OF CAXADA. 83 discipline, the best maps, the best play-grounds, the best mannered pupils, the most cultured pre- ceptors, the best furnished school-rooms, the best results, the best outhouses, the best inspectors, the best methods of heating, the best Normal Schools, and the best College of Pedagogy.* Mr. Hughes writes : " It is only when I am addressing audiences in the United States that I indulge in so many superlatives — at home, never. The last expression I have never em- ployed in public anywhere. People residing like yourself so far from the educational centre of this province, fail to recognize or appreciate the forces at work here. Still, on the whole, your paragraph fairly well represents the situa- tion, and I am not disposed to be at all captious." Students from all portions of the habitable globe flock here to attend the Veterinary College and the Normal Schools on account of the fame attaching to the names of the principals as auth- _ I , - — ^ - "Should the gentle reader detect here what seems to be needless repetition, the historian begs to inform him that the style of composition is modelled on all the best speeches relating to education (about 750,000 in number) that Imve ever been delivered in this country. — W.P.S, y^t^aiik 84 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. orities, most original, learned and profound, in their respective spheres. Toronto University is now affiliated with Vic- toria, Wycliffe, the Dental, the Pharmacy, Men's Medical and the Women's Medical Colleges, and steps are being taken to form a similar union with the Horological, Farmers' and Canadian Institu- tions, the Belleville and Chatham Business Col- leges, Hamilton Public Library, the Dairymen's and Fruit Growers' Associations, the Amateur Athletic Club, the Caledonian Society, the Circle Parisien, and the Twentymological Society of London. It is evidently the intention of Messrs. Blake and Mulock that there shall be ho moss- back associations clinging around their halls -of learning. However, this educational dissertation has carried us beyond our time, and we must " re- vert back again," as the Toronto World some- times elegantly remarks.* * It may be the Toronto Telegram or the Toronto Neios — anyhow it is one of them, and as all the editors are old Upper Canada College boys, especially one of them, we can readily account for their playful eccentricities when using the Eng- lish language, although in this respect they cannot hold an incandescent light to the bigger dailies. m HISTORY OF CANADA. B5 When Upper and Lower Canada confederated they agreed to " take in, and do for," the out- lying colonies. On these conditions New Bruns- ^yick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Kamloops, Rupert's Land, Kee- watin, and Fort William, all found their way into the "fund," " by hook or by crook" within a few years. Prof. Smith arrived afterwards. The only lasting advantages connected with the union of old Canada and the Maritime Provinces consists in the fact that the latter ceased to speak of the people in the former as " Canucks," and those of the former no longer referred tp their new associates as "Blue-noses." British Columbia compelled the rest of the coun- try to construct the C.P.R. at a cost of, it is hard to say how many billions and trillions and (quadrillions of dollars (it didn't run into quin- tillions), and it is claimed to be worth every cent of the money if only to carry soldiers from Ocean to Ocean, as Principal Grant would say, in time of war. Meanwhile it is used to a limit- ed extent in carrying passengers and packages .'If* *■ ii 86 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. across the continent. Passengers make the trip in a week, but parcels and packages require nearly three months when not accompanied by the owners. Meanwhile we can only hope for the speedy outbreak of a war so that the road may pay for itself, and perhaps encourage us to build another one somewhere else for a similar purpose — say to Hudson Bay ! A very important event in the history of this railway threw so much light on the intimate connection that exists between civil and politi- cal engineering, that it is known as the " Pacific's Candle," even to the present day. VI- ■->■. , » V , CHAPTER XV. i . ! ; THE CROW'S NEST. ' > ^ Hopes, what are they ? Beads of mornintr Strung on slender blades of grass ; Or a spider's web adorning, In a straight and treacherous pass. William Wordsworth. J (9 ^UOH more recently railway matters have come to a pretty pass.* It is proposed to bonus the Canadian Pacific Railway to build a branch into the British Columbia mining district, xind whv not ? How can the miners get out their gold otlier- wise ? Suppose a man has a hundred thousand tons of gold ore worth fifty-nine dollars and a half per ton ; or, worse still, suppose a syndicate * The Crow's Nest Pass is said to be unsurpassed in this respect. (87) 86 THE VICTORIA DIAMOKD JUdlLfiK. l-h i or a company has a million times that quantity, every one * must see how unutterably foolish it would be to let this enormous amount of wealth lie there and rot, just for the want of a railway. Obstructionists and Mr. Haycock may howl about our already heavy debt and the folly of paying a railway concern to make itself a bigget nuicnnce than it is ; this is only clap-trap. A few more millions would be neither here nor there — we and the railway would be, but the money would be somewhere else, and not as if it were used for the deepening of now useless canals, or loaned to farmers at low interest to clear off mortgages, or to otherwise aid depressed agriculture. It is all nonsense to talk about the countrv building and owning its own railways. This is the kind of gush that always comes from the party out of power, but when they get in they get more sense — they become in-sensed, as it were, and the other fellows become incensed also, because they're ovi. Inexplicable as this may appear, it is quite true. The psychological con- ditions involved are now being investigated by * Especially every one in the Company. ^y;iS>{j:,^SiS%4i4l..;...;.. • tttSTORY Of CANADA. 89 Prof. Hume, ami a reasonable elucidation may be arrived at during the latter half of next cen- tury ; meanwhile the Crow's Nest Railway will have been constructed, and the ratepayer will frequently have to say " I pass," when he planks his stakes, although this is not according to Hoyle. -*::-|.'iC' ■ y ^< \%. <», IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // ^ V^ 5^> 1.0 1.1 1^ t^ iiii 12.2 :^ 1^ 12.0 111^^ 1.25 III 1.4 III 1.6 = 11^ H .« . 6" ^ ^.v Sciences Corporatton 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, M.Y. 14510 (716)873-4303 ri>^ V V \\ ^ O^ mm A o^ ^ '■ . '■) J ■,-.; CHAPTER XVI : THE FENIANS. .. I. :, Then the Futt and the Dthragoons iV ' In squadthrons and platoons, ::i:K >; : v ■ With their music playing chunes, down upon us bore ; And they bate the rattatoo, , ,- .., - And the Canajuns came in view n- ; And ended the shaloo, on the Niagara shore. ■ Slightly modified prom Thackeray. GAIN we have been too antecedent, and must retrace our steps to record the chief events of the Fenian Kaid, which was a visit paid to this country by a number of armed ruffians from the States who wanted some^ body to tread on the tails of their coats, after the close of the American War. The crossing was made near Niagara. The first crossing was made deliberately and methodically — the second cross- (90) HIST0R7 or CANADA. 91 ing was in considerable disorder ; it was made on the return trip, but not quite so many went back. The battle-field will be known in history as Ridgeway. Had Creasy not died before the eleventh edition of his "Decisive Battles" ap- peared, Ridge way might have found a place with Marathon, Alcibiades, Bunker Hill, Bull's Run, and Waterloo. Most of the Canadian boys at Ridge way per- formed their duty nobly, and some left orphaned ' parents to mourn their cruel and untimely fate ; others complained on their return to Toronto that the fences on the Niagara peninsula were not only too high, but that the rails were so close, no reasonably-sized man could squeeze through them when he was stinted in point of time, with the enemy in his rear, and the late Gen. Chas. T. Gillmor was heard to say that the whole thing was false, tricky and treacherous. To the American nation the lesson was a severe one, and not long afterwards, when in connection with the arbitration on the Fisheries Sir John A. Macdonald demanded Five Million Dollars with the alternative of war, our Ameri- 111 if*, m mm ::.^^^.^jnL. 92 THK VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEK. can cousins gently " caved in," and willingly handed over the sum our great statesman de- manded. Had they not acquiesced so gracefully, nothing is more certain than that in twenty-four hours, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, ay, and Youngstown would have been so many heaps of ashes ! - . . % » ^.-.v ■■ -, ■'/:-■'•.■■"' O^ t r*Y A i .'I Im 8 <:/ :, CHAPTER xvn. ,•■,'-.-,■■•'.... •.■..,■'''■ ..". .j» ?■»■_.- ' *■..■■■ ■ '>, ■■ , SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD, K.C.M.G. ^ ' A British subject I was born, a British subject I shall die. ,;^_,_ .^,,:-;,^ -yv:'--! " :. •'■''■/ " ^■■^-■"■■'■v''"'-;'^'' Sir John A. ■y^- (jJThe HE man at the helm, so to speak, during Q ji this interesting period was Sir John A. Macdonald, who, notwithstanding the fact that he was a Scot, possessed one or two sterling qualities. As an inventor he was unparalleled, and his '* chief do for "* was the invention of the National Policy. By means of this device he claimed it possible to exclude British and foreign manufactures ; to make everything for home con- sumption right here ; to maintain a close connec- tion with the Mother Land, and send thrills of *Iu French ch^ d*csuvre. Pres. Cercle Parisien. (93) m u THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. consternation through the hearts of bloated* U. S. monopolists ; to make ourselves great ex- porters for the whole world of all sorts of fabrics, machinery, patent medicines, food-products and traps generally, including rat-traps; to make wheat dear for the benefit of the horny-handed farmer — beg pardon — agriculturist, and Hour cheap for the ditto, ditto, mechanic ;t to raise the value of pigs, and lower the price of pork ; in a word, to make everything look lovely, with the goose suspended at an exceeding great elevation. And he could have done it too, if things had only gone as he predicted before the elections ; but they didn't. Who, for example, could rea- sonably be expected to have foreseen the great earthquake in Java, the Burmese war, the awful Washee-washee floods on the Hoang-ho, the Chili-Peruvian war, the business collapse in Ar- gentina, and, above all, the emigration of more *Thi8 is the only appropriate word by means of which to characterize monopolists. The historian has seen a few monopolists who did not appear to be bloated, still there can- not be any doubt that they were. If they were not, they ought to have been. tit must be distinctly understood that mechanics under « boss are not now servants, they are employ h. > T», ;!;>■«• J^ '■'■' HIPTORY OF CANADA. m than a million of people from Canada during the very period when they were most required here? If these inhabitants had only remained with us, and if two or three million more had come as they should have done, things would be different to-day, and the tall chimneys would have smoked everywhere. This, however, is only another illus- tration of what has often happened in history — "Man proposes, but God disposes," as the Good, Book says ; these infatuated persons proposed to leave Canada, and God disposed them pretty much all over the world — one man is actually suspected of having gone back to Ireland. It may have been that a rumor to this effect reached the ears of Sir John, but at any rate he took to his bed, and eventually died. He was succeeded as Premier by another Sir John of the name of Abbott, and he died, too, and he was succeeded by another Sir John — Sir John Thompson (with a p), and he also died. A.S there were no more Sir Johns, or Sirs John (which is right ?) except Carling, and he did not amount to much, the next Prime Minister wns a Sir Charles, and he was surnamed Tupper, W': :^'il *»■", 'M ■,;*r,.^nv: 96 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. K.C.M.G., he was also M.D. and High Commission- er for Canada in London. He gave up his High Commissionership to become Premier.* For some reason he did not keep the job until he died. He is still very much alive, but not under pay — he Lever was underpaid. ;^ •By some wretched inadvertence, the name of Sir Macken- zie Bowell has been overlooked. He succeeded Sir John Thompson, but the omission is barely worthy of mention, ex- cept for our desire to preserve strict historical continuity. His term of office is chiefly remarkable for the noble utter- ance he made on one occasion, when, looking boldly across the floor of the House of Commons at some perfidious Grits, he exclaimed loftily, ** Mr. Speaker, I behold a nest of trait- ors !" „. ,. . /•■ '*• '■ -':h' 4 rl -fi-'-^l*. ' t. v* . OHAPTBR ivill . LACRXER. ,, Mao S.Uto„ Brays are bony ' ..:5h«" early fall, the due, • '; It wa. there that Annie Laurie P Gave me her promi.e true ' ■■'.'•' A , ROBKRT BUBNS I ' O. Goldsmith. ' "*'" "' •««• "d b„d.d to hi. HPi'S-l??'.^"?'!" HHHH M THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. ■I, 1 some undivinable reason appropriated horrible Scotch names, it may now be explained that quite a few Scots have reciprocated by taking French names, by which means they are better able sometimes to attain their sole national ob- ject, that of self-aggrandizement. It is said that this Laurier's great-great-grandfather was the Scotch father of one Annie Laurie, with whom a fellow named Ecclef echan, or something, fell in love, and he, too, being Scotch, as a matter of course he made a sort of song about the girl, in which he not only said that one of her eyes was dark blue (leaving it to be inferred that the other was of a different color), but that her brow was as big as a snow-drift, that she had a neck as long as a swan's, and more to a similar effect, which so exasperated old man Laurie, that he forsook Mac Sillton Brays, near a place called Johnny Grotes (such abominable names !), and took his daughter Annie with him to France. As he was possessed of what is considered extensive prop- erty in his miserable native country, namely, some three and a half acres of moorland and a small thatched cottage consisting of tWo rooms, 'I- ,".■ 1 '■■) ' HISTORY OF CANADA. 99 one of which is called a butt (where they keep their whiskey), and the other a ben or a bin (for their oatmeal), he made it a condition that any Crapeau who married Annie should assume his name. Hence the present Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada, the Rt. Hon. Wilfrid Lau- rier, to whose name an " r " has been appended, just as we have all heard some people say idear, tobaccor, and diplomar. > ^^ ' ' ^^m ■"M fe * ■■ *3 •^r'lippMP"' '.m!'>i CHAPTER XIX. MANITOBA SCHOOLS How much a dunce, that has been sent to rpam,^ Excels a dunce that has been kept at home. ELL, when he got into Tupper's shoes, so to speak, and filled them, too, for he has not " fairy feet " like those of his ancestress, he found he had to tackle a job that had ruined former contractors, if it be allowable to use such an ex^^ression. The lower orders he managed very well, but the orders of the higher- archy annoyed him a little when he undertook to arrange school matters with a person named Greenway up in Manitoba. Some four or five years ago this man Green- *It has been suggested that * roam ' should spell the other way, but this is correct. — W.P.S. (100) HISTORY OF CANADA. 101 way, who is premier of the Prairie Province, came to the conclusion that a good many Mani- toha youngsters were getting too much church manual, and too little multiplication table, at the expense of the general public, and he said so. Then he got a law passed to wipe out catechism i schools, unless the catechismists would pay for them themselves. Now the fat was in the fire, and the Archbishop of St. Boniface and some more bishops kicked up quite a rumpus, proving among other things, in a manner most conclusive, that Messrs. Laurier and Greenway and their abettors were bad men, traitors, spoliators, ty- , rants, cowards, and, worse than all, Free Masons ! The force of language could no further go. Sin* gular as it may appear, the habitana* supported Laurier, actually forsaking their toboggans and maple-sap troughs to vote for him ! Then both sides sent telegrams and letters, and marked copies of newspapers to the Pope, so multitudinously,that the good old gentleman was very much confused, as who would not be ? Not " — ■ — • *Kindly remember how this word should be pronounced on U\e highest Cana4iaQ authority. ,f ■/■,», I^k9;v.i;;,(9 w^H^iP^ -^■'-d.^* 102 .. THE VICrORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. satisfied thus, they began to deluge him with MSS. of sermons and addresses, and with pam- phlets, maps, books, magazines and tracir:, until he became more confused than ever. Next he was pestered with delegates and representatives — priests, bishops, chevaliers, and members of parliament, all of whom were laden with docu- ments of various kinds, asking, beseeching, en- treating, imploring His Holiness to call oflf the other fellows, which, when he had just resolved to do, the said other fellows loomed up and prayed him fervently, " Don't." One day representatives of both factions were in Kome, and his Holiness got Cardinal Mac- caroni (originally Mike O'Rooney) to inveigle them into the .Vatican at the same hour, when Leo XIII. thus addressed them : " My 'beloved children, it is needless to inform you how much Pontifical solicitude I lavish upon you, as upon the Church Universal. As the successor of St. Peter, to whom were entrust- ed the keys (but I need not repeat this, as you have heard it ten thousand times), I L.m called npon daily to arbitrate on difllculties that arise ••^55^;*:'' ■-■ r-:-. HISTORY OP CANADA. 103 in every part of the globe. It has been my lot to deal not only with our own noble Italian* people, but with the sinuous Spaniard, the crafty Portuguese, the bluff Englishman, the pocky Scot, the witty Hibernian, the polished Gaul, the tobacco-sodden German, the too, too awfully cute Yankee, not to mention others of all sorts, white, black, and yellow — from everywhere, and I have invariably succeeded in satisfying them, and in dismissing them with my apos lie bene- diction ; but with my dearly beloved Canadian ffock I am soreiy puzzled, nay, worried. Let me address you familiarly in the second person (as I am not now speaking ex-cathedra), and permit me to say that some of your Quebec bishops and cur^s appear to have usurped the Pontifical functions, and attempt to lay down rules for the guidance of the faithful — rules that are more ultramontane than I as Holy Father would pre- sume to dictate. As spiritual leaders, yours have fallen behind, to the extent of at least one cen- * The President of the Cercle Parisien, who ie also a pro- iound Italian student, says, " For Heaven's sake explain that this word is not Eye-talian, but £e-talian, as I myself have k^^rd it pronounced when sojourning in Sunny Italy," 104 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. >jri,- -^ ■^"f tury. As a people, too, you are 'taaost discon- tented and persistent. You will accept no reason- it ble denial or explanation, but continue to plague ine in granting audiences to innumerable non- descript ^ ersoDs, both lay and clerical, on this infernal Manitoba School Question, just as if Manitoba was a place of any importance, and yet I have been unable to find it on any map in this city ! Now, this agitation (I mean the agi- tation yont efforts are causing me) must cease. RampoUi, and Mezzofanti, and Trumpetini, and Banani, and Tambourini, and myself as Pontifex Maximus, have issued a pronunciomentini that there shall be no more fooliRhness along this line, and I have appointed my dearly beloved servant and brother Monsignor Merry del Val as Papal Legate, to go to your country and set his sub- ^Apostolic foot down on this question most em- phatically. If necessary hie may take sweet counsel with Alderman 'Allam, who is in the council and leather business near Montreal some- where. There now. Ipse dixit. Take the first train for Marseilles, and when you reach Canada stay there. 5 f^'S^^wv^':nr7w^{^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 105 I dismiss you all with my blessing. Patrikorylli, show the gentlemen the way down stairs. So long." " But it won't be so very long before some of them turn up again," muttered his Holiness, as he heard the sabots of his troublesome visitors thumping down the marble stairway. Then he suddenly exclaimed ** Multicontradiscentissmo ! I have it ! Heavenly inspiration ! I shall si- lence the Canadientini for ever ! I shall grant authority to Monsignor Merry del Val to do so ! That settles it ! Now I may depart in peace. Pax Vobiscum ! '' - The delegates arrived ia Canada by four differ- ent routes, at four different tilnes, and thus told four different stories regarding the Pope's atti- tude. Wia r.f3 I ^^ CHAPTER XX. - i NORTH-WEST REBELLIONS. ^ Hail ! Land of the great North-West ! _^^. And if it please thee — snow : The land I mean, (may 1 be blest !) Is the land of the Manito — Bah! I:,] r'-'"' -'"^ / i^ . R. W. Phipps. i:i NCE two gentlemen were discussing the origin of pork, when one said to the other, " Speaking of pigs, how are your two daughters ?" and the references just made to the Manitoba School Question remind us of the North- West Rebellion, as it is called. There were really two little ones, but it required both to constitute a subject worthy of consider- ation here. After Canada confederated the North- Weet Territory by satisfying the righteous claims of (106) HISTORY OP CANADA. 107 the Hudson Bay Co., a Mr. Macdougall was sent to run the old Red River district, the name of which had been changed to Manitoba w, meaning " the sounding god," and was, no doubt, origin- ally Manito bawl. When this Mr. Macdougall got near Fort Garry, he found that the natives — all savages of the Indian, French, and Highland Scotch tribes — ^had erected a chaveau-de- freeze, or freezing-out enclosure, around the place, so that he couldn't get to the shack set apart for his abode and office. As everybody in the party was extremely hungry on account of the cele- brated bracing atmosphere of the prairies, and as the cook, one Cameron, had everything ready for the necessary culinary operations, he became justly indignant on finding himself debarred from the use of the stove in the shack. He therefore marched boldly up to within shouting distance of the barricade, and having first relieved him- self by uttering several imprecations in White- chapel lingo, exclaimed authoritatively to the in- side barbarians, " Take down that blawsted fence !" The inside fellows just laughed a scornful 108 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. laugh, and told him he might go either to Medi- cine Hat or Pile o' Bones — authorities differ on this point, some contending that a totally differ- ent place (whose mean annual temperature is much higher) was named ; but it really makes no difference, for he did not accept the advice. Mr. Macdougall immediately telegraphed (by • means of an ox-team part of the way) to Sir John A. Macdonald : *' Qovernment Tent, on the Prairie, about 50° west latitude, 97° north lati- tude ; got here last night. They won't let me in this morning. Natives armed to the toeth spoke very disrespectfully to Cameron. Pro- visions exhausted. Living on pemmican and port wine. Thermometer 62° below zero, but don't feel it on account of the delightfully dry air. What do you advise as my next move ? Send some more cigars, Felodesi brand, other- wise Cameron will desert to the Meaties."* Sir John's first reply was brief, but pithy. He wired: " * Hold the fort, for I am coming.* Hang ■w — **< Probably he meant the Metis. Macdougall was not an authority on French as I am. I may add that I am equally familiar with Sanscrit, Syriac, Hindustanee, Fiji, Basque, lire'balls and sun-spots, — Pres, Cercle Parisien. HISTORY OP CANADA. 109 Cameron. More to-morrow." Macdougall was desperate. He could not hold the fort, for the best of all reasons : he was opposed to hangin|^ the cook, and he did not relish Sir John s appear- ance oa the scene, but this was only a little joke on the part' of Sir John, who was always fond of telling stories and quoting hymns. CHAPTER XXL SIGNAL VICTORY. • ' The wreck of matter and the crash of worlds. Addison's "'*Cato." fO make a long but trifling story short, Sir John sent General Wolseley to Fort Garry to squelch Louis Riel, who was the boss rebel, and b)' whose orders a man was shot be- cause he hung out as a true born Englishman, although he was only a north of Ireland man. Sir John said very appositely at this time, " Wolseley's the man — with his experience in Egypt, he'll soon a-Nile-ate the rebellion," and he did, for just about this time the Honourable Ed- ward Blake, now member for Ireland in the British House of Commons, moved in the On- tario Legislature, " That on account of the cold- (110) HISTORY OF CANADA. Ill blooded murder, for his outspoken loyalty to the Queen, of Thomas Scott, a resident of this pro- vince, and an emigrant thence (sic) to the North- West," and so on, winding up' with something about the miscreant going " unwhi; o of justice,"* Riel declared that he would rather die than be the cause of men like Mr. Blake working off such execrable stuff as this, and his inclina- tion to become a departed spirit formed itself into a resolution when Messrs. Meredith, White, Fraser and others introduced other resolutions af- fecting his welfare. He was accordingly hanged. After a brief rest the Meaties, as Mr. Macdougall called them, kicked up another fuss, and this time they were laid out pretty effectually by the troops under Gen. Middieton-f* and Colonels Strau- *** The mover of this resolution was then a comparatively young and correspondingly inexperienced man. Since his residence on the * Dear Ould Sod ' he is probably more mer- ciful in his views relating to those who perforate objection- able or disagreeable people. — G. Smith. tWhen he was attending Sabbath School in the Old Coun- try, his teacher, a real nice young lady, said to him one day after he had repeated the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew without a single mistake : *' You are a real sweet little boy — I juat dote on you, and I am sure when you are a man you will be-a-very good one." The sequel proved the ,*/^\- 112 THl VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. r benzie, Denison, Otter, Williams, Delamere, and a few French Canadian officers of fierce aspect.. The engagements at Cut Knife, Batoche, and in Smith's Muskeg must forever afford education- ally inspiring material for the behoof of young Canadians who delight in the recital of sanguin- ary contests by " flood and field/' but whose les- sons regarding gore, and bravery, and general hellishness,have hitherto been drawn from Plassy, Ramilles, Malplaquet, Oudenarde, Waterloo, Tra- falgar, Camperdown, Bunker's Hill, Prescott Windmill, and, greatest of all, Stoney Creek, ^i truth of this prophecy, as may be gathered from the delight- ful words of a letter he wrote to a friend in England after the N. W. squabble. This is what he indited : — "Dbab Maria — '* This bloody war is over, and I am truly thankful to say that I have escaped with a whole skin — in fact, I may i>ay, with a very large number of them, including those of the buf- falo, the elk, the bear, the wolf, the silver-fox, the ermine, and the mink, but as furs, I know, chiefly of the beaver. You will rememb^r the saintly Miss Throgmorton's prediction re- garding my manly career. This was my great opportunity, and I am sincerely grateful to those half -civilized Canucks for the privilege they afforded me to show what I could do. Miss T. said : * Be-a-ver-y good man,' and now I am a more beav- ery good man than she could have anticipated." After reading this Maria is reported to have had a conniption. Sub* sequently this man Middleton was knighted. HtSTORY OP CANADA. 113 Two other happy results have resulted — I mean, have flowed from, or arisen from, or em- anated from — that's better — this Rebellion, namely, the erection of a statue at Port Hope to commemorate the gallant death of Col. Williams — the only one between Toronto and Montreal — not the only death, but the only statue — and an- other in Queen's Park, Toronto, set up on general principles so far as the men who died are con- cerned, and so far as principles of every other kind come in, in total defiance of them. This, of course, is an absolutely necessary condition where it is thought necessary to inculcate a defi- ant attitude. Travelled visitors to Toronto de- clare they have never seen anything to compare with it elsewhere, unless it be the cupola combin- ation that rears itself about the splendid figure of Maisonneuve in Dominion Square, Montreal. The Ridgeway monument in rear of the To- ronto Parliament Buildings is scarcely inferior to it, and the buildings themselves stand out pro- minently, especially the roof, in contiguity to these unparalleled products of native art.* *'* There is a prevailing misapprehension among foreigners in connection with the use of this term by Toronto people, 7 ^k: 'ifs •^■j'yje EW5" 114 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUHILEE when referring to the statutary in question. The inonumentH are not the work of the * Noble Red Mun,' so called. If they were, no doubt the Minister of Heductilion would provide room for them in his new lu rcha.'ological department in St. James' Square, along with thu other ru)>bish that has so long been associated with ' worms and graves, and hepitaphs,' and Boyle, and scalps and things." — John Allam. P.S. — Just wait till you see my statute of Her Most Gra- cious Majesty. — J. A. / y ,:- >, ... :u '. ,.' - » CHAPTER XXII. THE PATRONS. At whose sight, like the Sun, [The Farmers' Sun] All others with diminished lustre shone. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. Bk , III., Div. 8. Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond their depth. Wm. ShAK£SF£ARB. ' Ez to my principles, I glory In hevin nothin' o' the sort : I ain't a Wig, I ain't a Tory, I'm jist a cadidate in short : Thet's fair an' square an' purpendicler, But, ef the Public cares a fig. To hev me an'thin' in particler, Wy, I'm a kind o' peri- wig. BioLow Papers. (^He HE Patrons of Industry form the only re- eJl putable body of politicians in the habit^ able portions of this globe. As to the other portions one may not speak with assurance. (116) t'4.. :r:;i^ ^''■^m^m 116 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE They form the pure spirit of political life ia Canada * and are sure death to perquisites, priv- ileges, partyism, passes, precedents, and many other things beginning with " p," especially per- fumery. Palaces for Lieut.-Govemor3 are also their particular dislike. Even their own desig- nation, bearing the ominous initial, they have become fatigued with. Perhaps this is because some people call them Pat-rons, and some Pay- trous, the one being suggestive of Ireland, while the other is quite the opposite. Anyhow, they long for a new name, and at the last meeting of ther Grand Barn, or Stable, or Pen, or Lodge, whichever it may be, it was resolved to offer prizes for the three best suggestions as to a new patron-ymic — one that shall not prove inimical to the well-being of the poor but honest farmer. The first prize is a gang-plough and a bag of potatoes, provided the latter are selling at not more than fifteen cents a bushel; should the market price exceed this, then the quantity to be correspondingly diminished. The second prize •Many (not Patrons) say the spirit is so very, too, to^ pure that it will speedily volatilize. HISTORY^OF CANADA. 117 offered is a Smith and Wesson hay-rake (patent- ed in 1850), and two bushels of Swedish turnips, utterly regardless of market value, the only con- dition in this case being that the prize-winner shall furnish his own teeth, as most of the rake originals are missing, but the holes are warrant- ed complete in number, and sound. The lucky winner of the third prize is offered the choice of a spring chicken, or one y^sar's perusal of The Farmer's Son. This is probably an inducement for competition by farmers* daughters. As this seems to be a golden opportunity'- to scoop in the nucleus of a small agricultural establishment, we herewith make a bid for the entire outfit, by suggesting the three following names, that is to say, Haycockers, Wrigleyites, and Agrivators. I favor the last myself, as it is a beautiful and in- genious compound of agriculturist and cultiva- tor, thus making "assurance doubly sure," al- though it is open to the slight objection of homo- phony with another word having a totally differ- ent siguification. But this does not signify very much, as the two words would mean much alike in the various legislatures, when the representa- tive Agrivators' votes are in the balance. •1 J::m I > 118 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE Communications from the prize committee of the Giand Barn will reach me if addressed "Box 341,* office of the Gleaner, Huntingdon, Quebec." Although the Patrons do not drink or use pro- fane language, or smoke, they are all members, in good standing, of church organizations, espe- cially Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congre- gational, Episcopalian, and numerous others. Wicked Conservatives attribute Liberal ten- dencies to the Patrons, or Agrivators. This is a serious mistake. Of all men in the world t ^ Agrivators are least so inclined, unless when it comes to the recording of a paltry vote now and again, which does not cost a cent. They live long and have large families. They are also very wealthy. it is quite untrue that as a body they object seriously to paying twenty-five cents for a square meal in a market town hotel. •Although I am not very superstitious, I have selected this number (three-for-one) on account of its suggestiveness in the present juncture. Should I realize on the trio of re- wards, it is my intention to open a farm — I mean an agri- cultural supply-store in Memphremagog, or some other east- ern province. T ,...■.,,., ,; ,■■., o . ♦ Ti iPl CHAPTER XXIII. CANADIAN LITTERATURE. One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title-page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is' a dab at the index. Oliver Goldsmith. 7T^ AN AD A is rapidly becoming a great book I Ji country. Books of history are especially ^- ^ numerous. This one will always rank deservedly high. So many books (pretending to be histories) have recently been published that the Rev. George M. Wrong, M.A., Prot of History in the Universitv of Toronto, has deemed it de- sirable to establish a Review of such publications. His " Announcement " is quite full of " interest." He says in the first three sentences that Can- adian historical. literature "is growing steadily in interest " that France ahows " a marked in- (119) .m / . ^f^fSy^^^fvRW^'^y ~WtI>^^T1 mm^. t ' 120 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE W<' crease of literary interest in her former colony," and that in England there is not yet much " literary interest in Canada." How extremely interesting! Prof. Wrong also assures us that " in the United States the early Colonial History is being studied with exhaustive minuteness, and this study often includes Canada within its scope." It is to be deeply regretted that the editor of the Review did not submit the MS. of his " Announcement " to the Hamilton Herald man, who would have suggested the elision of " the " after the word " States," and who would have pointed out the tautology of " exhaustive minuteness," besides that which appears in the expression " includes within its scope." Next we are told that " The book on the Province, of Qujbec, by Mr. Coffin, is an illustration of this class of work." Now, "work" itself is ambiguous, meaning either study or volume ; bull surely if the "work" is about Quebec, it mu»l rather *' include within its scope " part of what is now the United States. As Dr. Bouri- not says, page 89, 2nd last line, " it must neces- sarily" be so, although, perhaps, it would be more HISTORY OF CANADA. 121 elegant — more proper also for the critic of Kings- ford (in another place) to say "was necessarily " or " must have been." • Prof. Wrong proceeds in his precious "An- nouncement : " " The different antecedents and languages of the two races in Canada involve a further diversity of historical publications" — further than what ? The meaning may be guess- ed, but it is very obscure. He goes on; "The present aim [whose ?] is to bring together all the works [what works ?] published during a limited period [every period is limited] and to estimate their value, [what value ?]." Still further. " The publications of 1896 are now reviewed, with some of the more important ones appearing in 1895." " Appearing " should be " that appeared." But Prof. Wrong is not done yet. " It is intended to continue the Review annually, and in the volume for 1897 somQ of the defects of that [?] for 1896 can, perhaps, be corrected." We may inform Prof. Wrong that " can perhaps " is wrong, just as " may perhaps," occurring elsewhere, is. Besides, who can divine the learned gentleman's mean- ing ? Is it that corrections will be made of what 122 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE I is erroneous in " that for 1896," or that improve- ments " can, perhaps," be made in " that ". for 1897 ? It may be added, also, that we correct errors, but we remove or remedy defects. Adopting a favorite word of I^r. Bourinot (see pages 92 and 93, where it occurs four times in some three, dozen lines), it may be said that Prof. Wrong's choice of phraseology is " meagre " — very meagre, for he again employs defects in the next sentence. There are many really amusing things in the "Wrong Review, and humorists will find food in it for lots of fun. For example,' on page 162 it is stated that the sedate Dr. Douglas Brymner has gone into the pyrotechnic business, and ex- ploded a fable ! As the editor very profoundly remarks regard- ing another Baby production, '* revision by a literary man would have improved the book greatly." This you may find near the foot of page 164. The Review is well worth the price asked for it, only one dollar per annum. It is to be issued annually, Deo volente. • There is nothing more certain than that this HISTORY OF CANADA. 123 History of Canada will be accorded a wide berth in the Review for 1897, and it is the learned historian's desire that he fall into the hands of Dr. George Stewart, who not only writes very good English, but makes a little allowance for human imperfection. We would object very seriously to being handled even half as roughly as the " meagre " critic has handled Dr. Kings- ford. A Canadian Cyclopaedia, to be compiled by J. CastelL Hopkins, is now on the stocks. There are no other books we know of worth mention- ing, except Mackenzie's on the Iroquois, but as it is written in the Mohawk dialect, its readers will be chiefly Indians. * ^r: M^' y. CHAPTER XXIV. NATURAL HISTORY. Let dogs delight to bark and bite. Isaac Watts. How doth the little busy bee ? (sK Idem. HE natural history of Canada is abundant eJ| and interesting. It consists mainly of bear and wolf stories entertained by old set- tlers, and retailed for the entertainment of young settlers and others. The stories them- selves are real old " settlers.'' It is, however, probably quite certain that sometimes a few of those natural historians really believe their own recitals. In thi^ eastern portion of the Domin- ion the principal quadruped is the mephitis sorne- thing or another, vulgarly known as the skunk. Its appearance in repose is pleasing, and its odor (124) HISTORY OP CANADA. 125 inappreciable, but when " on its ear," the word " inappreciable " does not fill the bill. But the atmosphere is then filled so very extensively that the odor is appreciable ten miles against a tornado, and fully fifty miles the way the wind is blowing. Skunk stories sometimes take pre- cedence of those about bears and wolves. On one occasion the writer himself exterminated a skunk near Stanstead, and but, well, we'll let it drop — this was fifty-two years ago last July 12th, yet he (the writer, not the skunk) has never been able to drop the recollection of the event and the smell ever since. It can be proved that a rose would not smell as sweet if we called it a skunkium. In Nova Scotia the chief animals are deers and lobsters. There are two kinds of '* lobster," and one kind is chiefly in evidence about Halifax. Hats and mice, and insects of various kinds, in- fest the houses here also. G. Eupas Foster, M.P., is a Nova Scotian. So was the Hon. Jos. Howe. Howe was a real nice gentleman. Gulls are numerous in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Some of them are called ' *i WM 126 THE VICTORIA J>IAMOND JUBILEE sea-gulls. Upwards of a hundred years ago the moose was plentiful in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, but since the establishment of post-offices bearing such names as Abougoggin, Mactaquack, Washabuck, Foquiock, and Musquadoboit, the sagacious animals have retired to the deepest re- cesses of the forest. A few fish are occasionally found along the coasts as well as in the markets of St. John, Fredericton, and Truro, more rarely in Halifax ; but whales and seals are often seen in their harbors disporting themselves among the icebergs during the hot months. In Quebec Province we have the beaver, which we call the castor ^ but the combination of .Castor and Pollux is seldom, perhaps never, seenr The nearest we can come to it is Castors and Politix, and these, unlike the others, are never in oppo- sition, but always in conjunction. The Hon. Wilfrid Laurier and the Hon. J. D. Edgar are also natives of this province. So are Sir Adolph P. Caron and the Hon. James McShane. Besides these we have five distinct species of snake, but all the latter are perfectly harmless. In Ontario it is said jthe mammoth once exist- ' ^isM^a^iiiM. '"J Tl.'rr 7;v»T •"- ^^.■^j-%jr'W 7T ^A HISTORY OF CANADA. 127 ed as a quadruped. Now it is exemplified main- ly in connection with airs, assumption, presump- tion, departmental stores, and French evangeli- zation ! They, too, have an immense number of skunks. {They means Ontario). They also have an infinite variety of foxes. Sparrows and other impudent creatures, feathered and unfeathered, are plentiful about the largest towns and villages.* The jaws of several mammoth fossils are on exhibition in Toronto University during the ses- sion. Nearly all of them were found in the province, f Shiners, chubs, catfish and some eels have been capturod in Burlington Bay, near Hamilton, and in the Desjardins Canal, but they are of little commercial value. When the province was younger than it is, crows were not uncommon, and some are seen occasionally even in our own day. Most of the Ontario crows are black, but the Montreal Star recently contained an import- ant item from Toronto, noting the appearance of two white ones somewhere. *In Toronto they, are remarkably numerous and cheeky. tWe havft a few also in our own McGill University. '•■ra m m^ \m -4 *si '•Mm i ■ - -ii ]M .-'Villi n H .^:f ^^ III H 128 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. Up in Manitoba the principal animals are the sand-fly, the wild-goose and the perairie chicken. No matter how old the last-named are, the Mani- toban never calls thehi hens. Perhaps this is because it is the custom there for the married men to refer to their wives as " old hens." The buffalo is known to have resided in Mani- toba and the North- West Territories once — yes, thousands of times — but since the Warden of the provincial penitentiary sold his herd of nearly a dozen, they have become extinct in that country. Cultured Winnipeggers invariably speak of the buffalo as the hison, and Nicholas Flood Davin, M.P. (by a very narrow escape), has introduced the practice away out at Pile o' Bones, now called Regina. Frogs grow to an immense sizd - in the muskegs, and those weighing less than ten pounds would bring r q( od price in St. Boniface if the demand equallea the supply. It is prob- ably on account of these enormous batrachians that the attempt to grow oranges has proved such a miserable failure in the Prairie Province.* *Prof. Bryce, in the Presbyterian Magazine for Sept., 1867, wrote: *• The ways of Providence are very my sterioua. The HISTORY OP CANADA. 129 * Ther are no animals worth speaking of in British Columbia except the mountain goat and the salmon. The latter the inhabitants catch in tremendous quantities, but the former they cannot. The greatest man British Columbia ever pro- duced was Amor de Cosmos, that is to say, he was first produced in the United States some- where as John Smith, but the atmosphere of British sovereignty swelled John's caput, and in Vancouver he became that which, being interpre- ted, signifieth in megaloc^halic lingo, a lover of all mankind, or a universal nobody. Still, no- body could blame the man for trying to get a name of his own.* , ; , v , character of our soil, and the degree of our sumtner heat, A^ ould lead one to conclude favorably regarding the culture htre, but, despite ev^ery effort, pipa planted, in the spring never appear above ground. From personal observation, as well as from hearsay, 1 am disposed to attach the blame to our bison frogs {Hyla Muakegenina), whose deep yellow color apparently induces an appetite, by pure affinity, for the seeds of the orange, a fruit which, I need hardly say, is of similar color, i.e., to t^ it of the frog." ,; > r . - *'H.e was in no wise connected with oui family. At the Roman Conquest we were De Sniythes. 8 :.J ''I: 1 ■ 1 ' .V ft #'ff.*!' :-^^)^ 130 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE Other portions of the Dominion depend chiefly on the skins of wild animals for a living — "por- tions " here meaning people who live near or be- yond the Arctic Circle. These people belong to the Hudson Bay Company, which at one time claimed the ownership of everything on four feet (as well as the Indians) in most of North America. The word Arctic is derived from an Ojibbeway word meaning a hear, so it is said, and we find accordingly that nearly all the Cana- dian bears live up that way. At any rate, very few are now observed about old settled places like Tadousac or Quebec, and even in comparatively young settlements, such as Peterborough, Guelph, and Windsor, they are scarcely ever seen in the intervals that elapse between the passing of cir- cus processions through these villages on their way to places of importance. Indeed, there are probably not fewer than ten thousand natives of Canada who never saw a living bruin,* Puns- ters, who are the most shallow-witted of all wit- less creatures, would seize on an occasion of this *Mr. Alfred Jury should not hesitate to make use of this fact in the performance of his duties as emigrant agent in Liverpool. r-«-'-' t ^'r^^^V* *,..■■ HISTORY OP CANADA. 131 kind to play with " bruin," but such paltry, such inane attempts bear evidence of total literary depravity, and are utterly beneath the dignity of any but those pitiable things who delight to imbrue in gutter-snipe, dime-novel gore. Indeed, it has been pointed out that such people are just a little bit weak in the upper story. 1 I t V t i ' • « ... ^,, SM' K'.' ;i>, . CHAPTER XXV. OUR CANALS. Through the black night and driving rain, A ship is struggling all in vain, To live upon the stormy main — Miserere Domine. Ad. a. Procter, *• Thi Storm." |0 other country in the wide world can vie with us in the matter of canals. These include the Sault Ste. Marie, Wel- land, Rideau and St. Lawrence works, but niore especially the Desjardins Canal, the Tay Canal, and the Trent Canal, the last named now in pro- cess of construction. The Desjardins Canal is celebrated for a terrific railway accident that happened there about forty years ago, but for which sad event the existence of this waterway would have been long since forgotten. Not far (132) 'f^'iiiWm^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 133 from one end of the canal is Dundas. and not far from the other end is the place known as Hamil- ton. This canal is more than a mile and a half long, and was once upwards of six feet deep, but not much. To it the country is indebted for the existence of the Dundas Banner, The Tay Canal extends from Haggart's Mill, in the ancient town of Perth, to a distance so great a& to afford liquid connection with Victoria, B.C., either via Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, unless the bold navigator choose to proceed by « way of the Suez Canal down the Red Sea. It does not appear to be generally known that such far-reaching communication can be effected be- tween Perth and the uttermost parts of the earth in this way. Still it is a fact that a vessel may take a cargo of at least half-a-ton of flour from Haggart's wharf, and probably as much as two barrels of whiskey from McLaren's dock (wharf No. 23), and proceed without breaking bulk to Mauritius, Hong Kong, Owhyee, Spitzbergen, Yokohama, Cork, Valparaiso, Lindsay, Liverpool, or any other of the earth's great emporiums, and return the same way, or by one of the other routes, 134 THE VICTORIA DIAM017D JUBILEE just as trade conveniences may suggest. It is reported at Lloyds that the tramp-steamer Dul' cibella, of Hull, which foundered off Cape Hat- teras last winter with the loss of fifty-nine souls, including the cook, was making, at the time she went down, a bee line by the compass for Mc- Laren's distillery. This may not be correct, but the story at all events proves that the route is becoming known to navigators, and in due time , the revenue arising from this fine stretch of arti- ficial aqua pura communication may jump from^ only $2 or $3 a year to as many hundreds of thousands. Such a consummation will so effect- ually put out of joint the respective noses of Smiti-'s Falls, Lanark, and other Perth rivals, that the projectors of the Tay Canal will be called " blessed " to the end of time. " Blessed " is not the word now employed. But the greatest of all the Canadian water- ways is, or will be, the Trent Valley Canal. On the portion of this work already constructed the traffic is not more than one-third or one-fourth of what it will be when enormous vessels drawing five feet eleven and a half inches of water can ■■■'■*'m HISTORY OP CANADA. 135 pass clean through from Chicago to Liverpool or London, making turbid with their propellers the now peaceful waters of Rice, Sturgeon and Bal- sam Lakes, over which Champlain conducted the first exploring party of Injuns and Injuneers nearly three hundred years ago. It is on record that he then perceived the advantages possBssed by the site of Peterborough, to which he gave the name of St. Peter, a name that perhaps the good people of this enterprising town will revert to when their wharves and docks are humming with the industry of nations there aggregated, so to. speak. Sleepy old Trenton may awaken and catch Belleville napping (her favorite pastime), Oampbellford will in all probability become the Leeds of Ontario, Lakefield an immense milling centre, and Ohs-koe-ki-wah-gon on the Severn, a second Milwaukee, or Bristol. At present this canal is within twenty-five or twenty-six miles of the other end, and will not require for its com- pletion more than ten million dollars. Nil ■"■*^»):%i CHAPTER XXVI. : ^ ; OUR MINES. t * Keep your love true, I can engage that mine Shall, like my soul, immortal prove. Morris, ••U ** Damon and Pythias." ■.»>j' IT is said that an ancient Spanish captain who visited Canada, dear knows when, having failed to find any traces of the precious metals, exclaimed Aca nada ! meaning " no good" or " nothing here," hence the name Canada. If this were true it would only show what a blessed old fool this Capt. Don Espaiio was ; but, as has been clearly proved in this volume long ago, the name of our dearly-beloved country took its rise in a totally different and much more dignified way. It cannot be denied that some old salt- water simpleton may have made a remark of (136) HISTORY OF CANADA. 137 this kind, for most of us have heard lots of other simpletons express themselves similarly, but this only shows that there are some people who will lind fault with the celestial mansions, should they ever get there, and, getting there, should they dare to behave themselves naturally. If Don Espano had gone to the right spot or spots in Nova Scotia he could have found gold in con- siderable quantities, and good gold, too; but, proud as every Spaniard is, he probably refrained from asking any intelligent Mic-mac where the gold was, and the intelligent Mic-mac was too proud to tell him gratuitously, for we know that Indians are not anxious to do things on this plan. Again, had he landed at the mouth of the Chaudiere in this province (Quebec), he would very speedily have stumbled over' nuggets, but these Spaniards are most impracticable people, as we may glean from their behavior in other coun- tries. Look at Cuba now, and the Philippine Islands ! Well, anyhow, we may be glad he had reason to say, as far as he knew, " Aca nada ! " for if he had got the least bit of encouragement he might have found his way to the Barrie sil- (H 138 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE ver mine in the county of Frontenac, and to the splendid gold properties round Marmora, in Hastings, and other places where men are now making their fortunes, as Horace puts it, " Hand over fist " — Manus supra manua. Yes, we have gold enough in eastern Ontario to pay the Span- ish debt to England, and arsenic enough with it to do for every Don south of the Pyrenees. We can supply the latter metal in tons, by the bar- rel, "br in pounds and quartz. Then go to Ban- nockbum ! What a show is here ! Shares worth only half-a-dollar last fall are now worth from a dollar to two and a half ! The Temiscam- ing district is literally "creeping"* with gold, and Jack Fish Bay claims to have one of the best pay- ing mines in America. Rainy River I Oh my ! Rainy River I Why there never was anything like Rainy River ! At least that's what the South African Co. says, and it ought to know, for it has just taken in some 200,000 square miles, and intends to develop enough " show " *In our part of Ireland this was a favorite expression to indicate prof?:i8ion. It arose from a condition of society which formed an admirable equivalent to what is known in the sister island as " Scotch Fiddle." — N. F. Davin. ' ''"'pW^^^ HISTORY OF CANADA^ 139 within three ye&rs to scoop in millions of dol- lars, and take in thousands of people in haste to get rich. The Svltana, too, is doing a big stroke of business with pay ore at nobody knows how many thousand dollars per ton. There can be no doubt that gold exists in im- mense quantities, alluvially, in Manitoba. Some has already been extracted by exceedingly sim- ple and very old-fashioned methods. Plain far- mers, quite destitute of mining experience, have actually become wealthy by producing gold with the plow ! No drilling, no blasting, no sinking of shafts, no tunnelling, no drifting — there it was, within a few inches of the surface, only waiting to be turned up ! It is much the same in the Territories, only that water, the great deaideratv/m in all gold-mining operations, is somewhat scarce^ and nothing stronger than beer is procurable in small quantities. British Columbia is full of gold. People can't take it out fast enough. The Eootenay country is an El Dorado. Every gold mining country is, or has, an El Dorado, ^n El Dorado is a place just chuck full of gold. Take Bossland, for 3X- 140 THEi^ICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE ample. Two years ago there wasn't any Ross- land. One year ago it was not of much ac- count, while at this moment it has a population under si^ thousand, supporting two hundred and four saloons, nine newspapers, ninety-seven assay offices, twenty-eight billiard rooms, three hun- dred (!;ambling establishments (these include the saloons and billiard rooms), ten bakeries, seven butcher shops, five opera houses, and a church ! Gold! V7hy, you can buy all the shares you want in the very best mines at from five cents to twenty-five, and if you only hold on to them long enough, you may sell them at a hundred times what you paid, or you may feel benevolent enough to light your cigar with thom, or beg some friend to take them as a gift. Men in the gold business become utterly reckless as to ex- penditure. They go in for a blow-out, and often wind up by completing the operation with a re- volver. It is a wonderfully exciting occupation — ^yesterda^ you were as poor as Job's turkey, to-day you are a Croesus, or, it may be wicey woraey ; very often it is. There is gold also in the Cariboo country, and as far as silver is con- HISTORY OP CANADA. • 141 ceroed, why there are hundreds of silver loca- tions all over the Pacific province. There, too, are iron and coal just as in Nova Scotia, while copper and lead are so common they are of little or no account. Who iihe dickens cares for the base metals when there is a sufficiency of the precious ones ? Our iron is said to be the very best in the world, but somehow or other every one in view of it behaves as the High Priest did before the Good Samaritan turned up — ^you remember. Even a big bounty to coax some one to go into the iron business does not work worth a cent, although the bounty is worth several dollars a ton.* No bounty is offered to gold miners for *" This is an unmitigated falsehood, for during the period Feb. 4, 1896, to March 13, 1897, according to the statement of the Hon. Mr. Paterson in the House of Commons, April 7th of the current year, there were manufactured in Canada: Pig iron, 42,404 tons, bounty $84,807 ; steel billets, 35,757 tons, bounty $71,514; puddle bars, 4,353 tons, bounty $8,- 707. In Hamilton alone there were turned out the enormous quantity of one thousand four hundred and ninety-seven tons of pig iron, bonus two thousand nine hundred and nine- ty-five dollars ; and three thousand five hundred and forty- six tons, bonus, seven thousand no hundred and ninety dol- lars. As the population of Ontario is about two millions, this allows over half an ounce per head to every man, woman 142 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILSB some reason — what can it be ? It is just as ditfi- cult to take out gold as iron, and the gold men should insist on getting some legislative en- couragement, say $5 a ton. We can supply the whole of Africa and part of Australia with granite, red and gray, and we have enough marble to build hundreds of cities as big as Old London. We have polish for all the stoves and grates in America, and plenty of stuff left for the world's lead pencils. Our kero- sene oil must be of the very highest qualitr be- cause it sells at the very highest price— it three times as high as Yankee stuff, so we argue it is three times better. This is logic, but it is nonsense. Our newspapers devote great attention to min- ing matters, and every Saturday the Toronto Globe prints a few jokes headed "In Minor Key," just as if no one could enjoy a laugh but a miner. and child in the province, and very few women and children consume so much in any other country. As far as the men are concerned we hope in the course of a few years to Increase, their quota. I should observe that the bonus above-men- tioned is exclusive of that paid by this province to the Ham- ilton concern." — A. Blub. fppppiwilpppppipw Ml HISTORY OF CANADA. 148 James Conmee, of Fort William, is the largest owner of mining claims in Canada. Last year he owned a hundred and four claims, but the Qovemment refused to give him the land. It is, however, James's intention to go on writing out more claims. The diversion is perfectly hatm- less, and the effect is likely to improve one's spelling and " hand of write." This historian has heard of a young man in Montreal a mining stock office who couldn't spell Port Arthur a few weeks since, but now finds scare* 1y any difficulty with Wabigoon, which he has more than once suc- ceeded in writing correctly with his eyes shut. Eacperientia docet t m h» i CHAPTER XXVII. : IMPERIAL DISTINCTIONS. ' The rank is but the guinea stamp, . <- The man is the gold for all that. R. Burns, V?.' Cotter's Saturday Night (not Sheppard's). KEFERENCE has already been made to Simcoe's plan for the creation of a Can- fc^ adian nobility, and profound regret has been expressed re his lack of success. It now remains only to mention that there has been always a sort of hankering after knighthoods and higher distinctions in this country ever since the 2nd day of February, 1628, when that miserable Scotch King, Charlie the First, created another Scotch Sandy (Sir W. Alexander), Earl of Canada, and donated* to him (the Rev. Pro- * This Americanism is quite in place here. (144) ■/^ HISTORY OF CANADA. 145 fessor George M. Wrong to the contrary notwith- standing), every square inch of this country, comprising " all the islands lying in thfe Gulph of Canada, including Anticosti ; [much good it would do him !] all the islands in the River of Canada, or in any of its tributaries ; [did you ever ?] also fifty leagues on both sides of the said River of Canada, from its source to its mouth ; [see that now !] also fifty leagues on both sides x)f its tributaries, or the lakes through which it or any of these tributaries may pass ; [how does this kind of pass strike the Patrons; it was a Patron's pass, truly] ; also the passages, whether they be by sea or land, between the source of the River of Canada and the Gulph of California ; [you see now what a nice large country this was in those days !] fifty leagues on both sides of said passages, and all and whole the lands lying ad- jacent to the said Gulph of California on the west and south, whether they be mainlands or islands." Now this was a gift as was a gift, and was dated " atte Our Palais of Whyte Halle, ye Seconde Daye of Februarie Anno Domini 1628, and y 3 Third Yeare of Oure Reine." It must 9 Hi ■ \j ' i :imM '1i%% 146 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE have been about this time that he began to lose his head, for if he had kept it on, and kept on himself this way much longer, he would have parcelled out the whole continent among the beggarly Sawnies, and there wouldn't have been half enough for the supplicating crowd of bare- legged and red-headed clansmen, whose descend- ants now infest every good, comfortable corner in Christendom and JVlussulmandom, and Bud- dhadom, and Yankeedom, and every other dom, — dom 'em ! On this subject all historians are tempted to employ strong language, except Macaulay, Hume, Eobertson,* Napier, Smollett, Burton, Dalrymple, Mackintosh and some others, all of whom belong to the same stock. Let us see ? Where were we at ? Oh, yes ! About titles and honors, regarding which it was said there has always been a hankering. This hankering, too, has been developed more markedly among the * Not the person who wrote what purports to be a history of Canada for use in schools, which will be displaced by the present treatise, adapted as it is to please and instruct young people of all ages. The Minister of Education, to whom ad- vance sheets have been supplied, thinks teachers will find it too cursory. This is the highest compliment that could be paid to our work. HISTORY OF CANADA. 147 Unitedstatesers than among ourselves, doubt- lessly because of the e;reat liberty possessed by these people; for it is undeniable that in matters of divorce, Lord's Day observance, political sufFra<^e, and human life, their enjoy- ment of freedom exceeds ours. But we are satis- fied. However this may be, and it is confessed most candidly that the logical sequence of titlo- mania and license is not as plain as it might be, it is on record that there are now in the United States twenty-three millionaires, fifty-seven half ditto, and three times as many persons worth .$200,000 to $300,000 engaged in effecting the necessary communications to bring titles into the several faoiiliea. There are others by the thousand equally solicitous, but whose oppor- tunities are so slender, that they devote them- selves to membership in such organizations as the grand army of Anti-Seceshers, the Matrons of the Great Republic, the Sons of Columbian Freedom, the Daughters of Old Hickory, the Veterans of Chickahominy, the Knights of Nebu- chadnezzar, the Grand Patrons of the People, Mprph^'s belligerent Grenadier^, m^ Schwack- m :J iP ' m' W'-f :. 148 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE heimer'8 Body Guard, all of which consist chiefly of Most Supreme Pursuivants, Sir Knight This, and Sir Knight the Other Thing, Most Superla- tive Grandiosities, Knights-Commander of the Camera Obscura, Generals-in-Chief of Pomposity, and so on ad infinitum, ad gustum, and disgus- tum. The Unitedstatesers are the boss procession- ists of all creation. They can don more masculine millinery than ever did a Mohawk warrior at a Corn Dance, minus the Mohawk dignity ; for while the one savage knows he is a savage the other one thinks he isn't. This sentence is some- what ambiguous, but advapced pupils and gener- ally intelligent aged persons will readily perceive its drift ; yes, drift is the very word. Here, a la Gibibon, we have " paused to make a digression " which isn't much of a digression after all, for the same Unitedstatesers feign to re- gard us as their inferiors; as a down-trodden, British-ground -into -powder- and- oppressed-com- munity — a toady, tuft-hunting lot of wretches who worship Queen Victoria and p^y humble obeisance to our Gov.-General ; a servile crowd who don't know the meaning of Freepom, and m^ HISTORY OP CANADA. 149 who yet would like to crawl u ider the Stars and Stripes for a single mouthful of national fresh air! We just smile serenely, or laugh quietly, but scornfully, closing completely one optical organ, while we place an index digit in contigu- ity* with our nasal member, and inquire sympa- thetically whether the maternal parent of said Unitedstatesers are aware that they are out — very mu/eh out. Of course we worship our dear old Queen, with the very kind of worship she deserves, and of course we pay obeisance to our Governor- General because he is her representative — this is owing to the fact that our early education was not neg- lected, that we were taught to " fear God and honor the king," and because, on the contrary, we were not taught to worship or pay humble obeisance to Trusts, Combines, Syndicates, Rings, Caucuses, or low cusses of any other kind. It is undeniable that a few people over here seem anxious for titular distinctions, but they have a prescriptive right to them if they deserve them. We can see no difference between calling one man Doctor Smith and another man Sir John, I 'i'.ji ■ m:.i M *'.; iHii 150 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE if one is a doctor, and the other is a knight, but we do not believe in dubbing a bar- tender Colonel, a coal-heaver Captain, or a poor sort of nobody, who " runs " a country cross-roads school, Professor. Some of the most persevering and insatiable title-hunters in Canada are men who unfortunately were not born beneath the folds of the Union Jack, so to speak. A few of these men have been honored b}" Her Most Gracious Majesty in this way because they were real good fellows who foreswore their allegiance to some tupenny ha'penny state or principality for rea- sons satisfactory to themselves, and thus became subjects of the greatest nation the world has ever seen— a nation that is more intelligent, more in- genious, more extensive, more powerful, more just, more generous, more magnanimous than any other nation " on this footstool "* — a nation that owns the largest population,*)* the largest *Thi8 is a favorite Unitedstateser expression, the use of which comes naturally when a writer feels like tooting his own national horn. fThis even includes what Dr. Peter H. Bryce refers to as " horse population," " cow population," and "pig popula- tion." Incredulous readers may look up recent reports of the Provincial Board of Health for the truth of this statement, astounding as it appears. Pi/'* ^ HISTORY OP CANADA. 151 city, the largest railway mileage per licad, the largest number of steamships — in a word, the nation that stands first and foremost, and topmost every wa}', except in the repudiation of obliga- tions, and in that kind of national and commer- cial roguery known in some quarters as " all-jo- firin' cuteness." It is not beyond the bounds of probability that the author of this Diamond Jubilee Canadian History may be recognized by means of a knight- hood; the only valid objection he has is the cost, as it is said the Herald-King-at-Arms charges about $2,500 for his fees. Anyhow, there are lots of other fellows equally deserving, fellows, too, who are well able to pay for registration and the suit of clothes, Mr. Laurier's objection is similar to the historian's. He remarked to an- other gentleman a month or two ago : "Parbleu!* It is too precipitous, too high, too steep." . The forthcoming batch of knights will, it is presumed, include a retired Hamilton tinsmith, a Bowmanville real estate agent, a Collingwood »i< Say Par-r-blough, not pahbloo."— President Le Cercle Parisien. 'm \ ii 152 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE grocer, and a Sarnia banker, all of whom have rendered excellent service to their country. In Quebec, the honors will fall most probably on a Sorel merchant, a Sherbrooke editor, and a Mem- phremagog physician. New Brunswick hopes to have the honor bestowed on the two leading citi- zens of St. John and Moncton ; Nova Scotia puts forward a Truro iron manufacturer; and a Wind- sor baker. Prince Edward Island will be ac- knowledged in the person of Charlottetown*s most prominent citizen. It is generally under- stood that since Mr. Joseph Martin's refusal to accept office, no jubilee honors will extend west of Sarnia at this time. In every case it is taken for granted that only political services are to be taken into account. Those having other claims need not apply. C*WiI*~"f'.* "^ *fWf.\ 'V^^W'" ■ '"f^™TWlj^ ■••?,'■■* ^yf^ft ''* ' Wi Hfi^iw^ m CHAPTER XXVIII. OUR MORAL, SOCIAL, AND CHURCHICAL CONDITION. I wonder men dare trust themselves with men. Shakspbr. jORALLY, outside of politics, we stand pretty high. The only people who make any complaints on this score are jailers, judges, temperance lecturers and min- isters, naming these in the order of their import- ance. There is no disputing the point that both jailers and judges have to work very hard, but, on the other hand, they are well paid for it. Officials of both 'classes claim that they should be allowed a percentage (in addition to their salaries), or so much a head, on all the material passing through their hands — say fifty cents (153) ^1 154 THF< VinORlA PfAMOND JUBILEE each ! The prepo.steiosity of tiiis proposal was made clear by Actuary Jones, who " figured out " and in Richibucto, Hull, Owen Sound, Calgary that Vancouver, this would yield the officials in question from eight to ten thousand dollars apiece annually ; while in Montreal and Toronto the revenue would barely suffice to buy gloves.* Socially, we are the most social people you ever saw, and there are no class distinctions re- cognized among us. A gro».3r's clerk is not a bit ashamed to be seen chummy with a young chap who works in a bank ; a domestic servant would just as soon as not permit a lawyer's apprentice to " see her home ;" first-class mechanics have often been observed to recognize common whole- sale merchants on the public streets ; and when farmeis visit the chief towns they put on no airs at all, and would "just as lief" dicker with a cobbler as with a divine. It has been recorded that even county judges have at times, and in the presence of respectable people, addressed themselves long and earnestly to persons quite * Report on Judiciary Remunerations in Relation to Crim- inal Commitments, page xxxix. By Egerton X. Jones, IT.R.S.C. Ottawa (Government Printing House), 18D7. HISTORY OF CANADA. 155 low in the social hcali'. lu no portion of the country are social distinctions reguided with such detestation, such absolute horror, as in By- town, or, I should say, Ottawa, but the old name will linger in the gld nieniory. In that place the shoemaker, tlie V)aker, the butcher, and the tailor — oh ! I beg pardon, for I should say "The Maker of Garments "* — regard the Government officials rather indifferently, because of some pecuniary trouble of long standing, and which many of the officials seem to have concluded never will be satisfactorily settled. In fact, it is usual 1}^ money, or the want of it, that leads to castb.*|- Those who have it, or are credited with having it, cast out the other fellows. Churchically. we are a great people, or, per- haps, rather two or more great peoples. We are the most conservatively pious people, as a whole, that anj^ outsider would care to become intimate- ly acquainted with. Of course the only real '-■ " '■ ■■■ ■ ^ ■■ — I I. I II II -. — ■■■ ■ ■— I— ...I , II. -I.I I r ■ - ■ I. ■ — - ■ - ■ .--. ■ — *When I was a little shaver we spoke about our new clothes, but, alas ! tailors now-a-days construct nothing but garments. * \Ga8te is thought by Home Tooke, Muller, and the Pres. of the Cercle Parisien to be an ancient form of cashed. 166 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE church people, in the proper acceptation of the term, are those who l)clonans, and the Zoroastrians, and tlie Tibetans, and many others, all afar off, for in *Always " people," nexzr folk. " And the people, ah ! the people, that live up in the steeple." — Poe, the poet. ff^'^^'Wrn^ 'SF/Wf'if}flfW!Vf^^^'''''W^'T^''J' !!•"""" ■ '"' "?■ ■ '^"P ^j HISTORY OF CANADA. 159 these, as in other cases, "'Tis distance lends en- chantment to the view;" hence the Bible Society wljich supplies large quantities of tolerabi^^ raw material for the native manufacturers of papier maohcy in Persia and Asia Minor, and hence also the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Lands. Ah, yes ! the poor foreigner ! It seems to the sectaries so much more /eesible to deal with wretchedness and ignorance when they are thoasands of miles of}' and not obtiudinof them- selves upon our bodily eye. For example, there's the Deep Sea Mission for the benefit of the poor devils of native and white fishermen who starve to death every other year on the Labra- dor coast, and where Dr. Grenfell cures scurvy and alleviates bodily pain generally, besides doing a little praying and preaching that don't hurt anybody, but it fails to arouse dissentient enthusiasm simply because it is carried on " at home,"* you know. The churches, as they call themselves, demand that the recipients of their *They do have what is called a Home Mission, but its chief mission appears to be the supporting of a statf of ofBcials. It would be interesting to know the Apostle Paul's opinion of it. — PiSHOP. , ^^ .1 ^^i 160 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE aid shall be sanguinarious cannibals, or human head-hunters, or mumbo-jumboans of some sort, but above all it must be shown that they go about in a condition of absolute nudity. This is what " fetches " them every time. It is really most awfully shocking to think of so many of God's creatures living in such a depraved condi- tion ! ^ V. , The Jews are attended to because Moses, and David, and Jezebel and Judas Iscariot were of that nationality, and Catholics are yearned over because they cross themselves, use holy water, attend mass, and swear by the Pope, in addition to which it is very pleasant to feel patronizingly superior to an ti- Christ, to pity the " poor priest- ridden papist ;" but to arouse red-hot ardour for the salvation of souls there is nothing equal to a hideous, howling, naked negro, or native of any kind, a long way off — too far away to be seen even with the aid of a powerful telescope. This it is that brings out sympathy and cents, tears and trousers, prayers and petticoats, but he must not have a single stitch on him. In other respects we are a very well-behaved 4 HISTORY OF CANADA. 161 people, as has already been remarked when treat- ing of ourselves morally. > *r - ■ ; ^ In a few low-down places like Hamilton and Montreal, Sunday is desecrated by the use of trolley cars, professedly for church-going pur- poses, and an attempt is now being made by the , Mayor and other wicked fellows in Toronto to violate the fourth commandment similarly. Should they succeed, it is generally acknowledged that this will prove but "the entering of the small end of the wedge." * The next demand will be to open public libraries and museums on the Lord's Day, just as if the poor man was so very, very poor that he couldn't take an hour occa- sionally, or even half-a-day, either singly or with his family for such purposes. As a friend of labor we suggest that Ayorking-men should make a united demind on then* employers to allow *A'lopting a suggestion made by Prof. G. M. Wrong, the histoi m has here used quotation marks, as he has no desire to clan originality for this expression — *' a somewhat stupid one" as the Professor remarks, "when you come to examine it, for no man, not even the most unintelligent mechanic, would think of inserting initially the major extremity of this sim- ple mechanical contrivance for cleavage purposes. " We fully Agree with Prof. Wrong. 10 . ''-''. ':<<-^:'^'' -■■'---. ' ■ 'sM'i m 162 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE half-a-day weekly to consult "books and things'* in public places, without any diminution in re- muneration. Such procedure would bring the masters (Oh, heavens ! no ! the employers) to their senses, and would preclude the necessity of compelling the already overwrought attendants to stay out of church, or die of ennui. It is estimated that the Redpath Museum in Montreal has on an average as many as fifteen visitors dailj-, while the public reading-room is often crowded to its utmost capacity — about forty-two. In Quebec, Toronto and Winnipeg it is said to be even w^orse, and it would be not only unfair but expensive to ask that special atten'lants should be employed on the Sabbath* for the benefit of those who should stay at home and recreate themselves with Zola, Sand, or Dickens, or some real good Sunday paper, or, indeed, any paper, except the Witness. ' Although mention has been made of museums, *It being the historian's devout hope that this history will be authorized for use in Ontario and Nova Scotia, he advis- edly makes use of the word Sabbath. In any future edition, he will, if requested, have the word spelled Sawbath, or Sawbbath, or Saughbath, if necessary. HISTORY OP CANADA. 163 it was quite unnecessary, because these are in- tended for cultured people only — people who al- ready know all about Cheops, Cephrenes, Gan- tama, the anthracosaurus, the spondulux, the megalo-cephalus, the lamellibranchiata, the laby- rhinthodontia, the archceopteryx, and tricks bio- logical of .every genus, species, and variety. To conclude this long and extremely interest- ing chapter it may be remarked that morally, socially and churchically, we, as Canadians, are perhaps situated, in a measure, all things taken into account, especially our geographical position, and the fact that our population (totally exclu- sive of horses, cows, pigs and poultry, as per Ontario Board of Health Reports) is composed mainly or altogether of distinct nationalities as to origin, and equally distinct in religions as to belief, consisting as they do on the one hand of French, English, German, and so on, and on the other of two churches and numerous sects scat- tered over a territory stretching from Point Pelee to the point of the North Pole, and from the Straits of Belle Isle to Mount St. Elias, which, according to the most recent authority, is the p.* Ir 164 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND .TUBILE-E highest mountain in North America — a fact that affords reason for extreme gratitude to every patriotic citizen of this great country. P.S. — Mr. G. M. Rose (the publisher oi' this his- torical treatise, and one of the up-and-downest, fair-and-squarest, hardest kind of hittists the supporters of anti-temperance legislation have ever had to face in Canada) points out that this chapter has not dealt philosophically, or even fairly, with that great hydra-headed monster, the Liquor Question, and has positively refused to permit the work to issue from his magnificent printing establishment unless the subject should be handled with at least as much ability as char* acterizes the manipulation of other and less im- portant matters by the present author. Accordingly, let it be observed that this great Dominion is now on the high road to Prohibition. We might have had it this year had it not been for the Royal Society's proposed Cabot Cele- bration down in Nova Scotia, and the visit to our shores of the British Association for the Ad- vancement of Science. As Halifax and Montreal, our two chief cities, will be considerably in evi- HISTORY OP CANADA. 165 dence therewith, it was thought inipolitic to enact legislation of a character tha<^ would ren- der it inconvenient for visitinij strangers to cet a drink — it might look like inhospitality, indeed, as if we were too mean to treat a friend. Besides, as strangers might not be aware of the situation, they would probably come quite unprovided for such an emergency, and feel like giving the country a bad name. It is, however, wholly satisfactory to know that the House of Com- mons bar has been closed, and that the M. P.'s have to sneak through corridors and dark pas- sages to imbibe at the " refreshment-room " under the patronage of the Dominion Senators. During the past year also, taverns have been closed at Ste. Euphronia, St. Jasper, Ste. Anne de Resti- gouche, and St. Alphonse de Kamouraska. , * In Ontario it is now criminal for boys and girls • under twenty-one to be found hanging round barrooms, as has been so long customary. What a terrible depth of degradation must have been reached in any community where it became necessary to prohibit boys and girls — more par- ticularly the latter — from loafing round taverns and sponging for liquor 1 V^l np ■<<•" sP '' Mn^~' ^^irv-^- ^P^JflTO^^ Tn^^fT"^*"^^ ^"\1~JV ''s?*r^ 166 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEiB Indians have always been prohibited from in- dulging in this degrading vice, and since the occupation of Canada by the English not a drop of ardent spirits has (legally) enlivened the throat of any Red Man, and it may therefore be averred that his color is in no sense due to the use of alcoholic beverages. It is stated that there is still some consump- tion of spirits in and about Toronto, but as the population of that town originated for the most part about Belfast, it is easy to account for this state of affairs; still, as most of the policemen and*other high officials are of the same stock the thing is kept quiet. Hamilton is little better owing to the swarms of Scotch that harbor there, while most of the Kingston people (under the watchful solicitude of ex-M. P.P. and ex-M.P. James Metcalfe) would no more think of asking for spirits than for per- mission to carrv a revolver or anv other lethal weapon. What a contrast ! Let us award due credit to the people of the Limestone City, and pray that their example may be emulated by nianv more, i :-r«^'i ?.■<<'' ^^ff!^mi9mmnmmmf!'W^wm9i^^^!f^^ mwmw^^^^v^^^^'^ it- '} HI8T0RT OF CANADA. 167 It is proposed to withdraw all licences in Penetanguishene owing to the extreme difficulty experienced by even half- sprung inhabitants in attempting to tell where they come from. ^■ The historian hopes that this postscript is both sufficiently philosophical and fair to satisfy the most fastidious temperance reformer. cy^'i * m It w CHAPTER XXIX. HOW TO SrCCEED IN CANADA. ** ' I should be glad to drink your honour's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ; But, for my part, I never lo to meddle with politics, sir.'' *' I give thee sixpence I I will sec the damned first — Wretch ! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance — Sordid, unfeeling reprobc\^e, degraded, spiritless outcast.' " ■•■•/■;., i^-"'' George Canning. 'ERE, as elsewhere, the best man is he who is full of pluck, push, and perse- verance ; who is strictly honest in all his dealings, and wouldn't tell a lie in any ordinary combination of circumstances. Such men are bound to get on, although they do not always succeed. Whether they succeed or not, they gain the respect of their fellows, and they (168) ^'f^ [IfilORY OF CANADA. 169 do not lose their own — in these days this means much. Still, it cannot be denied tliat those who get along best in many cases are men who allow no advantage of any kind to stand in their way — in legitimate business and in politics they make their mark. In the former they get wound up every few years, or semi-occasionally, as the newspaper phrase goes, but after a few repeti- tions of this they gain experience and a com- petency, although they have lost thousands of dollars that belonged to other people — some of the other people, however, get square by em- ploying similar methods with other people. In politics it is quite different. In this busi- ness every man must be not only a man of in- telligence and integrity, but he must be a church- member in good standing, and if possible be con- nected with several societies. A good political business man may reach affluence within a few years, if he knows how to proceed. Thousands who knew how to proceed have proceeded. In Quebec our Government has been known (among other foolish things) to appoint men to office because they were something else than f i^ ^^^^^r^., ^^* .^ivjri. 170 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND .TUBILRI politicians — poets, perhaps, or something of that sort — but inon of thi« stamp have no such oppor- tunities aftbrded to them in Ontario, or the other provinces, to follow fads, and make money. The idea is quite too absurd. Young men, be advised. Seek first political favor and all things will be added unto you. ■-y' --r Ay'.\ trv ;' -•- ■lii«liiMil***»itlfil>iiil lUUrn 1^ -iitiftnri(i|it'i-tininiii k\ CHAPTER XXX. A WORD IX CONCLUSION. Industrious persons, by an exiict and .scrupulous dili- gence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, frag- ments of stories, passages of books that c(;ncern not story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time. Bacon, . ' , "Advancement of Learning," J. , ' It is quite clear from the foregoin*; that " The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind " had in mind such work as that of yojira truly, William Peteh Smith. (sfTHE HE present condition of Canatla is very all hopeful. In fact, we have nearly every- thing to hope for, and there are several schools of hopers, all hoping various hopes. Among them may be named Restricted Reciprocity — Unre- (171) ■m-^ &■&'!.' ? ■ ■ ■■•■ ■ . n m &v 172 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE stricted ditto, Commercial Union, Imperial Feder- ation, Independence, As-you-are, Alcoholic Pro- hibition, Single Taxisra, Non-sectarian schools everywhere, higher prices for farm produce, abolition of departmental stores, suppression of the Jesuits, development of gold mining, early defeat of all the governments, deep-waterways, no Lieutenant-Governor's residence, election of county officials, Crow's Nest Railway, Hudson s Bay Railway, public appointments to do nothing for big pay, cheap railway fares, lower postage, radial electric i*oads, plenty of work, good wages, and better times generally, including eggs at not more than ten cents a dozen. , It is manifestly impossible to satisfy so great a variety of hopists this side of the millennium. A few may find some measure of relief by going on deputations to interview tho Cabinets in the capitals. This always acts as a sort of safety- valve. Still more agonized souls may find con- solation in the columns of Saturday Night, the London Advertiser, or any other good society newspaper. ■ .; ^ ^' \^ As one of the greatest Popes has remarked, WWa^i^W''^--^ ?■!" ^^W" ^m HISTORY OF CANADA. 17; " Hope sprin<2js eternal in the human breast," and the chief hope of this historian is that the Victorian Jubilee History of Canada, now so happily brought to a conclusion after many years of close study and patient rummaging among the national archives, will find a place next to the herd-book on every oppressed farmer's table,* — next to Watts's Poems in every Sunday, or I should say Sabbath School library, and in all public libraries, only second in position to Arnold s Light of the World, Stanley's Darkest Africa, and Mclntyre's Poems abojut Cheese. Teachers and lecturers are welcome to make use of dates here given for the first time, and to read from these pages the thrillinj accounts they contain. ' ' Parents and guardians should present each of their kids with a copy of the gilt-edged edition in morocco sheep, and tourists will find them (not the kids, but the books,) exceedingly valu- able in filling up some of the numerous spaces that occur during their trips, when packing their trunks and valises. * This has reference to the sitting -room table, where all the other books in fancy bindings are usually displayed. . '■ T ^& Uk^:^ 174 THE VICTORIA DIAMOND JUBILEE. Such a volume carried in the crown of the hat or in the breast-pocket will break the force of a blow which otherwise might prove fatal. With a view to such contingencies every man should provide himself with two volumes, as it is im- possible to know whether the blow will catch him on the skull or over the heart. \ ■-■':' >f ■;»_• ,^ • :■;'■; .•■ I ■1i,-:;vV, \ -'A m : V / 'j*' ■^A-,.iv :. .^^mi^:tui^'' A^sM:J^k^l&L. '^yfyi-^^fSf^^f^pr *,ii.i**'j;!j",yv5i"-9'" si^ !& W^ S,i/^„aii-i-'i!£'A.3ia!KVs't#t .r^-TT7Vr- 7 ;-'^ * ;'■ > . ! •■•.' .0 ,V: ' r... '■:':;vV--. ■■•* • 1" ' . /;;/ v.:': '. -W" ■:.■' J :'«'f.- t-hl ♦=*50! ^:^. ./• , ^-.v x^ - ^ 'f- <'i>^^^-^: ->- ■:,\. J •^^ ^ '-^^ 'i-'^ • ....;^;^ >i -■■■■ ..^-.^r i?^v'- '•'."'' ^-? ^\^'^' , < \j« t > ■^^r'-^/ r? *'Vs*: ;- V ' - >- •■> ^ <, < ^ f. " _ V >" *>- y-= r^ ,' ^ ■4 / i :.-,%• .fy;\ •;-iS^*r u, »f«. t. r 1 -. •A i-vft A. BARGAINS IN MIM6. 1% I' " All our , Tnaiois fnll atieet^muaiootz.), cao\ilndjB{^db Exact Tepri»t% of the oritfiual edition. Grv«-A trial ord«?r» INSTRUMENTAL PIECES. TWO STKfi5. ^' In the liead. By Eben H. Baiieyw Yak Uf Charlwj h. Van BaFr. 'Rie Biey<;le. ^■-%. >- t Blaok America, liy Ziek«*l ..-*. ■ -o ■ 1^' ■ If!.., ■*■'■■ •*'- ;L H '1 The Washington J\»st. Souf^a |M*lfli«hattatt BpjtiM. Soma. Uijs'h Sihuoi Cadets, Sousn. *| Sph»|»6r iTIdtjfi*. Sousa. -, Hai^feUB *m ParaHe. JKoiTy Mm* lielle of Chicagrt. So^ttta. »fcr:4^. The Liberty Bell. iSonsjv „> ; T-lie Thuiitlerer. Soiwa,_ ' BANOE Mtrsre, ;%-•;. • Dancing m'the Barn, Schojttirfche. ' Dance of #fi« BrowoiM. Love Ouojes hike a Hummer Sij^h, Waltz liiihToH Gavottie. ^ lJai4tuy'» riteaiB. G. L, Liuffieo. The ri"i»ceijs Bonnie Waitzes., '| t), K. K Waltz, Tbompfou. '■;./%' •',.-*.;yC;-^':.:.. POPULAR SONOa i Y^4::;-«^ ikn Bolt. Fttvoiite English BAllatl. i Love Yon If the Others' Dob^t. When the Cml You Xipvt la Um^ Ihe Wearing of the Green- -Ireland's National Boim;. • •"*' FOR PIANO. . -;^ fe-.^^vy«r ■••^r - . ^•.' ' \, < '^f-^,-^----;-^-: Nanolttsutt. N*vi«r ■=^'' We offer ^« mfe^^# Uasic at the special pn«f dif 1M^, |lMtt. ^ ? >»•. '.V^4.'. '~^'''. • I. AIi i f . r/ . .V; . r . iltl < . "r ,, .f ■> ! .. .. a n.* ^- v.-- "v.^- , ;, ■ . ^.... .V • ".^^^~:^:M ■■r''-'S: .poll ■ BRGiNNfiBa' " ■ •:" . :''-■■.:'-■ ■ A Kew Ik^aflxod for tha Pianoforte. ByismM jWlWk. ^ Btiff board cover. Fric«, 50c, '^Sr.,- A N^w Method for the Piandlbrte By J^iw^l^lak. Paper isovm,^ Price, HOe, ^ . J PQSTiiW3& PAfIS, •'■^? >»p II I ijatiiwii iw a. »5^. ROSJB & SQIfS, l^hoiaiale BiNAseffers and Puliil«^hit^ •rbBQNTCI, O4l|iA0A. # M ,t ^.•i■>i;*