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TO CANADA WITH EMIGRANTS ^ Pccorb of Mml Sxpnienas BY J. EWING RITCHIE AUTHOR OF 'EAST ANGLIA,' 'BRITISH SKNATORS,' 'ON THE TRACK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS,' ETC., ETC. IV/TN TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS Xon^on T. FISHER UNWIN 26, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1885 i-/?li CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. —CANADIAN TERRITORY AND POPULATION - - . . II. OFF WITH THE EMIGRANTS —THE VOYAGE OUT— THE 'SARNIA'— THE COD-FISHERY - III. ARRIVAL AT QUEBEC - - . . IV. AT MONTREAL, AND ON TO OTTAWA — INTER- VIEWING AND INTERVIEWED V. TORONTO— THE TOWN— THE PEOPLE— CANA- DIAN AUTHORS— THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION - . _ . VI. OFF TO THE NORTH-WEST— NIAGARA— LAKE SUPERIOR— THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAIL- WAY — AT WINNIPEG VIL LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE VIII. AMONGST THE COW-BOYS PACE i6 33 45 74 104 148 174 VI Contents. CHAFTER I'AGB * IX. IN THE ROCKIES — HOLT CITY — LIFE IN THEt CAMP — A ROUGH RIDE — THE KICKING HORSE , LAKE — BRITISH COLUiMBIA - - "194 X. DANGERS OF THE ROCKIES — PRAIRIE FIRES — THE RETURN — PORT ARTHUR— EMIGRANTS 225 XI. BACK TO ENGLAND — CANADIAN HOSPITALITY — THE 'ASSYRIAN MONARCH* — HOME - 245 XII. COLONIZATION IN CANADA - - 255 ..il TO CANADA WITH EMIGRANTS. -a_J2SV— tt- CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. — CANADIAN TERRITORY AND POPULATION. Lunching one day in Toronto with one of the aldermen of that thriving city (I may as well frankly state that we had turtle-soup on the occasion), he remarked that he had been in London the previous summer, and that he was perfectly astonished at the idea English- men seemed to have about Canada. He was particularly indignant at the way in which it was coolly assumed that the Canadians were a barbarous people, planted in a wilderness, ^0 I f To Canada with Einiorants. ignorant of civilization, deficient in manners and customs — a well-meaning people, of whom in the course of ages something might be made, but at present in a very nebulous and unsatisfactory state. It seems my worthy friend had gone to hear a popular Q.C. — a gentleman of Liberal proclivities, very anxious to write M.P. after his name — deliver a lecture to the young men of the Christian Association in Exeter Hall on Canada. Never was a man more mortified in all his life than was the alderman in question. All the time the lecture was being delivered, he said, he held down his head in shame. ' I felt,' said he, rising to a climax, * as if I must squirm !* What ' squirming ' implies the WTiter candidly admits that he has no idea. Of course, it means something very bad. All he can say is, that it is his hope and prayer that in the following pages he may set no Cana- dian squirming. He went out to see the nakedness, or the reverse, of the land, to ask Inirodtutory, the emigrants how they were getting on, to judge for himself whether it was worth any Englishman's while to leave home and friends to cross the Atlantic and plant himself on the vast extent of prairie stretchinn^ between Winnipeg and the Rocky Mountains. What he heard and saw is contained in the following pages, originally published in the Christian Worlds and now reproduced as a small con- tribution to a question which rises in import- ance with the increase of population and the growing difficulty of getting a living at home. • • As a rule, the English know little more of Canada than that it belongs to us— that it is very cold there in winter and very hot in summer. I happened to be on board the Worcester training-ship on the last occasion of the prizes being given away, and was not surprised to find that Canada was especially referred to as illustrating the defective geo- graphical knowledge of the young cadets. In 4 To Canada with Emigrants. the London Citizen a few weeks later there was still grosser display of ignorance on the part of a writer who had gone to Montreal to attend the meetings of the British Association there, and who complained bitterly of the lack of garden - parties and champagne lunches. This victim of misplaced confidence owned that he had to put up with tea and coffee and non-intoxicating beverages when he did so far condescend as to accept Cana- dian hospitality. Yet the writer of that letter was a barrister, at this very time a candidate for Parliament. Had he an atom of common- sense, he might have known — this distin- guished barrister and ornament of the British Association for the Advancement of Science — that Canada is a young country ; that its wealth is still undeveloped ; that the greater part of it is prairie ; that the settler — in his heroic efforts to subdue Nature, to make the wilderness to rejoice and blossom as the rose, to build up a grand nation in that quarter Introduciojy. of the globe, to spread in a region larger than the United States the Anglo-Saxon laws and civilization and tongue — has to renounce luxury, to scorn delights, to live laborious days. Canada is not the place for members of the British Association who long for the flesh-pots of Egypt or the champagne- cup. In Canada one has to live simply and to work hard. He who does so work, though in England he may die a pauper, there be- comes a man. Canada offers to all inde- pendence, a fertile soil, a bracing air. At present there is little chance of the majority of its people being enervated by luxury or demoralized by wealth. Canada is a country, however, with room and scope for millions who must starve and die in Europe. Its area is 3,470,392 square miles, and its most southern point reaches the 42nd parallel of latitude. It possesses thousands of square miles of the finest forests on the continent, widely spread coal- To Canada with Emigrants, i fields, extensive and productive fisheries, and rivers and lakes of unequalled extent. The country is divided into eight provinces, as follows : Nova Scotia, containing 20,907 square miles; New Brunswick, 27,174; Prince Edward Island, 2,133; Quebec, 188,688; Ontario, 101,733; Manitoba, 123,200; the North West, 2,665,252; British Columbia, 341,305. Newfoundland lies out- side the Dominion, for reasons best known to itself. According to the census taken in 1881, the population at that time numbered 4,324,810, distributed as follows : Nova Scotia, 440,572 ; New Brunswick, 321,233 ; Prince Edward Island, 108,891 ; Quebec, 1,359,027; Ontario, 1,923,228; Manitoba, 65,954; the North West, 56,446 ; British Columbia, 49,459. These ficrures must be much added to if we would get an idea of the growth of popula- tion, especially in the North West, which has increased by leaps and bounds. Up to 1870 ■;•■ ii;- Introductory, it was as it had been since the charter of Charles II. — the happy hunting-ground of the Hudson Bay Company. As late as 1870 it had no railway communication, no towns or villages, few post-offices, and no telegraph. There must be a million of people settled there by this time, and yet it is a wilderness almost untrod by man. The origins of the populations are returned as follows : 891,248 English and Welsh ; 957,408 Irish ; 699,863 Scotch; 1,298,910 French; 254,319 Ger mans. The balance is made up of Dutch, Scandinavians, and Italians. A large num- ber of persons who were born in the United States are to be found in Canada — and why not ? They have in Canada a government quite as free as in the United States, though the Canadians prefer to have a holiday on the Queen's birthday rather than the 4th of July, and an English Viceroy — who at any rate is a gentleman — to an American Presi- dent. Anywhere in Canada the Englishman 8 To Canada with Emigrants. I is at home. The people have an English look. Directly you pass the border into the States you see the difference. There is an astonishing contrast between the healthy Canadian and the lean and yellow Yankee. Canadian history is one record of toil and struggle — of the advance of the whites, of the retreat of the native races. Foremost in suffering were the French. In 1608 the first permanent settlement in Canada was made by Champlain, who founded Quebec, and after- wards discovered the lake which still bears his name. It was he who taught the Iroquois to stand in awe of gunpowder ; but, alas ! familiarity bred contempt, and the Red Indian was more than once on the point of exterminating the white man. It was only by the intercession of the Saints that the feeble colony was preserved. At Montreal, for in- stance, the advanced guard of the settlements, some two hundred Iroquois fell upon twenty- six Frenchmen. The Christians were out- Introductory. 9 matched eight to one, but, says the Chronicle, * the Queen of Heaven was on their side, and the Son of Mary refuses nothing to His holy Mother. Through her intercession the Iroquois shot so wildly, that at their first fire every bullet missed its mark, and they met with a bloody defeat.' No wonder the French were animated with renewed zeal. Father Le Mercier writes : * On the day of Visitation of the Holy Virgin, the chief Aontarisati, so regretted by the Iroquois, was taken prisoner by our Indians, instructed by our fathers, and baptized ; and on the same day, being put to death, I doubt not he thanked the Virgin for his misfortune and the blessing that followed, and he prayed to God for his countrymen.' It was no common faith that led the French monks to seek to make Canada theirs. Their sufferings from cold, from starvation, from the savages, from want of all the comforts of life, seem to have been as much as mortal \ lO To Canada luith Emigrants. men could bear. But they made many con- verts. On one occasion, when the French Chaumont had delivered an address, his Indian auditors declared that if he had spoken all day they should not have had enough of it. * The Dutch,' said they, * have neither brains nor tongues ; they never tell us about paradise or hell. On the contrary, they lead us into bad ways.' Nothing could daunt the Jesuits — not the loss of all they had, nor protracted suffering, nor cruel death. * The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,' said one of them ; ' and if we die by the fires of the Iroquois, we shall have won eternal life by snatching souls from the fires of hell.' Let us listen to Chaumont again, as he stands before his savage hearers — he and his companions having first, with clasped hands, sung the ' Veni Creator ' : ' It is not trade that brings us here. Do you think that your beaver-skins can pay us for all our toil and Iniro'^jictory. 1 1 dangers ? Keep them, if you like ; or, if any fall into our hands, we shall use them only for your service. We seek not the things that perish. It is for the faith that we have left our homes, to live in your hovels of bark and eat food which the beasts of our country would scarcely touch. We are the mes- sengers whom God has sent to tell you that His Son became a man for the love of you ; that this man, the Son of God, is the Prince and Master of men ; that He has prepared in heaven eternal joys for those who obey Him, and kindled the fires of hell for those who will not receive His Word. If you re- ject it, whoever you are — Onondaga, Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, or Oneida — know that Jesus Christ, who inspires my heart and my voice, will one day plunge you into hell. Be not the authors of your own destruction. Accept the truth ; listen to the voice of the Omnipotent !' Wonderful miracles sustained and renewed 12 To Canada ivith E^nigrants. this ardent faith. In the autumn of 1657, there was a truce with the Iroquois, under cover of which three or four of them came to the Montreal settlement. Nicholas God6 and Jean Piere were on the roof of their house, laying thatch, when one of his visitors aimed his arquebuse at Saint Piere, and brought him to the ground like a wild turkey from a tree. The assassins, having cut off his he^d and carried it home to their village, were amazed to hear it speak to them in good Iroquois, scold them for their perfidy, and threaten them with the venge- ance of heaven ; and we are told they con- tinued to hear its voice of admonition even after scalping it and throwing away the skull. During a great part of this period, the French population was less than three thou- sand. How was it they were not destroyed? Mr. Parkman tells us for two reasons. In the first place, the settlements were grouped around three fortified posts — Quebec, Three Introductory. 13 Rivers, and Montreal — which, in time of danger, gave an asylum to the fugitive in- habitants ; and secondly, their assailants were distracted by other wars. It was their aim to balance the rival settlements of the Hudson and the St. Lawrence. It was well for Canada when France lost hold of her. In 1666, Louis the Great handed her over, bound hand and foot, to a company of mer- chants — the Company of the West, as it was called. As, according to the edict, the chief object in view was the glory of God, the Company was required to supply its pos- sessions with a sufficient number of priests, and diligently exclude all teachers of false doctrine. It was empowered to build forts and war-ships, cast cannon, wage war, make peace, establish courts, appoint judges, and otherwise to act as sovereign within its own dominions. A monopoly of trade was granted it for forty years, and Canada was the chief sufferer; but at any rate the peopling of 14 To Canada ^viih Emigrant<^. Canada was clue to the king. Colbert did the work and the king paid for it. Pro- testants were objected to. Girls, to be wives to the emigrants, were sent out from Dieppe and Rochclle. In time, girls of indifferent virtue, under the care of duennas, emigrated to meet the growing demand for wives. ' I am told,' writes La Houtan, 'that the plumpest were taken first, because it was thought, being less active, they were more likely to keep at home, and that they could resist the winter cold still better.' Further, such was the paternal care of the king for Canada, that he attempted to found a colonial noblesse, and offered bounties for children. The noblesse were a doubtful boon : industrious peasants were much more to be desired. Leading lazy lives, many of the gentilhommes soon drifted into the direst poverty. The Canadians had one advantage — their morals were well looked after by the priests, who kindly took charge of their education as well. Introductory. Compared with the New England man, the habitant had very much the advantage. He was a skilful woodsman, able to steer his canoe, a soldier and a hunter. Nevertheless, when Wolfe's army had scaled the heights of Abraham, and won Canada for the British, it was the beginning of a new life. * England,' writes Mr. Parkman, ' imposed by the sword on reluctant Canada the boon of rational and ordered liberty. A happier calamity never befell a people than the con- quest of Canada by the British arms.' But it was not till the American Revolution had broken out, and the royalists left the States to found in Canada a strong colony attached to the British Crown, that Canada may be really said to have been a part and parcel of the Empire, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. It was necessary to move many of the French Canadians else- where ; and those who remained, still for long looked with an unfriendly eye on England and her rule. CHAPTER II. OFF WITH THE EMIGRANTS — THE VOYAGE OUT — THE 'SARNIA' — THE COD-FISHERY. One Wednesday at the end of April, last year, St. Pancras Railway Stat.jn was the scene of a display not often matched even in these demonstrative days. Mr. J. J. Jones, of the Samaritan Mission, had arranged to take out a party of five hundred emigrants to Canada — the first party of the season. The event seemed to create no little excitement in philanthropic circles. The Lord Mayor had promised to be there, but he was detained in the City, possibly in defence of the ancient Corporation of which he has become the champion ; but he sent a cordial letter, as did .■■ 3 OJf ivith the Emigrants. 17 many other distini^aiished people, to express sympathy and goodwill. . In the absence of the Lord Mayor, the Earl of Shaftesbury, after the emigrants had 'been got together in a waiting-room, presided at a farewell meeting, which ought to have sent the emigrants in the best of spirits to the new homes they expect to find on the other side of the Atlantic. They would, said his lordship, still be under the reign of our Queen. They would confer a great blessing on the country whither they were going, and they would show what they could do as good citizens in subduing and replenishing the earth, and in spreading over the world the Anglo-Saxon race. He hoped that the young men present would come back to England for wives, and ended with his best wishes for all in the way of a safe voyage and temporal and spiritual good. The Earl of Carnarvon, who next spoke, had this advantage over the noble chairman, I 1 8 To Canada with Emigrants. in that he had made a trip to Canada himself. The emigrants, he said, would encounter difficulties. They were not going to a paradise, but they would find that they had a better chance of getting a living in the New World ; especially if they avoided bad company and the crowded towns, and got into the country, and underwent a certain preparatory training. As to Canada, it was a country in which a man would succeed who had health and strength and industry, and a good head and a good heart, and the fear of God to teach him that honesty was the best policy. Sir Henry Tyler, M.P., the chairman of the Grand Trunk Railway, followed in a similar strain. The people were not crowded up in Canada as they were here. It was a grand country for honest, hard-working men and well-behaved women ; but he recom- mended them at first to seek good honest people to work with, rather than high wages. Off with the Emigrants. 19 Turning to the young women, he assured them they would find good husbands in Canada — a remark which seemed to give them much satisfaction ; and he hoped that they would have large families when they married, as large families were a blessing out there. Then came forward Mr. Clare Sewell Read, M.P., who, as a countryman, said he saw some country bumpkins in the party, and he could assure them, as he had been in Canada, its soil was unrivalled for fertility. Lord Napier of Magdala followed, and then came the Hon. Donald A. Smith, one of the directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway, to tell how people prospered in Canada who behaved well and worked hard. The Rev. Oswald Dykes and the Rev. Burman Cassin also addressed the audience ; and there were others, such as the Farl of Aberdeen, the Rev. W. Tyler, and the Rev. Styleman Herring, who were re^dy to say a few words 2—2 20 To Canada with Emigrants. had time permitted ; but the train had to be packed up with passengers and luggage, and there was no time to spare. In a few minutes they were off, amidst tears and cheers, while Mr. Jones and I, with Mr. Alexander Begg, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the remainder of the emigrants, followed. A litde after five we arrived at Liverpool, and then Mr. Jones had to work like a horse. Meanwhile, I, with a couple of artistic friends, who are to sketch us, all took our ease in our inn, from which comfortable quarters I felt sadly indisposed to stir ; but I had to see the emigrants off, and my heart sank into my shoes as, looking at the hun- dreds swarming the platform, and the pyra- mids of luggage, and then at the Sarnia moored in mid-stream, the thought suggested itself, How on earth can they all be stowed away ? — a query which, however, was soon settled, as, at a later hour, I found myself on The Voyage oui. 21 board the Sarnia, leaving smoky Liverpool behind, and with the ship's head turned to the sunset * and the baths of all the Western stars.' The Sarnia, it may be as well to inform my readers, is one of the screw-steamers running between Quebec and Liverpool, b) the Dominion Line, which line commenced its gay career in 1870. I ought to be very happy on board, since I learn, from the atten- tive perusal of documents lying in the cabin, that, owing to the lin^s in the model, the roll- ing of the ship is to a great extent, not de- stroyed, but reduced, making a considerable decrease in sea-sickness, and that in the book of rules and regulations compiled for the guid- ance of the Dominion Line officers, they must run no risk which might by any possibility result in accident to the ship, and that they are further requested to bear in mind that the safety of the lives and property entrusted to their care is the ruling principle that should r 22 To Ca7iada zvith Emigrants. govern them in the management of their ships. I almost fancy I must have thrown away my money in insuring my Hfe against loss and my person against accidents. What have I to fear, if the rules and regulations of the company be observed ? I am very glad, as it is, I did not insure for a larger sum, though the agent, who, of course, had his eye on the extra Commission, was kind enough to suggest it were well to insure for the larger sum, in case the skip went dozun ! — a thing not to be dreamed of. I have consulted that oracle of our fathers — Francis Moore. In his * Vox Stellarum ' he tells me, to my comfort and satisfaction, that after the 25th of April the winds will be light. Francis Moore, you may tell me, is not weatherwise. Are the scientific meteoro- logists, with their forecasts, wiser ? It is hard to say. It is a comfort to think that the emio;rants are well off for literature. The Graphic The Voyage out. 23 company — whose last dividend, I learn, was a good deal over a hundred per cent —have sent a tremendous packet of Graphics. The Bible Society sent Testaments. The Reli- gious Tract Society have placed at Mr. Jones's disposal tracts and books. The Rev. Newman Hall has sent 250 books, while a goodly packet of the * Family Circle Edition ' of the Christian World will, I dare say, be in much request — quite as much as the five hundred sheets of hymns which the Earl of Aberdeen brought with him on Wed- nesday to St. Pancras as his contribution to the common stock. Yes, indeed, as my Welsh friends would say, the lines for us are cast in pleasant places, and we have a goodly heritage. It is to be hoped it may be so. 1 never saw a more tidy lot of emigrants — some of them evidently the right class to get on. I had an amusing chat with one, who told me what inquiries he had made before he would entrust Mr. J. J. Jones with * Caesar 24 To Canada with Einigrants. and his fortunes.* If the emigrants are all like him, the Yankees, if there be such in Canada, will find it rather difficult to take them in. We swarm with children and babies. I fear some of us will wish, before we reach the St. Lawrence, that good King Herod was on board. Of course, these are not my sentiments. I suppose most of us were babies once — there is every reason to believe that I was ; nevertheless, the most gushing mother will admit that there are times when even the sweetest of babes ceases to charm. My companions in the smoking- room the first night were, however, by no means babes. I had not been there half-an- hour before I was offered 34,000 acres of land — abounding with fish and game, and all that the carnal heart could desire — a decided bar- gain. I did not close with the offer. Per- haps I ought to have done so. But such earthly grandeur is beyond my dreams. Nothing can be drearier or more mono- The Voyage out. 25 tonoLis than a trip to Canada in the early season of the year. After you leave Ireland, you see no ships — nothing but the sea, grey and dull as the heaven above. Now and then a whale comes up to blow, and that is all ; and when the wind blows hard, you get nothing but big, lumpy waves, which set the ship rolling, and add only to the discomforts. And then you are on the Newfoundland banks, where you may snend dull days and duller nights — now going at half-speed, now stopping altogether, while the fog-horn blows dismally every few minutes, and whence you can see scarcely the length of the ship ahead. Like Oscar Wilde, I own that I am very much disappointed with the Atlantic. The icebergs are monotonous — when you have seen one, that is enough. In the saloon, we are a sad, dull party ; even in the smoking-room, one can scarcely get up a decent laugh. I pity the poor emigrants in the steerage, whom a clever young Irish 26 To Canada with Emigrants. journalist on board, with the instinct of his race, has failed to excite into a proper state of indignation on account of the discomforts of the voyage, and the hardness of the pota- toes — always a matter of complaint in all the ships that I have ever been on board of. The raw, cold, damp fog has taken all the starch out of the steerage passengers, always the first to grumble on sea, as they are on shore; yet on one occasion they did go so far as to send a deputation to the captain, and what, think you, was their grievance ? — that they had no sauce to their fish ! — a grievance of little account, when one thinks of the sauce we had served up in the saloon. As a rule, the steerage passengers are a difficult body to deal with ; they seem so helpless, and require so much looking after. Mr. Jones has enough to do to look after his. If they lose anything, however paltry, he is appealed to. If they require anything not provided in the bill of fare, he is sent for. It The Voyage oiU. 27 is very clear to me that his party have great advantages. He has taken down all their occupations, and when we arrive at Quebec they will all, if possible, be provided with employment, and will be at once forwarded to their destination, without loss of time or expenditure of cash. Many of them are also assisted by his Society with small sums of money, and in every way they are helped as few other emigrants are. We have on board a party of fifty-one lads, sent out by Dr. Bowman Stephenson, who has a depot somewhere near Hamilton, and a helper is on board to take care of them. Some of them are of very juvenile years, and, it is to be believed, in Canada will find a far more favourable lot than they ever could in the streets and slums of the East End. ' What are you going to do ?' said I to one of them the other morning. ' Please, sir, I am going to be adopted/ was the reply; and adopted he will be by 28 To Canada zuilh Emigrants. \ some worthy couple who, having no children of their own, are ready to give the little out- cast a home such as he never could have found in the old country. We have also an agent on board, who, for a certain sum, agrees to take young fellows out and to find them suitable situations. That is a course T should not recommend. A young fellow had far better keep that extra cash in his pocket, get out as far into the North-west as he can, there hire himself to some settler, who at this time of year is sure to be in need of his services, and then in a year or two he will be able to get a grant of land on his own account, on which, after three years of real hard work, he will be able to live in peace and comfort, and to achieve an independence of which he has no chance on our side of the Atlantic. It quite grieves me to think of the poor farmers I have known at home, wasting their time and capital and strength in a hopeless The * Sam in! 29 Ipoor :heir iless effort to make both ends meet, who might he doing well out here, with the certainty that their families will be left in a comfortable position as far as this world's goods are con- cerned. One thing, however, I must strongly impress upon the emigrant, and that is, the necessity of coming out in the spring. It is madness to cross the Atlantic in the autumn ; when he lands at Quebec, he will find nothing to do, and must live on his capital, or starve till next spring ; and if I might recommend a ship, it certainly would be the Sai^nia, on which I now write. She is slow but sure. Her commander, Captain Gibson, is all that a captain should be — not a brilliant conversationalist, not one of those men who set the table in a roar ; but cautious, skilful, fully alive to the responsibilities of his position and the dangers of his calling. As to the dangers, it is impossible to exaggerate them. There are more than a thousand of us on board, and were anything to happen, 30 To Canada ivith Emigrants. not more than three hundred of us could, I should think, be crowded into the boats, provided that the sea were quite calm, and that we had plenty of time to leave the ship ; and in a panic and in bad weather, it is clear that even such boats as the Sarnia is supplied with would be of little avail. Safety seems to me a mere matter of chance. You hit on an iceberg, and down goes the ship with all on bo3''d, leaving no record behind. As a matter of fact, I believe these big steamers often, on a dark night, run down the vessels engaged in fishing off the New- foundland banks. When we passed, the season had scarcely commenced. It is in May, towards the end of the month, that the fishing commences. The chief fishermen are the French, who mostly hail from St. Malo, and who have in the Gulf of Newfoundland two small islands, which they use for fish- curing. You get an idea of the extent of these fisheries, when I tell you that the total K- The Cod-fishery. :he in the are lIo, Ltid Ish- of )tal value of them amounts to three millions a year, and that the supply seems inexhaustible. Romanists and Hi TORONTO THE TOWN — THE PEOPLE — CANADIAN AUTHORS THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION. Toronto, or the Queen City of the West, as she loves to call herself, stands upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, and has not only achieved a great success, but may be said, in spite of all the moving to the North-West of which we hear so much, to have a great future before it, on account of Its position with regard to railways, which alone In this great country decide the fate of towns and cities. Immedi- ately In front is a broad bay, from which you get an unposlrg view of the city, while its forest of spires and factory chimneys gives evideice Oi' "rrs[/ercu5 and busy life. I have h Sunday in Toronto. 75 never been in a city where the Sabbath was more strictly observed. The omnibus ceases to run on a Sunday, the cab is locked up, and even the cigar-store is closed. At seven on Saturday evening all the liquor-shops are shut, and in Toronto, as in all the Province, no one can buy a drop of whisky, or wine, or beer, till a decent hour on Monday morning. It is true, I was invited one Sunday to go and have a glass of whisky and water — an offer which, it is needless to say, I refused ; but then, had I accepted the offer, I should have had to go into a club of which my friend was a member. In Canada, as in England, the club-member may indulge his taste, however strictly the abstinence of his less fortunate brother may be enforced by law. But the Sunday quiet of Toronto is remarkable. There are few people but church-goers in the streets, and the churches of all religious de- nominations are quite as numerous and quite as handsome as any we have in England. 76 To Canada zvith Emigrants. p They are all built on a larger scale, and are all well-filled. On Sunday evening I had to fight my way into the Congregational church, of which Dr. Wild is the minister. He hails from America, and is quite the sensation of the hour. There was no standing-room any- where, and as I made to the door I met many coming away. However, I had made up my mind to hear the Doctor, and hear him I did. It seems that the subscribers have a dcvr to themselves ; I made for it, and luckily found a chair, which I wedged in under the platform. As I entered, the Doctor was making the people laugh by answering questions that had been sent to him in writing. Then we had qij'te a service of song. The choir behind him performed, a lady sang a solo, the congrega- tion joined in a well-known English hymn. The Doctor prayed, and then we had a ser- mon about Revelation, containing much that v\as very effective, if not about his text, at a.iy rate about that mysterious part of Scrip- m The Toivn. 77 tnre from which the text was taken. The Doctor is now in the prime of Hfe, and his preaching powerful and effective. The audience consisted chiefly of men ; perhaps that may be considered in the Doctor's favour. One thing did surprise me, and that was to see seated at a table right under the pulpit platform a reporter coolly taking notes. Our English reporters in a place of wor .h*p on a Sunday are certainly more modest, and prefer to blush unseen. Toronto rises up, with its grand public buildings, proudly from the shore. The site of the city was very marshy, and afc one time it was known as Muddy York. Only yesterday a lady was telling me how her mother was near losing her life in the mud of the chief street, leaving behind her the English pattens of which she was so proud. The further from the lake, the more the land rises, till you reach where, as Tom Moore wrote — 78 To Canada ivith Emigrants. ' The blue hills of old Toronto shed Their evening shadows o'er Ontario's bed.' In 1812 the population of the place was under 1,000. It is now, including the suburbs, where some of the wealthiest citizens live in houses as well-built and as luxuriously fitted up as any in London, al^out 116,000. King- Street, the principal one, is built up with substantial brick and stone buildings, many of which are equal to any on the American Continent. Forty years since, it was conoletely composed of wooden structures, and was barely passable to pedes- trians. Now, it is adorned with stately stores, \\ here the latest novelties of the Old World and the New are ostentatiously displayed. The public buildings are quite an ornament to the place, and the offices of the leading newspaper, T/ie Toronto Jllail, are one of the sights of the city. The yearly civic income and expenditure is over 2,000,000 dollars, and the assessed value of property last year k t 00 Tltt' Toioii. 79 \\ IS ()i,(j.| j,c;.S I (l(»Il.ii' V\ ic itn:(!ts an: spacious, well laid out, and ic^nilarly hiiik. The two main ailciic;; of iIk; ciLy an: Kln)^ and (i('()ro(' Sln-cts, vvliich, r.rossini^ (.'ach other al li^ht anidcs, dividi^ the cily into lour larLK! section:;. I don't think hou:;(;-r(;nt is cheap. I have been in one or two private! houses, the rents ol which seemed to me certainly dearer than would he the rents of similar houses in London. Hut, then, in 'I'oronto — think of it, () res[)ected Tatcr- lamilias I -the hcst cuts of meat ar(i about eiL;ht[)ence a pound, and priinii butter is not much more, and Sir llcnry Thompson will rejoice to hear tliis — therc^ is a plentiful supply of fish. Tile city also boasts of fme theatres, and halls, and collen^-es ; while the I'lpiscopalian Cathedral in James Street possesses the celebrated chimney and illumi- nated clock which took the first prize at the Vienna h^xhibltion, and which was purchased by the citizens, and presented to the Dean ^. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // 4^ 1.0 I.I 1.25 £ Ul 112.0 ifi. U 1 1.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 m \ v ^\ %^ '"''is ^ <^ » 8o To Canada ivith Efnigrants. and churchwardens of the place on Christmas- eve, 1876. They tell me, however, that the strongest body of Christians in the city is that of the Wesleyans. I am staying at Walker House, the most comfortable place which I have discovered thus far. Toronto itself offers few opportunities to the emigrant, and the citizens are not enthusiastic in his favour. I met a reverend gentleman from England here, who, the other night, at a meeting of mechanics, vainly endeavoured to say a word in favour of emigration, and had to desist under the threat that if he did not they would knock off his head. The mechanics here are very much afraid that if more of their own class come out, wages will be lowered. Nor are Irish emigrants in much favour here, as they stop in the city instead of going into the country in search of work, and have to be supported by the charitable and humane. Only a few days since a large batch of Irish arrived. Work had been found ! , 00 "^ < H o s" o o O 03 (d H (d Z u 1^ O o u o o H D oa O C/l b Q < < \m QO Dr. Barnardo. 8i o ^' r, o o D O oi O oa 0!! ui H O a u o (II u ta-4 o o H a CO O Q < < for them which they agreed to accept, and " they were on the point of being for- warded, when they were got at by the Irish already in the city, and now they refuse to budge. The other day I met Dr. Barnardo's agent, who has come out with some of his trained boys to settle them in Peterborough, where Mr. G. A. Cox, the Mayor of the place, has kindly given a commodious house for their use. Already, I believe, the Doctor has sent out 780 boys and about 470 girls, who have all been planted out. Mr. W. Williams, of the Chichester and Arethusa, has sent many more, and so have others, of whom I hope to hear tidings in the course of my travel. The manager of Dr. Barnardo's home at Peterborough, in answer to inquiries from the farmers and others, writes that boys from seven to twelve years of age are usually sent out on terms of adoption^ to be treated in every respect as children of the 6 82 ^To Canada with Emi^i^nts. household, and to receive, on attaining their twenty-first birthday, a sum of not Jess than one hundred and fifty dollars. Boys of thirteen and over are hired as** helps,' at wages varying front thirty-five to ninety-five dollars per annum, with lodgifig, food, anti medical attendance. Girls are sent out at ages ranging from four to sixteen years. Those of eleven and under are usually adopted into i families ; while those of twelve and upwards are hired at wages from two dollars to nine dollars a month, with board, lodging, washing, and medical attendance. The utmost caie is taken that these children should be placed in good hands. The appli- cant for a child has to get his letter recom- mended by a clergyman or magistrate ; then he has to give his Christian name and surname in full, his address, his occupation ; to say if he hires his farm, or if it is his own ; whether he is a member of a Christian Church ; what work the child will have to perform ; on what 4 4 ■<• :^ f» 4 ». • .1 « t Emigration of Lads. 8 terms the child comes into the family ;'wliat length of.engagement is (desired ; whia,t church the child will attend ; and .so on. Moreover, Dr. Barnardo's system provides for the regular and frequent visitation of every young *emigrant at his or her place of employment ; the girls by a lady of great ^periefice, the boys by a gentleman. By this means the children are never lost sight of, and trustworthy reports of their progress and whereabouts are periodically furnished to the heads of the institution in England. Now, I call attention to this plan, not merely to increase confidence in the labours of philanthropists who are sending out children to Canada, but in order to raise the question, why it is only the children of the destitute and the wild arabs of the street that are to have this advantage. There must be many poor people in England who have sons, perhaps a little too plucky for home, who could pay to send .out their lads, and would . 6—2 84 To Canada with Emigrants. u> be glad to do so, if they saw a chance of their being placed in good hands. There are many boys who would be glad to leave the some- what overcrowded house, and who would rejoice to fight the battle of life in the New World under such advantageous conditions. Why should they not have a chance ? Why should the destitute only be looked after } Why should not some one in the same way lend a helping ha!nd to the honest son of the honest working man ? It may be that his father may be too old to emigrate. It may be that he is doing fairly well at home, and that it is not worth his while to emigrate. But why should not his son have a chance, and be sent out under a system as excellent as that to which I have referred ? Assuredly that is a question to be asked by others. But Dr. Barnardo says in his magazine, Night and Day, that much injury to the work of emigration has been effected by supposing that boys who have committed] grave moral ) i The Leader of the Opposition. 85 lid lich uion )ral 1 faults can do well, if only shipped off to Canada. He contends that a number of young fellows of that sort sent to Canada, would seriously prejudice the prospects of emigration generally ; and he urges in very strong terms that none but boys and girls of thoroughly good physique, industrious, honest, and of good general character, should be en- couraged to emigrate upon any pretext what- ever. Previous to my leaving Toronto I had the pleasure of an interview with the Hon. Edward Blake, the head of the Opposition, whose utterances are watched and waited for by all parties in the State with breathless interest. Travelling from Winnipeg, I had listened to a conversation on that gentle- man's merits by two young gentlemen — who were a little incoherent in their language, owing to the quantity of refreshment they had on board — which certainly somewhat raised my expectations. Nor was I dis- 85 To Canada with Emigrants. i appointed on my personal interview with the subject of their praise. The Hon. Edward Blake is a man in the prime of life, of fresh complexion, of more than average height and build, with a keen and intellectual face. He was born in Canada, was educated at the University, followed his father in the profession of the bar, and a3 a cross-examiner, especially of an unwilling witness, and in the art of turn- ing a man inside out, may claim to have no equal in Canada at the present time. He has visited Europe more than once — at one time in an official capacity — has mixed with our public men as well as with those of the Con- tinent, has been in office, and, it is believed, will soon be in office again. He received me with great courtesy, and talked on things in general in a lively and interesting manner. On the Province of Ontario as a home for the British farmer he had much to say. Taking me to the map hanging up in his % for his , The Leader of the Opposition, 87 office, and pointing to the district between Toronto and Detroit, he affirmed that there was no finer land to be found anywhere in the United States. His first constituency was a very poor one — consisting of English settlers and others who had gone there with very little, if any, money, and they had all done well, and their children were now mostly wealthy men. He did not approve of the Government plan of emigration ; but he did think there was a fine field in Canada for the British farmer and his men. As to mechanics, he thought the look-out was poor. The mechanic in that part of the world leads a very migratory life. Such was the facility offered by railways, which ran in all directions, that a slight rise in the rate of wages would send him wherever that rise was to be found. At the present time there was a depression of trade in the United States, and wages were low. In Canada the wages were a little higher, and he looked to i 88 To Canada with Emigrants. an emigration from the United States ; and then the wages in Canada would go down. The British mechanic would thus have to face a double difficulty — the competition of the Canadian and the American mechanic alike. I must add, however, that this was not the view of an English mechanic who had been settled in Toronto some years, and with whom,; subsequently, I had some chat. His opinion was that any first-class English mechanic who came out would do well, while he frankly admitted that an inferior hand would have no chance whatever. But to return to Mr. Blake. It is evident, though he and his party are supposed to be in favour of Free Trade — and it is a matter of fact that they were driven from place and power by a Protectionist outcry— that he does not consider the question of Free Trade from an English standpoint at all. It will be long ere Canada will lift up her voice in favour of Free Trade. In Canada m. t* he ree It her ada The Lea 'er of the Opposition. 89 there is no such thing as direct taxation, and as money has to be raised for the support of Government, it is felt it is easier to do that by means of a duty on foreign manufactures than by taking it directly out of the pockets of the people. Just now there is a feeling growing up in favour of Free Trade with America ; but that will not aid the British manufacturer one jot. The system of duties between Canada and America is an enormous nuisance, when one thinks of the daily personal and commercial intercourse between the two countries. For instance, I lost by changing English money into Canadian dollars ; and then again, when I had to change Canadian dollars into American greenbacks, I had to submit to a further loss. This was not pleasant, especially when you remember that every time you cross the frontier — and people are doing it daily — you have to submit to a disagreeable examination on the (■ .1 90 To Canada with Emigrants. part of Custom House officers. Surely Canada and America will before long have to come to a better understanding than that which at present exists. Of course, I write under correction. I am an outsider. * Can you tell me/ I said to the Hon. E. Blake, * how I am to get to a knowledge of Canadian politics ?' His reply; and it was delivered with a smile, was : ' By living in the country some five or six years.' Under such circumstances I feel, with the poet, that * where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise.' On one thing Mr. Blake was silent — nor did I allude to it : that was the question of Canadian independence. It is raised in many quarters, it is almost daily discussed in the Canadian newspapers. People are waiting to hear what Mr. Blake has to say on it. At present the oracle is dumb. When The Leader of the Opposition. 91 the question is settled you may be sure sentiment will have little to do with it ; on this side of the Atlantic, at any rate, that sort of thing goes a very little way when the almighty dollar is at stake. But the question to be asked is, How long Canadian independence will stand the cry for annexa- tion with the United States that will then be raised ? One of the pleasures attending my visit to Toronto was the finding out Mrs. Moodie — whose * Roughing It in the Bush ' did so much to help English people to understand the hardships of Canadian life some forty 3^ears ago. She was the youngest sister of Agnes Strickland ; and, like her, wrote books for children, and tales and poems for the annuals, then the rage. She then married a Major Moodie, and went out to Canada, and I had not seen her since I was a raw lad ; but of her kindness and her talent I had a distinct impression, and it was with real 92 To Canada with Emigrants. pleasure that I found her living at an ad- vanced age — but in pe; e and comfort — at her son's, a gentleman connected with the Inter-Colonial Railway. The sprightly lady of 1834, eager and enthusiastic, had become an elderly one in 1884; yet time had dealt gently with her, and her youth seemed to me to revive as she talked of her old Suffolk horne, and of men and women long since gone over to the majority. I was glad to find that she had made her mark in Canadian literature. An intelligent Canadian critic, Mr. J. E. Collins, whose acquaintance I was privileged to make — as well as that of his friend, Mr. Charles Robins, a poet of whom Canada may well be proud — writes of Mrs. Moodie : * So perfect a picture is Mrs. Moodie's book of the struggles, the hopes, the dark days, and the sun-spots of that obscure life that fell to her lot in the forest depths, that its whisperings form a delightful music to the Canadian Literature. 93 i her gent hose as rles well 'So of and fell its the memory. The style is limpid as a running brook, picturesque, and abounding with touches that show a keen insight into character, and an accurate observation of external things. There is no padding or fustian in the book, and no word is squan- dered, Mrs. Moodie regarding the mission of language to be to convey thought, not to put on a useless parade.' Mrs. Moodie has been living in Canada now fifty years, and loves to talk of the old country, especially of the people with whom she associated when, as Susannah Strickland, she used to stay in London with Pringle, the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, whose beautiful poem, * Afar in the desert I love to ride,' is still a favourite with the English public. But she has no wish to come back to England — her family are all well settled in Canada. She lives with one of her sons, and her daughter, Mrs. Chamberlain, of Ottawa, has won 94 To Canada with Emigrants. deserved fame by her beautiful illustrations of Canadian flowers and lichens. English readers who may remember Mrs. Moodie as one of the gifted Strickland sisters will be glad to learn that she is regarded as one of the pioneers of Canadian literature, and although born near the begin- ning of the [>resent century, possesses a mental vigour and active memory rare in one so aged. She told me anecdotes of my- self when a boy that I had quite forgotten, and retains in old age the enthusiasm for which she was remarkable when young. Some of her ghost-stories were capital. For instance, one night, when her sister Agnes was lying sick, in the old hall at Reydon, Suffolk, and was being nursed by her sister Jane, there came to them a tall, stately figure in white, with long garments trailing behind her. Of course, Agnes and her sister were very much frightened at the apparition, which stood at the door, pointed her finger l- Mrs. Moodie. 95 gure Ihind rere Ition, nger at Agnes, hissed at her, and then disap- peared. Other stories followed, equally interesting, in which Mrs. Moodie, it was evident, firmly believed. It was during her long and lonely resi- dence in the woods that Mrs. Moodie per- formed most of her literary work. While her husband was away crushing the Rebel- lion, she wrote her * Roughing It in the Bush,' which did more to establish her fame in Canada and in England than any of her previous productions. It is probably the best picture we have of Canadian life at that time, and written in a style of com- position charming, if only on account of its ease. Undisturbed by household cares, she wrote no less than fifteen books for children ; a larger work, * Life in the Clearings,' and in addition contributed a mass of matter to the old Canadian Literary Garland^ sufficient to fill several large volumes. * I remember seeing Carlyle once,' she said, ' but he was 96 To Canada with Einip'ants. such a crabbed-looking man that I did not care to make his acquaintance. In fact, his appearance was quite the reverse of pleasing, but he was an honest, close-fisted man, I dare say.' She had a good deal to say of Cruikshank, who lived next door to Pringle. ' I went to hear Dan O'Connell,' she con- tinued, ' on the Anti-Slavery question. He was completely dressed in green — green coat, green vest, green pants — everything green but his boots. I was greatly amused at his opening remark, " Ladies and gentle- men," he began, " England reminds me in this great question of a large lion that has been sleeping a good many years, com- mencing to rouse itself, stretch, yawn, and wag its tail." For days after, that lion, with its wagging tail, came visibly before me.' She also remembered Shiel, who began his speech in Exeter Hall, then quite a new building, by saying that he was afraid he would not be able to make himself heard, V \ v I Mrs. Moodie. 97 and then roared so that he might have been heard at Somerset House. She saw the man in armour proclaim King William in Cheapside, and it touched her to tears when all the people cried : ' God save the King !' * At one time,' she said, ' I helped Pringle to edit one of his annuals. Proctor sent in his poem on " The Sea, the Sea," and after reading it I recommended it for publication, but Pringle rejected it. However, after- wards he found out his mistake when the poem, published in another channel, brought fame to its author.' Mrs. Moodie seemed to think that it was a great privilege to have been in London while the Catholic Emancipation Act and the Reform Bills were carried, and still in her comfortable house in Toronto loves to talk of the bustle and excitement of the time. I was privileged twice to see her, and then we parted, never more to meet — in this world, at least. ■ 7 98 To Canada unth Emigrants. Near Peterborough, about a hundred and fifty miles from Toronto, I found another far-famed Canadian authoress, Mrs. Traill, whose * Backwoods of Canada,' published when I was a lad by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful and Entertaining Know- ledge, and now, I believe, by Messrs. Rout- ledge and Sons, was a delight to me in my young days. I remember her well as a young woman, tall and stately, with a wonderful flow of talk — enthusiastic as a worshipper of nature — ever ready to write of Suffolk lanes, with all their richness of floral and animal life ; of Suffolk copses, where the birds sang, and the partridge and the pheasant and the timid hare found shelter ; of farmers, then merry, and of peasants, then contented with their humble lot. In person she was attractive, the most so, to my mind, of all the Strickland family, and she was very stately in manner, for was jllrs. TrailL 99 oi so, lily, was not her maiden naaie Katherine Parr Strick- land, and had she not some of the blood of that family allied to royalty in her veins ? The Stricklands came of an ancient and honoured line, and besides that, there is a great deal in names, as the reader of * Tristram Shandy * and * Kenelm Chillingly * perfectly understands. What could you expect of a Katherine Parr Strickland but queenly manner, as assuredly the young lady who bore that name had ? When I was a lad, she married a Major Traill, and accompanied her sister, Mrs. Moodie, to Canada. I cannot think how ladies thus tenderly nursed could have done anything of the kind — or, having done it, how they could have survived the hardships they were called to endure. The lot in their case was by no mf^ans cast in pleasant places. Mrs. Moodie, in her delightful book, * Rough- ing It in the Bush,' says : ' A large number of the immigrants were officers of the army and navy, with their families — a class per- 7—2 ■SSm lOD To Canada luilh Eniii^j^ants. fectly unfitted by their previous habits and standing in society for contending with the stern realities of emiorant life in the back- woods. A class formed mainly from the younger scions of great families, naturally proud, and not only accustomed to command, but to receive implicit obedience from the people under them, are not men adapted to the hard toil of the woodman's life.' Yet it was to such a life Major Traill took his handsome and accomplished wife : but Mrs. Traill in her backwoods settlement was not forgetful of the literary vocation to which she had dedicated her early youih. I have already referred to her * Backwoods of Canada * ; that was in due time followed by a volume equally worthy of public favour, under the title of * Ramblings in a Canadian Forest.' Indeed, she and her sister may claim to have been the pioneers of Canadian literature ; and their brother, Lieutenant- Colonel Strickland, may also claim to be Mrs, Traill. lOI an [ay [an it- Ibe placed in that category by his work, 'Twenty- seven Years in Canada West,' a record of his own experiences,, abounding with numerous realistic touches. He settled his family near his sister ; and at Lakefield, near Peter- borough, the residence of Mrs. Traill, there is quite a colony of Stricklands, who have all done well, so people tell me, at the lumber trade. I am glad I paid Mrs. Traill a visit. It was a long and wearisome ride, but I was well repaid by a short interview with one with whom I was familiar haK a century back. Lakefield is a charming spot, and Mrs. Traill's wooden but picturesque cottage overlooks a lovely scene of trees and hills, and water and grass. At any rate, in the early spring it has a neat little garden ; in new countries neat little gardens are rare. Mrs. Traill has seen great changes in her time. When she came there, there were only one or two houses in Peterborough ; all 102 To Canada icith Emigrants. was forest, and now it has a mayor and a town-hall, and is one of the nicest towns in that part of Canada. Mrs. Traill's cottage is fitted up with English comfort and taste. She has around her books and photographs of loving relatives. She showed me a book of hers recently published by Messrs. Nelson and Sons. As a Canadian authoress, she has done much to commemorate the beauty of Canadian forests, and writes of their floral charms with all the tenderness and grace with which I remember her sketches of East Anglian rural life were richly adorned. She is now hard at work with a new volume on Canadian lichens and flowers. As we stood talking at the window — the sun- beams played gaily on the blue waters of the lake or river beneath (in Canada there are so many rivers and lakes that you can scarcely tell which is which, or where the one ends or the other begins) — fairy flowers were begin- ning to gem her lawn ; and the American Old Ladies in Canada. 103 robin redbreast, a far larger bird than ours, and other birds, still more graceful, flew among the trees — I felt how, in such a spot, one weary of the world could lead a tranquil life. Mrs. Traill must be an advanced octo- genarian—she is older than Mrs. Moodie, and Mrs. Moodie claims to be far over eighty. Yet Mrs. Traill retains her conver- sational power intact, and is full as ever of • the lore that nature brings,' and is as enthu- siastic as ever in its pursuit. As much as ever her manners are queenlike. They have never left her, in spite of all the hardships she has had to undergo as wife and mother in the wilderness, and her face still retains somethincf of the freshness and fairness of her youth. She is a wonderful old lady, and Canada must be a wonderful country for such. r i I CHAPTER VI. It OFF TO THE NORTH-WEST — NIAGARA — LAKE SUPERIOR THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY AT WINNIPEG. As in duty bound, I have reached Niagara Falls, and from motives equally conscientious forbear to trouble you with either poetry or prose on the scene that now meets my eye. In seeing them I have an advantage — that in this early season of the year I am alone and free from the crowd of visitors that sometimes infest the spot. As it is, there is quite enough of modern civilization there to disturb the poetry of the place ; and the scream of the steam-engine sadly interferes with the enjoy- ment of that everlasting roar which rises as Niagara. 105 ite irb Ihe as the vast body of waters tumbles over the falls — raising up majestic mountains of mist — and then sweeps grandly to the rapids, in the raging whirlpools of which poor Captain Webb lost his life, or, in plainer words, com- mitted suicide. Then there are the cabmen, who will not give you a moment's peace, and affect not to understand you when you intimate that you prefer to walk rather than to ride ; and a grand walk it is, about a mile from the station on the Canadian side. Far, far below is the river — a chasm in a mass of old dark rock — into which you peer with wondering eyes till the brain is almost dizzy. Words fail to convey the impressions, as passing cloud and fleeting sunshine add to the mar- vellous beauty of the spot. I scrambled down to where the ferry-boat is, and drank in all the charm of the place, not caring to be ferried across, quite satisfied with watching the eternal fall of water as I sat there — a mere human speck in that mysterious gran- io6 To Canada with Emigrants. dtiur. The white man has come and made the place his own. He has now thrown three bridges across it, and on the American side has built a brewery, whose * Niagara ales' are famous all over the American Continent. I am glad to say that it is only on the Canadian side that you have a good view of the Falls ; but on neither side is there what there ought to be, a wilderness. On each side there are houses and hotels, and churches, all the way ; and I was offered Guinness's Dublin Stout and Bass's Pale Ale, just as if I were dining in a Fleet Street restaurant. On r^y return I met a funeral procession. Death had come into one of the wooden houses on the side, and the friends and relatives had ridden in their buggies and country carts to pay the last tribute of respect to the deceased. Yes ; death is lord of life — in the New World as well as in the Old. i went then by way of Hamilton, through a district as fertile and as well-farmed as any Hamilton, 107 leir last js ; as ,gh iny in England, looking far more civilized than any part I have yet seen. There are no stumps of trees in the ground, as there are elsewhere, and the houses look as if they had been built long enough to allow of home comforts ; and, as Hamilton is the place to which many of our poor lads are sent, I was glad to feel that in such a district they would have few hardships to encounter, and would have every chance of getting on. Here at one time there were bears and wolves ; but they have long since disappeared before the march of their master, man. It is not so long since there was quail shooting on the very site of the city of Toronto, and hawks would carry off the chickens the earlier emigrants were attempting painfully to rear, and the Indians were also unwelcome cfuests. I have heard of an old Scotch settler who, as his last resort, invoked the aid of bagpipes, where- with to frighten his unwelcome guests ; but even that did not frighten the Indians, who io8 To Canada with Emigrants. carried off the contents of his potato ground, undisturbed by a musical performance which would have struck terror into the stoutest English heart. Well, all that wild forest region is now the home of peace and plenty, and distant be the day when Professor Gold- win Smith's idea will be realized, and it has been peacefully annexed by the United States. Out in Canada that idea finds little favour. Why should it ? It is a favourite boast with Americans that Canada will ulti- mately be theirs. I am sure that is not a favourite idea of the Canadians themselves. Great Britain, it is to be hoped, will be as loyal to Canada as Canada is to her. The thing is not to be settled quite so easily as Professor Goldwin Smith anticipates. In Quebec Province we have a million of French Canadians, who make no secret of their preference to a French rather than an English alliance, and who are quite prepared to act accordingly, as soon as British au- The Ftitnre of Canada. 109 so les. of of laii red LU- thority shall have become relaxed. Then we have the Acadlans of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow the lead of French Canada; nor could the few Britishers of New Brunswick and Prince Edvvarl Island escape the same fate. France is quite pre- pared to increase her influence in this part of the world. Indeed, at the present moment there is talk of her buying the island of Anticosti, Avhich, as you may be aware, though almost uninhabited now — save in the summer, when the fishermen go there — makes a very respectable appearance in the river St. Lawrence. Then we come to Ontario, which, placed as she is, could not withstand an attack from the United States. Once upon a time the Yankees did make an attempt of the kind — that was in 1837 — an attempt which the loyal men of Canada helped Sir Francis Head to put down. Toronto escaped, though she had the enemy no To Canada luith Emigrants. at her very gates. I must say that all the Canadians with whom I have spoken have no wish to become Americans. For one thing, they say they can't afford it. Govern- ment is more costly in America than in Canada. I admit as much as anyone the right of the people to decide their fate. If the Canadians prefer to live under the star- spangled banner, it is vain for us to attempt to retain them. But the danger is the indifference of the English public as to the value of such a colony as that of Canada, a country bigger than all Europe, and at present with a sparse population only equalling that of London. A few brief facts will show the importance of the North-West to the English, not merely as a field for emigration, but for other reasons as well. From Liverpool to Winnipeg, via Hudson's Bay, the distance is less by i,ioo miles than by way of the St. Lawrence, and they ani now talking of making a railway along that I ;!i 1 The Canadian Pacific. 1 1 1 m's lan hat route. From Liverpool to China and Japan, via the northern route, the distance is i,ooo miles shorter than by any other line. It is really 2,000 miles shorter than by San Francisco and New York. How immense, then, will be the power which the posses- sion of Hudson's Bay, and of the railway route through to the Pacific, must confer upon Great Britain, so long as she holds it under safe control ! — and where is the nation that can prevent her so holding it, as long as her fleets command the North Atlantic ? It is utterly inconceivable that English states- men would be found so mad or so unpatriotic as thus to throw away the key of the world's commerce, by neglecting or surrendering British interests in the North-West. Our great cities would not sanction such a policy for an instant. England could better afford to give up the Suez Canal, or be rid of her South African colonies. The interests of the two countries are inseparable. We require r" . ^ ■"." » •fviHi lu U la ■ 112' 7"^ Canada with Emigrants. the North-West to send us grain. She requires us as her best customer. Manitoba has her natural market in Great Britain, and in the near future Great Britain will have her best customers in Manitoba and the North- western Provinces. It is to the credit of the Canadians — that is, if figures may be trusted — that they spend less on drink, and more on education, than we do in the Old Country. Party feeling runs high ; but it is difficult to an outsider to understand what is the line of separation between the ins and the outs. An English writer tells us that she once asked a member of the Greek Opposition in Parliament, what was the difference between them and the Government. * Why,' was his reply, * it is this. If M. Tricoupi says we want railroads, we say, *' No ; we want canals." If he says a thing must be done by horses, w^e say, "No; it must be done by oxen.'" It is just the same here. Politics ill Canada. 113 the other What one party proposes tne otner opposes. The present rulers rode into power on the wings of Protection. They are Tories ; but it is to be feared the Liberals would have done the same, had they had a chance. It is the fashion to use very bad language, and to imply the worst of motives to your op- ponents ; and it is in this easy way the Canadian newspapers fill up their columns when they are not — and this seems their great mission — quarrelling with one another. The country farmers, who are much keener men of business than their fellow farmers in the Old Country, care little about politics. At the last election a friend of mine said to a farmer, * Have you voted ?' * Oh yes !' was the reply. ' Well, for which party ?* Ah, that was a question he could not answer. He had voted as his neighbour told him ; and he knew that his neiijhbour was a real good man, and that he would not give him bad advice. So long as voters . 8 114 ^<^ Canada ivith Emi^i^rants. are thus simple, elections will be a mockery and a sham. I have left Toronto behind, and here I am on Lake Superior, the largest body of fresh water in the world — so large is it, that if you immerse in it Great Britain and Ireland, and add the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight, there would still be a respectable amount of water to spare — enough, at any rate, to make a river as long as the Thames, which we in England hold to be a very decent sort of river indeed. As I came up the St. Lawrence, some of the Canadians, who are, as they may well be, proud of their grand river, asked me what I thought of it. My reply was that for a colony so young, it was a very tidy sort of river indeed ; and I may say the same of the enormous body of water on which I am now floating. It is a big thing indeed — as might be expected, where both Canada and the United States contribute to its bigness. We are in the middle of the lake, having Michigan Lake Superior, 115 ran on one side. Already we have stopped twice — once to take a pilot, and then again at Le Sault, where we had to stay while we waited our turn to enter the canal which connects the Georgian Bay to Lake Superior. There, indeed, we were made conscious of the fact that we were within the United States, as the banner of the stars and stripes floated proudly on each side of us, and there were a few soldiers in blue regimentals standing on the wharf, to say nothing of loafers, and boys and girls and half-breeds, to welcome our arrival. For one thing I felt proud of my country. The Americans have nothing here equal to the Algoma^ a crack steamer built on the Clyde for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and to which, at this present moment, are entrusted Cccsar and his fortunes. It is only the second trip the Algoma has made, as for the greater season of the year this immense water-way, incredible as it seems to us, is a solid block of ice, and we have it all around us still. I 8—2 ii6 To Canada ivith EuiioTants. board(id the Algonia on Saturday afternoon, after a rapid run by rail from Toronto, which city we left in themorninL^ at half-past eleven, and I assure you I was glad the journey was safely over, as once or twice it seemed to me, at one or two of the curves, the cars were very near leaving the rails ; and the boy — they are all boys here — who had to attend to the brake, gave me a grin, as if he thought that we had much to be thankful for that we kept the track at all. I presume I shall get used to that sort of thing, but at present the sensation experienced in rounding some of the curves is more novel than agreeable. We are a very miscellaneous company on board, chiefly Toronto traders and stalwart boys from Manitoba, who have been enjoying a holiday in Upper Canada, and emigrants. Gloves are unknown, likewise hats and shirt- collars are the exception rather than the rule. As to having one's boots blackened, that is rather an expensive luxury, when you re- Boot Blacl'iiio-. ir; le. is 'e- collcct the charge is fivepence a pair, and no one on board apparently has had his boots blackened for the last week or two ; and I question much whether I shall require any of Day and Martin till I get back to Toronto again — an event which will take place appa- rently about the time of the Greek kalends. Hitherto I have managed the blacking diffi- culty most effectively. As far as Toronto I travelled with my London friend, who, aware of the custom of the country, had provided himself with the needful materials for the fitting amount of polish, and who generously permitted me to reap the benefit of his superior knowledge. My first attempt, I fear, was a failure. In my bedroom at the hotel I set to work, and soon acquired the requisite amount of polish ; but, alas ! I had forgotten the effect of blacking on clean sheets, and to my horror I discovered the bed-linen was, at any rate, as plentifully covered with black- ing as ' them precious boots.' However, I X fr3 did not regret the catastrophe, as I hoped it might teach the landlord it would be cheaper to get the boots of his guests blackened in an efficient manner, than to leave such unskilful amateurs as myself to do it on their own account. Life on board the Algoma is as agreeable as can well be imagined. We have three good meals a day. I am writing in a mag- nificent saloon, nearly three hundred feet long, and if the nights are cold, as they always are on the lakes, I have a cabin all to myself, and by heaping the bed-clothes for two berths on my bed, and throwing a heavy great-coat over them, I manage to keep myself warm for the night. The scenery by day is magnificent, as we sail in and out among a thousand isles, all richly wooded to the water's edge, with here and there a little village, or small settle- ment, where the woodmen ply their calling — the results of which may be seen now in a raft being towed by a '£>» ipped Out on the Lake. 119 down to Liverpool or Glasgow, or in stacks of planks along the shore. Further behind is the mainland, with rock and wood in endless succession. At Sault St. Marie, the river is celebrated for its fish, and as you pass through the canal, you have plenty of Indian canoes paddling about, with a man at the stern to seize the fish by a hand-net : the white fish of Lake Superior is held to be a great delicacy. After a day and night, we get into the open lake, out of sight of land, and then we land at Port Arthur, whence we take the train to Winnipeg, where I hope to hear a scrap of English news. I have but one complaint to make, and that is, on the Sunday we had no service of any kind. I am not, nor ever was, a stickler for forms ; but there are times, especially as many now on board may be planted far away from any religious observance, when it seems to me a simple service might be the means of strengthening old impressions, and perhaps * TF'* 1 20 y^o Canada with Emigrants. planting new ones. One thinks of that fine old hymn of Andrew Marvel's : * What can we do but sing His praise, Who guides us through the watery maze ?' And an hot" or so thus spent, surely may be quite as helpful to the higher life we all dream of, at any rate, as the favourite occu- pation of the majority — smoking and spitting, or the study of the maps of the district to which we are all rapidly approaching. I had a queer chat this morning with an old Canadian farmer who landed at Le Sault. He was pleased to hear that I had been at Yarmouth in Norfolk. His mother was a Clarke of Yarmouth. Did I know any of the Clarkes of Yarmouth ? I replied that I had not that pleasure, but that I knew many of the Clarkes, and that they were a highly- respectable family indeed. Well, I have now done with Ontario, and you ask me what I think of it ? I reply that it is a beautifLil country, and that it has room f t . i J A Field for Emigration, 121 for any amount of farm labourers and servant girls. I have been talking with a gentleman this morning, who tells me that he pays his groom about £6 a month, and that he boards him as well. He tells me of a Scotch Lbourer who came out without £\ in his pocket, and who has just died worth ^12,000. At Ottawa I saw a large lumber-yard worth many thousand pounds, which was the property of one who came from England as a working man. As to mechanics, I fear the case is different. In Ontario, in all the towns, the mechanics have strong unions, and they do all they can to keep out emigrants of that class, fearing that their own wages will be reduced. This dog-in-the-manger policy pre- vails everywhere, and many mechanics, directly they land, are thus frightened by them, and want to get back to England at once. There are two sides to every question. All I can say is, that while a mechanic's repre- sentative, at Montreal, was telling me that 122 To Canada zvith Emigrants. If there, was no room for mechanics, and was doing all he could to induce those who came out with me to return to England at once, I saw an advertisement with my own eyes in a local paper (I am sorry I have forgotten the name) »r f-ve hundred mechanics, who were immedkitely wanted. A man who has got a good situation in England would be a fool to give it up and come out ; but I believe a mechanic who has a head on his shoulders — who is young and in good health, and knows how to take advantage of his situation — may find a living even in Ontario. This is my deliberate conviction, after all I have seen and heard, and with the full knowledge that in Montreal, and Ottawa, and Toronto, there is a pauper class as badly off as any of the denizens of our London slums. The people I most pity are the young fellows who in England have had the training of gentlemen, and who are sadly out of place in Canada, and whom the Canadian mothers dread, The IVrono- Sort. 123 fearing that they may corrupt the native youth. Many of them, however, are decent fellows ; but nevertheless, there is no room for them, unless they go out to Manitoba, and get some farmer to give them board and lodging for their work. I parted with quite a pang with one such on Friday, at Toronto. He was the nephew of a well-known noble lord, and really seemed a very decent sort of fellow. ' What can you do ?' I said to him. * Oh, I can row and play cricket,' was his reply. Unfortunately, Canada is not much of a country for cricket — the summer season is loo short ; and I felt that my young friend, unless he could turn his hand to something more useful or lucrative, had better have remained at home. The pleasant steamship journey ended, I landed at Port Arthur — a town situated in one of th' loveliest bays I have yet seen, almost surrounded by weird and fantastic rocks — with a view to run by the Canadian 124 ^^ Canada zuiih EmigTants. racific as far as Winnipeg. As I landed a bill met my eye : ' Wanted, a hundred rock- men and fifty labourers ;' and that seemed to me an indication that emigrants need not go begging for work in that particular locality. Port Arthur, which stands near the ancient Hudson Bay Company's station of Fort Wil- liam, was in a state of intense activity. Every one was building wooden houses and shops who could do so. According to all appear- ances, it is certainly a busy place ; but archi- tecturally I cannot say that it is of much account. The main street opens on to the railway, along which the engines, ringing a doleful bell in order to bid passengers keep out of the way, pass every few minutes. Then there are wooden shops and wooden hotels, and the usual concourse of rough, un- washed, half-dressed loafers in the streets. Behind them is the forest and In front the bay, with its waters almost as clear as those of the Baltic, and almost as blue as those of ( Port Artlmr. 1 2 FP s. lie Ise lof Naples, Yet I certainly got very heartily tired of Port Arthur, and so, I am sure, did all my travelling companions, who sat on the planks or on the wooden pa\ lUent, which, being raised above the road, made passable seats, or on the bits of rock which the rail- way builders had been too busy to remove, wondering at what hour the train would start. I pitied the poor emigrants, with their child- ren, and their beds, and their household fur- niture, as they sat there, hour after hour, in that hot and sandy street. We landed at eleven, having made the whole distance from Toronto — a run of about eight hundred miles — in exactly two days and two nights — not quite so long as Jonah was in the whale's belly, but we certainly got over more giound than he did. When were we to start } No one knew. It takes a long time to get out ;/^4,ooo worth of freight and passengers' lug- gage, and that is what the Algonia had on board. The worst of railway travelling in 126 To Canada luith Emigrants. Canada is that there is no one of whom you can ask a question. There may be a station- master, there may be a whole herd of officials, there may be an army of porters, but Cana- dians in one respect resemble the Americans — and that is, that they think it inconsistent with their manly dignity to wear any kind of garb which can in any possible way distinguish them from the crowd of lookers-on, always to be met with in a railway station, so that the railway traveller is always in a perplexity. When we got on shore we were told that we should start in half an hour. Then came word that we were to be off at half-past one, and so, as soon as the cars were made up, we joyfully climbed into them — and the steps are in many cases so high that it is hard work climbing into them ; but still we were no further on our way, and it was not till a little before four that, after rrany false starts, v/e could fairly believe that we were off. Oh, it was wearisome work, but then it may be Raihoay Cars. 127 ire )rk I no Itle Iv/e I be asked, Whoever travels on a railway for plea- sure ? It is true these big American cars ha e certain advantages ours lack. You can change your position ; you can talk without breaking a blood-vessel ; and you can see more of the country, especially as they do not go the pace we are accustomed to at home ; but there is such a confusion of persons In them, that to one accustomed to the society to be met with in an English first-class car- riage, the result is anything but pleasing. In the Canadian first-class carriage Jack and his master ride side by side, unless the latter takes a berth in a sleeping car, for which he has to pay extra. As I did not feel inclined to give three dollars for a night's unquiet rest, I took my chance with the first-class car company, and I can assure you that by the time the dim grey of morning glimmered on the horizon, I had heartily repented of my decision. The night was so cold that every- thing in the way of ventilation was stopped ■pnpi 128 To Canada ivitJi Eniioranis. I lip. The car was quite full, and few of my fellow travellers seemed to have had much regard for soap and water. It is true there was a lavatory attached to the car, but there was neither water nor soap nor towels, and the neatness of the lavatory in other repects only seemed to me to make matters worse. I must say that the car, which was built in Canada, was a remarkably handsome one, with its dark wood panels beautifully carved, and its seats all lined with red velvet ; yet when I left it in the morning; it was in a filthy state. I also found in it agreeable society, but there were many who could not truthfully be included in such a category — rough men and women with whom in England you would not care to travel in a third-class carriage : but I am an Englishman, and may be par- doned for not knowing any better. It is to the same defect, perhaps, that I may trace the disappointment I felt at the refreshment sheds, in which we were permitted to snatch Travelling. 129 a hasty meal, waited on by a man in shirt- sleeves. Certainly we do that part of our business better at home. The Canadian Pacific have a dining-room of their own at Winnipeg, and there, if possible, the traveller should endeavour to secure a meal. But oh, that ride ! I shall never forget it. Burns tells us that Nature tried her 'prentice hand on man ' And then she made the lassies, oh !' I think Nature must have made that part of Canada which lies between Port Arthur and Winnipeg before she tried her hand on Great Britain and Ireland. It is true some part of it has an exquisite combination of wood and water and rod;, but the greater part was either forest or gigantic plains or valleys of stone — which seemed to shut all hope from the spectator. In Canada — that is, along the railway lines — there is little life in the forest, few flowers display their loveliness, and no 9 130 To Canada with Emigrants. song-birds warble in the trees. All is still — or would be, were it not for the peculiar croaking of the frogs, to be heard like so niany hoarse whistles from afar. You go miles and miles without seeing a farm or even a log-hut. In one place I saw an Indian wigwam, much resembling a gipsy's tent, and a large canoe ; but dwellings of any kind are the exception, not the rule. The train every now and then stops, but you see no station, and why we stop is only known to the engine- driver. We take no passengers up, and we set none down, or hardly ever. The people who get in at Port Arthur only want to be taken to Winnipeg. There is no traffic along the line, because there are no inhabitants along the line, and for the greater part of the way it is not only a solitary ride, but a rough one as well. As you get nearer Winnipeg, the road is easier, and the pace is more rapid. You leave behind you rocks and forests, and reach an open plain on which you see, *^ A Barren Land. '31 :he id. nd ee, perhaps, a dozen cows, where millions might fatten and feed. A good deal of this land, I am told, belongs to the half-breeds. In time it is to be hoped that they may utilize it more than they seem to do now. A great change is impending over this part of the world. Even that stony district of which 1 wrote, and which seemed to me as the abomination of desolation, is, I hear, full of mineral wealth, which will be brought to light as soon as a certain boundary difficulty is settled — Ontario and Manitoba at present are each contending for the prize — and the decision of the question must shortly take place. Perhaps the one thing that has most struck me with admiration is the pluck which has given birth to the Canadian Pacific Railway, by means of which the emigrant is taken from his landing in Quebec to his destination on the slopes of the Pacific, without ever leaving the Canadian soil. It is a patriotic 9—2 132 To Cafiada with Emigrants. enterprise, for under the former system the emigrant who intended to settle in Canada, and who, in reality, was wanted there, was often tempted to change his mind and to settle in the United States. It was a bold enterprise, for tlie cost was enormous, and Canada is not a wealthy country. It vvas an enterprise which was made the subject of party conflict. Appalling difficulties have I'.ad to be surmounted by the engineers. Yet all have been vanquished, and in a few months this grand scheme will be an accom- plished fact, and you will be carried direct from one side of this enormous continent to the other. I think Sir John Macdonald is to be congratulated for the courage and tenacity he has displayed on the subject, through good or bad report, and too much praise cannot be awarded to Mr. Georg°: Stephens, who has been the ruling spirit and life of the undertaking from the first, and I am sure that such railway officials as those I have I Canada hi Scotland, 133 >ure lave met, such as Mr. Van Home, have proved loyal coadjutors, evincing a similar wide grasp of mind and readiness of resource for which Sir John himself is distinguished. In England they are well represented by Mr. Begg, who, as he knows the district well, can speak of it with a confidence and certainty possessed by no one dse. It is to him the credit must be given of the Manitoba farm in the Forestry Exhibition at Edinburgh last autumn, which was visited with much interest by the Prince of Wales and Mr. Gladstone, and to which I was glad to see, for I was there several days, the Scotch farmers and agriculturists paid particular attention. Such men are an honour to Canada, and may be ranked amongst its best friends. It is to them that Canada owes her present proud position and ability to find happy homes for the tens of thousands of England and the Continent, whom she has rescued from starvation, and whom she has placed in 134 To Canadc ivith Emigrants. the way to insure wealth and health and happiness. I find even poor persecuted Jews driven from Russia on this fertile land, who, under these favouring skies, have learned to become prosperous farmers. One may well be proud of Canada, and be proud to think Canada belongs to us. When Bret Harte asks, * Is our civilization a failure, Is the Caucasian played out ?' I answer in Canada with an emphatic Not Canada is redolent of industrial success. The very air of the place is full of hope. Not only has the Canadian Pacific Railway opened up the country, but it has established experimental farms in different parts, in order to test the capabilities of the soil and the advantages or disadvantages of the climate. It is said, and extensively believed, that the soil between Moose Jaw and Calgary is made up of desert and alkali lands, and entirely unfit for cultivation. With a view to correct ii liiiiiiiiiii It ;'i'iir'ii''':^i^'!:;i'ii;:'',li' /I'; m ,:;i1ilfi ,!:i:!^i",i i^:, ill, ,. f^i;' 'V !l ■,:■,,:. 1,1. •: i'V^t'^ ^M^, ;'*'■," J: iv;ii ,l?y.'' I: ■ ■fi^'* „iiit' ' ^Aiii Ills o A G S5 O Q o o u en ■\^-^«aii»ie CALICO ISLAND, 3ASKAI CllEWAN UIVKH, CANADIAN NOK'IH-WES! . To face p. 135. I I 1 k-WES'I'. >t'/. 135- Experimental Farms. 135 that idea, ten farms were established at the following stations: i, Secretan ; 2, Rush Lake ; 3, Swift Current ; 4, Gull Lake ; 5, Maple Creek ; 6, Forres ; 7, Dunmore ; 8, Stair (these two being the nearest stations east and west of Medicine Hat at the crossing of the Saskatchewan River) ; 9, Tilley, and 10, Gleichen, the last being within view of the Rocky Mountains. The breaking through- out was found to be easy, the soil in every case good and in most instances excellent, rankinor with the choicest lands in the Com- pany's more eastern belt : wherever the rating of the soil is lowered, according to the Com- pany's standard, owing to its being of a lighter grade, tlie inferiority will be compensated for by the certainty of the grain maturing more rapidly. In a pamphlet just issued it is stated that the average from all the farms was as follows : 'Wheat 2\\ bushels; oats, 44-4-; barley, 23^; peas, \2\. 136 To Canada luitJi Emigrants. \% * The above yields were ascertained by accurately chaining the ground and weighing the grain, this work being done by a qualified Dominion Land Surveyor, and the results, both favourable and otherwise, have been fully given. ' At each farm about one acre of spring wheat and oats were sown and harrowed in in the fall when breaking was done. Much of this grain germinated during the mild weather of November and December, at which time it showed green above the ground, and as a consequence it was nearly all killed during the winter, and the ground had to be resown in spring. Some small pieces of wheat which were not entirely killed out were left ; and, though the straw showed a rank growth, with heads and grain much larger than that sown in spring, the crop ripened very unevenly and much later. Fall sowing of spring wheat, which has proved successful in Manitoba, is not likely to be a success in the Resulls. 12,7 western country, as the winter is much more mild and open, and the grain liable to germinate and be killed. Fall wheat has not, as far as we are aware, been tried, and there seems no reason why it should not prove successful. ' The results obtained, considering the manp'^r in which the land was treated, proved much more satisfactory than was anticipated, and show — * I St — That for grain growing, the land in this section of country is capable of giving as large a wheat yield per acre as the heavier lands of Manitoba. * 2nd — That a fair crop can be obtained the first year of settlement on break- ing. ' 3rd — That for fall seeding with spring grain on the western plains, a satisfactory result cannot be looked for with any degree of certainty. ' 4th — That cereals, roots, and garden pro- 'oS To Canada with E7nigra7its. duce can be successfully raised at an elevation of 3,000 feet above the sea-level. ' 5th — That seeding can be done sufficiently early to allow of all the crop being harvested before the first of September.' And I hear of many who have done well — some of whom came out without a rap— and who enjoy a robust health unknown to them at home. , Perhaps nowhere has a village so suddenly sprung up into a city as at Winnipeg, which first obtained notoriety by the advent of Lord Garnet Wolseley, then a young man, who came to suppress the rebellion raised there by a half-breed of the name of Riel, a daring young French Canadian, wily as a savage, brilliant and energetic. In 1870 he appealed to the prejudices and i'ears of the half-breeds, and in a few days had 400 men at his back. Owing to the clemency — perhaps mistaken — of his captors, Riel escaped the punish- ment due to his crimes. In 1873 he was •<;^^^':, ; \ m,^^ Winnipeg. 139 :n enrolled as a member of Parliament, notwith- standing that at one time a reward of 5,000 dollars had been offered for his apprehension as a murderer. The name of Winnipeg was then little known outside Manitoba. It was built by traders, who wished to rival Fort Garrey, then the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, and to carry on a free trade on their own account. After the suppression of the rebellion, Manitoba had a local Par liament, which met at Winnipeg, and alsc sent its representatives to the Dominion Parliament. The place grev/ rapidly, though even at that time Mn Mackenzie, Sir John Macdonald's political opponent, declared that a cart track was good enough for Manitoba for many years to come. In 1875 the total population was 3,031 assessed and 2,000 non- assessed, which was a pretty respectable increase, considering that in 1869 there were hardly a hundred settlers in the place. As 140 To Canada with Emigrants. •I late as 1876 the sport of wolf-hunting was carried on by several of the inhabitants just outside the city. Now it has churches, banks, schools, manufactures, and mercantile men of great energy and high standing; and has become, especially since the Pacific Railway Company has made it one of their great stations, the gateway of the North-West. Settlers came crowding in from all quarters, and in ten months, in 1878, 600,592 acres of land were located. In 1879 Winnipeg boasted of a street extension of ^'^ miles, and then came the bridge over the Red River to render the town easy of access to all new-comers. Intoxicated with success, what the Americans call a * boom ' was created a year or two since, which seemed to have made everyone lose his wits. There was no end to speculation in town lots ; merchants, tradesmen, professional men, could think of iiuthing else. The bottom, however, soon fell out, and at this time Winnipeg is in rather a depressed state; but Shops and Streets, 141 it is clear, from its peculiar position, that this depression can only be temporary. It is destined to be the great distributing and rail- way centre of the vast North- West. The town has now a population of 26,000, and three daily papers, besides weekly ones. Ten years hence, it is predicted, she will be ten times her present size. Her wharves will be lined with steamboats ; her river-banks with ele- vators ; industries and manufactures will spring up in her midst, and her streets will be fuller of life than they are to-day. Winnipeg stands low, and at certain seasons — that is, when the thaw commences — it is liable to floods ; but the air is singularly pure and bracing — while I write the sky is an azure blue — and the hottest days are followed by cool nights. The inhabitants all seem to be in the possession of good health. Then the water was said to be bad, whereas I find it to be quite the reverse. The supply of gas is poor, and it seems rarely used. The one great drawback is Winnipeg mud. 142 To Canada luith Emis'yants. The streets, all of them, are as broad as Portland Place, only with handsomer shops. I fear in wet weather they must be almost im- passable. As it is, the sides are now dried up, s if they were ploughed, and carriages seem to make their way with considerable difficulty; but there is a magnificent broad wooden side walk to all the streets, while in the middle sufficient smoothness has been attained for the due working of street rail- ways, which seem to be in a satisfactory condition. I have also been agreeably dis- appointed with the hotels, which I was told were all bad and all tremendously dear. On the contrary, I have found in the new Douglas Hotel, in the main street, as good accom- modation as I require, and at a very reasonable rate; while the proprietor — Mr. Bennett, a worthy Scotchman — does all he can for the comfort of his guests, having introduced into this far distant land all the latest improvements, such as heating the Religion in Winnipeg. 143 t place by steam and the use of electric bells. A walk in the city is amusing. Grand shops and well-built offices everywhere attract the eye. Ladies in the latest fashion meet you one minute, and the next you jostle a swarthy Indian, half civilized, and his squaw, still less civilized than himself. Odd fur- skins are exposed fpr sale, while a stuffed bear adorns the main street, up and down which run all day long the newsboys with the latest telegrams from London, or Paris, or New York. To-day I have seen a photo- graph of the original fireman of the * Rocket/ who lives here, and has made a large fortune by contracts. Unfortunately, at this time he is absent from home, and I fear I shall not have a chance of interviewing him. Religion flourishes here. There are about fifteen churches and chapels in the city, and the Young Men's Christian Association is in a very successful condition. Of Protestant ■/" i 144 To Canada tvith Emigrants. bodies, the leading ones are the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Episcopalians. In connection with the Cathedral of St. Boniface, the oldest church in the city, it is interesting to note that the bells came originally from Birmingham, by Hudson's Bay, and that after the destruction of the building the remains of the metal were gathered up and sent to Birmingham, whence they have again come back after an interval of three years. The city stands in the midst of a fertile plain, adequate to the support of any amount of population. But the land is far better further on. At Manitoba, for instance, the soil is much finer. Manitoba is an Indian name denoting the Voice of God. It seems that the rocks on the river are cavernous, and that at certain seasons of the year the wind strikes them with such force as to produce a singular reverberation, which the rude Indian, whose untutored miiid teaches him to see God in the cloud and hear Him in the wind. r s rti HUNTING SCENE ON THE SOURIS RIVER, MANITOBA. To face p. 145 ■>■ %. The Indians. M5 considered to be no less than the utterance of the Deity Himself. Just now people are rather exercised with the Indians, who have been placed in re- serves where they cannot get a living, and who, besides, find their location an unhealthy swamp. One of the Winnipeg journals is very indignant, and says this is what may be expected from the Government. From all 1 can learn, the Indians are sturdy maintainers of their rights, and take care that the Govern- ment shall not easily overreach them ; and perhaps, on the whole, the Indians are better off under Canadian than. they would be under American government. Indeed, people say they are very good fellows when uncorrupted by Englishmen. The emigrant in these parts must not be surprised at the occasional appearance of an Indian ; and perhaps it is well that the farmer takes care of his horses. I am sorry for the poor Indian, who is the original owner of the soil, and whom, per- lO 146 To Canada ivith Emigrants. haps, one day Mr. Henry George may see fit to visit with a viev; to the recovery of his rights and the redress of his wrongs. When that is the case, the emigrant will have to pack up and return to his native land. Till that is the case, however, he may safely cross the water, and avail himself of the advanti'^es offered him by the Dominion Government ; but to do that he must have at least ^200, and then he can stock his farm and keep him- self till the return for his labours comes in. * The worst of all our books on emigration, said the editor of one of the dailies to me, ' is that they give too glowing an estimate of the state of affairs. They say a farmer will do well with ;^ioo. This is not sufficient capital as a rule to start with. It is true there have been instances where settlers havci succeeded on this sum, but with such a sum as ;^200, Manitoba offers the farmer advantages such as no other place offers him.' Here, also, the regular farm-hand is sure of his living. I see ■^ •^^ Sio/is of Prosperity. M7 an attempt is being made by a gentleman, now in Winnipeg, to plant out a couple of hundred boys — and I hear there is room for them. But there is little building going on in Winnipeg, and the mechanic ..."^d not trouble himself to come here. Ar in Sis part are loud in condemnation of ..ii^, ation from the East-end of London. 7'hose poor of the East-end — alas ! neither me Old World nor the New seems to know what to do with them. Since this was written I see the Manitoba Mortgage and Investment Com- pany have declared a dividend of eight per cent., an indication that at any rate in their part of the world money is being made. IQ- CHAPTER VII. LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE. *You will tind Moose Jaw a very pretty place,' said a gentleman to me as I left Winnipeg ; ^*nd certainly it is a pretty place, though not exactly according to an English- man's idea of prettiness. It consists of a railway-station and an assemblage of wooden huts and shops, which have all been called into existence within the last twelve months. It boasts a weekly organ (such as it is), two or three places of worship, one or two billiard-rooms, and a post-office — not a tent, as in some parts of the country in which I have been, but a real wooden-house. The shopkeepers seem to have nothing to do, Life on the Prairie. 149 and the pigs perambulate the streets, evi- dently enjoying the fine freedom allowed them in this part of the world. There are at this time about 700 or 800 settlers, some of the farmers who came out last year having moved further west. I am writing in the railway-station, in the waiting-rooms of which are many farmers, all on their way to Calgary — for which place, also, I am bound, expecting Lo start at the very inconvenient hour of two p.m. The scene, as I sit, is not cheering. Far as the eye can reach there is the prairie. It was the same all the way from Winnipeg. It will be the same all the way to Calgary, some 400 or 500 miles hence. It is intensely hot, and men and women sit in the open air, under such shade as the wooden houses afford. It is intensely cold in the winter. Not a tree is to be seen, or a hill, or a farm- house ; nothing to relieve the monotony of the sea of grass land on every side, except F^^ 'mmmHmm vFti nm i 150 7o Canada li'ith Jijuip'rauts. here and there a prairie fire — the first step to be taken before the farmer commences the cultivation of the soil ; and I must own a prairie fire by night is rather a pretty sight. I parted last night with a General and his wife, who have come to settle about forty miles off. At present he and his family have no fresh meat, and he has to make an arrange- ment with a Brandon butcher, about a hundred and fifty miles off, to supply him with a Sun- day joint. Tinned meats his family have tried, and he has got with him a fresh joint of meat, which he purchased in Winnipeg ; but there are prairie chickens always to be had, and in some places, as we came along, we saw an abundance of wild ducks on the Assiniboine River, and in sv/amps, over which we rushed in the Pullman car. This luxury cannot be expected in Moose Jaw. Here there is no water at all. Last year the farmers had no rain, and they fear they will have none now. As it is, the Life on the Prairie. '5' Dose ast fear the prairie begins to look a little scorched. I should be loth to spend the remainder of my days here ; but a farmer may make a livinj^, and so may a farm-labourer. As to any other class of people here, there is no opening at all. The town is full of shopkeepers, barris- ters, auctioneers, and dealers. Mechanics who come c..: will starve. When the land around is taken up they will have a chance, but not till then. As I sit, a dark figure beckons me to come to him. He has a Jim Crow hat, a blanket around his martial form, and a gayer one in front. He has rings in his ears, bracelets on his arms, and a string of some kind of beads around his neck. He offers me his hand, and I shake it. Then I commence a conver- sation. * What you called?' I say. He makes an unintelligible reply. ' You Smith, or Brown, or Jones, or Robinson }' I ask ; and again he gives an unintelligent grunt I offer him a cigar, and he sits down on his (T 152 7^0 Canada with Etiiigrants. haunches 'in the shade. He is one of the Black Bull men, who have been chased from the States, in consequence of having made that part of the world too hot for them. They are not natives of this country, but have settled in the prairie two or three miles off. I tell him to be a good boy, and I dare say he will obey my injunction as literally as any other man in England or anywhere else. Again I look, and two red-coated warriors greet me. They are on the look-out for contraband, and are as fine and clean and well-set fellows as any I have seen anywhere. They belong to the mounted police, and live chiefly in the saddle, as there are but five hundred of them to all this gigantic North- West. I had already made their acquaintance. At the first station we came to after leavincr Manitoba, one of them came into the car, gave a searching glance all round, and then walked out. * What was that for ?' I asked the General. ' Oh ! he has come to see if we Life on the Prairie, 15 have any whisky. They are very particular. I was coming this way once, when a fellow traveller took out his pocket flask and began drinking. The mounted policeman who saw him do it immediately took his flask from him, and emptied it there and then,' This strict prohibition is the result, not of the prevalence of Temperance sentiment in the North-West, but rather of fear of the Indians, who are better shots than the mounted police, although not so well pro- vided with fire-arms. The people seem to anticipate that the law will be relaxed when the whites are more numerous and the Indians fewer. The law has had good results, nevertheless. In obedience to it the German gives up his lager-beer. And next to the Scotch the Germans make the best emigrants. The General tells me such is the fineness of the climate that he finds he can get on very well without his customary glass of 154 '^0 Canada luith Emigrants. grog. At Moose Jaw the inhabitants take to Hop Bitters instead, and one of the insti- tutions of the place is the Hop Bitters Brewery. I believe you may keep whisky if you get a permit, and a permit is not difficult, I understand, to get. I am sorry to say the General, in spite of the mounted police, offered me a drop of whisky, and at a later period a friend, as we sat smoking, asked me if I was ready for a ' smile.' Of course, in my ignorance, I replied in the affirmative. Diving under his seat, he brought out a fine bottle of real Scotch, and, mixing it with water, offered me a * smile.' You may be sure I indignantly refused. You cannot expect me to be a party to the violation of the law. These Indians just now are creating a little apprehension, especially the tribe under the renowned Yellow Calf, who it was hoped had taken to farming, and who last year had Life on the Prairie. OD a Ler )ed lad a good crop, and bought a reaping machine ; but the Indians are very restless, and Yellow Calf has sent a messenger to rouse the tribes, and a strong party of the mounted police are detached to watch his movements. They are dying off the face of the earth, and we may well suppose that they bear no love to the white man, who has taken possession of the lands which they once knew to be their own. Here the people evidently think that the sooner the Indians are exterminated the better. The men do not work ; all that is done by the squaws — wretched women with long black hair, and little black eyes as round as beads, and who rejoice in blankets quite as unromantic, but quite as comfortable, as those of their lords and masters. Hither- to, I have not made way with the dusky beauties, but I may be more successful by- and-by. I believe the Indians have a real grievance against the Canadian Government. It was ! ! i 156 To Canada with Ejuigrants. agreed that they should be settled in reserves, and that they should have a certain amount of iood supplied. This compact was fairly observed by the Canadian Government ; but in an evil hour they made this part of their duty over to contractors, and we know what contractors arc, all the world over. The Indians say faith has not been kept with them, and it is to be feared that they have good reason for saying so. Just now they are starving, as this is the close season, and they are not permitted to hunt or fish. They say that there is no close season as far as the stomach is concerned, and from personal experience I may say I believe they are right. It is now noon on the prairie, and I am dying of the heat. Oh, for the forest shade \ Oh, for the crystal stream! Alas ! the water here is not good for the stranger, and I fear to touch it. At Toronto I managed pretty well on Apollinaris water ; but out here Life on the Prairie. 157 :re nothing of the kind is to be had. What am I to do ? The beef here is so tough that you can't cut it with a knife, and must have belonged to the oldest importation from my native land ; and I have to pay a price for which I can have a luxurious repast in London. O Spiers and Pond ! O Gordon and Co. ! O respected Ring and Brymer, under whose juicy joints and sparkling wines the ancient Corporation of London renews its youth ! How my soul longs for your flesh- pots in this dry and thirsty land, where no water is ! I have been out on the prairie under the burning sun. It is cracked, and parched, and bare, and the flc ers refuse lo bloom, and only the gigantic ;asshopper or the pretty but repulsive snaV mev^ts my eye. That dim line, protracted to the horizon east and west, is the railroad. \ hat far-off collec- tion of sheds is the rising town of Moose Jaw. That blue line on the horizon, which makes me pant for the sea, is a miracle. Far off are 15^^ To Canada ivith Emigrants, I 1! some white tents glistening in the sun. They arc the wigwams of the Indians. Like the Wandering Jew, again I urge on my wild career, and here I am with noble savages^so hideous that words fail to tell their hideousness. No wonder the squaws are bashful. They have little to be proud of, though they have necklaces and rings and ornaments around their belts, and gay shawls, >vhich have come from some far away factory. Some of them ha^'^^^ put a streak of red paint where the black hair divides. Others are painted as much as any Dowager of Mayfair, and have ear ornaments that reach down to the middle. Not one is fairly passable. Rousseau and the sentimentalists, who talk of the savage, greatly err in their estimate of that noble individual. He is lazy and filthy, gluttonous, and would be a wine-bibber had he the chance. 1 looked into his tent, and there he was sitting naked, whilst his squaw was cookine a bit of a horse with the h.^ir on I, Life on the Prairie, 159 for his dinner. He is unpleasant as a neigh- bour for many reasons, and is indifferent how- he gets a dollar, or how his squaw earns it either. All along the prairie he seems to have nothing to do but to rush to the nearest rail- way station, and sit there all day in the hope that some passing traveller may give him tobacco or cash, the only two things on earth he seems to care for. Apparently, the mother are fond of their young The men are clevci at stealing horses, and the traveller must look after his horses by night, or he may find them, as friends of my own did, gone in the morning. But to return to the prairie, it is an awful place to travel in alone ; it is so easy to lose one's way. I heard wonderful stories in this respect. Fancy being lost on the prairie ; nothing but the grass to eat ; nothing but the sky to look at; nothing in the shape of human speech to listen to. Out here by myself, I felt more than once how appropriate the language of the poet beloved by our grandmothers : i6o To Canada with Emigrants. ' O Solitude, wlicrc arc the charms That sages liavc seen in thy face ? lictter dwell in the midst cf alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.' There is a good deal of hardship to be encountered by any who would penetrate to the dim and mysterious region we denominate the North-West. For instance, I left Moose Jaw at half- past two yesterday morning by a train timed to arrive there at a quarter-past one ; at which unreasonable hour I had to leave my bed, just as I was getting into a sound sleep, and to catch the train, which was so crowded that I could scarcely get a seat, and the atmosphere of which was not redolent of the odours of Araby the Blest. There I had to sit till the time I mention, as the engine managed to get off the line. Deeply do I pity the poor emigrants tempted into this part of the world by the delusive utterances of sham emi- gration agents at home and local journals — which, when they are not abusing one another, seem to delight in giving representations of Life on the Prairie. i6i ) be :e to mate [oose by a --past leave sOund as so , and nt of 1 had ngine I pity of the emi- als — other, ns of the country by r.o means literally to be de- pended on ; the only thing to do is to go to the fountain head — the Government office. People who make up their minds to come into these parts must learn to put up with a good deal. Here is a sad case, a very exceptional one, I admit, but I am bound to tell the whole truth. I quote from a Winnipeg paper : * David Kirkpatrick, his wife, and nine chil- dren, the eldest a girl of twelve, arrived from Scotland on Wednesday. A part of the voyage was made on board the Algoma. The cold was intense, and many of the passengers suffered severely. Among these was Mrs. Kirkpatrick. The exposure, in her case, brought on a kind of low fever, and the poor woman died yesterday morning. The hus- band's case is deplorable. With nine children on his hands, what is he to do ? He has a longing desire to get back to his friends in Scotland, but has not the means. Will the public come to his rescue ? He and his help- II "f m "v ' f 162 7]> Ctifi(u/ir ri'//// luuicnvits. less cliildrtMi arc to be found in the immigrant sheds.' I loar such cases are far from un- common. Imagine a poor vvomafi leaving lier native! land, crossing tlic restless Atlantic, [)erhai)s feeble with poor living, and worried with the care of nine helpless children, t)er- haps scarce recovered from sea-sickness, put on boartl an emigrant train, snatching hasty meals, or such accommodation as is i)r()vided at the ex[)ensc! of Dominion (u)vernment (I do not blame them or the railway authorities, they do all they can), travelling at uncertain hours, and arriving at her destination utterly overcome by fatigue, What wonder is it that a poor woman now and then sacrifices her life in the attem[)t to build \\\> a new home in this Pronilsed Land ? No wonder that now and then death comes to such just as they reach Jordan and think tliat they are to reap the fruit of all their weary toil. As I left Brandon o\\ my \vay hither I saw by the side of one of the stations quite a little I rant un- > mtlc, rru'tl l)cr- >, l)ut hasty viclccl ,MU (I iritics, crtain tc'.rly t that h ci- ne in t now they 1 reap I'lONKKR SICK I. Al' URANUON IN 1S82. 'Jo face p. 162. 1 saw little IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I 1^ !■■ Ill 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 m ■« 6" — ► V] <9' /} ^rM *: -^#„^^' c» .>: ^ Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 873-4503 Life on the Prairie. i6 village of tents. ' What is that ?' said I to one of the mounted police. * The emigrants/ was his reply. ' They do say,' said he slowly, * that there is some sickness amongst them.' Whether the rumour was founded on fact I had no time to inquire, but certainly, when one thinks of the hardships of the emigrants' lot, and the peculiar unfitness of many of them to stand hardships, I should not be surprised to learn that such was the case. The further I come out, the less demand I find for emigrants. It is only ploughmen who are wanted here. The man who will succeed is the farmer with a small capital. He has a splendid chance. When the country is settled the mechanic may have his turn. But remember, after all has been said and done, this is the Great Lone Land. Emigration here is but a drop in the ocean as regards results. I am now some 850 miles to the north-west of Winnipeg. The II — 2 f 164 To Canada with Emigrants, country is an unbroken level, and, with the exception of Brandon and Moose Jaw, you see hardly a farmhouse, hardly any ploughed land, no sheep grazing on the downs, no herds fattening in the prairie ; not a single tree lo hide one from the snows of winter or the suns of summer. By day you melt in the sun, by night you shiver with the cold. When we came to a swamp now and then we saw a few wild ducks. Once in the course of the weary ride we saw two or three deer. All the rest was a parched plain, with here and there some lovely flowers, and with buffald bones bleaching wherever you turn your eye. In some parts the soil was strongly impregnated with alkali, so much so, indeed, that it made the ground white, and left a crust of what looked like ice on the lakes and ponds. Can that huge region ever grow wheat and fatten flocks ? The experience of the experimental farms proves that it will. All I know is that ages must elapse before Mbose Life on the Prairie, 165 the see bed , no ngle IX or It in cold. ;n we ourse deer, here with turn ngly deed, eft a lakes grow ce of , All Oose Jaw shall be a Manchester, or Brandon, in spite of its many advantages, the head- quarters of the agricultural interest, with a corn market equalling that of Norwich or Ipswich. Yet there are parts of Manitoba which contain undoubtedly as fine corn- growing country as any in the world. This is especially true of the new tract of country opened up by the Canadian Pacific in the south-west. As a rule, the further from the railway the land is, the better it is. At the same time, it is to be remembered that a farmer who has no railway access is at a great disadvantage, and that in the winter it is no joke sending a man with a team of oxen and a waggon-load of produce twenty or thirty miles across the prairie, where a snowstorm, or 'a blorrard' at any time, may occur. This is the great drawback of Manitoba : it has no trees. In Ontario the farmer has his crops protected by a belt of trees from ? 1 66 To Canada ivith Emigrants. the inclemency of the weather. But, then, in Manitoba the farmer has this advantage, that he has not to devote the greater part of his time and money to the cutting down of his trees. He has only to plough the soil, and there is an abundant harvest. If Mani- toba lacks trees, it is expected to yield a plentiful supply of coal. As I came along last night we saw a station supplied with gas. It appears that in boring for water they discovered gas, which they now utilize to light the station and to work a steam engine. This was not, however, in Mani- toba, but in Alberta, just after we had left Medicine Hat, that pretty oasis in the desert, with the usual supply of hotels, billiard-rooms, and stores, and where I came into contact with the Cree Indians, a race even uglier than the Sioux Indian, whom I found at Moose Jaw. They have higher cheekbones, and don't plait their hair, and some of the old men reminded me not a little in outline of Life oil the Prairie. 167 the late Lord Beaconsfield, whom the Cana- dians consider Sir John Macdonald strongly resembles. It is curious to note how the buffalo has vanished from the region which was formerly his happy hunting-ground. He has now for- saken the country; you see only his bones and his track. Some people say that the railway has done it, and others that the destruction is the work of the Americans, who say, ' Kill the buffalo and you get rid of the Indians.' These latter are to be met with everywhere, clad in flannel garments radiant with all the hues of the rainbow. Chiefly they affect blankets — red, blue, or green. At Calgary I came across more of them — this time of the Blackfoot tribe. There is very little difference in any of them. In one thing they all resemble each other, that is, they don't seem to care much about work. As English does not happen to be one of their accomplishments, my intercourse with IF 1 68 To Canada luith Eniigranis. ! ; % k them has been of a somewhat Hmited character. For the sake of intending emigrants let me dispel a couple of popular errors. One that the heat is most enjoyable ; another, that it is a cheap country to come to. Neither assertion is exactly the truth. As I write the heat is insufferable, and yet this is early spring. I saw snow yesterday in a hollow of the hills not yet melted, and last night, sleeping in a stuffy Pullman car full of people, I was awoke with the cold. The other fallacy which I would expose is that this is a cheap country. On the contrary, it is nothing of the kind. Paxton Hood, if I remember aright, once gave a lecture on America under the title of the ' Land of the Big Dollar.' If I were to lecture on Canada I should call it the * Land of the Litde Dollar.' A dollar here is of no account. This morning I went into a shop and had a bottle of ginger-beer, and the cost was one Life on the Prairie. 169 shilling ; and this, too, after I had been administering a little 'soft sawder' to the fair American damsel who waited on me (she was from Michigan, and was remarkably wide awake), in the mistaken hope that she would be a little reasonable in her charge. Everyone smokes cigars all day long, and yet Canadian cigars are as costly as they are atrocious. Fortunately one can't spend money in drink, as that is prohibited, and the chemists at Calgary have recently got into a scrape for supplying customers with essence of lemon, by means of which they manage to fuddle themselves. The price of fruit is prohibitory ; cucumbers, such as you in London would give three half- pence for, are here at Calgary as much as a shilling. Eggs are four shillings a dozen ; meat and bacon and ham are as dear as in England, and not a quarter so good. I am appalled as I see how the money goes ; I fear to be stranded at the foot of the Rockies, I/O To Canada with Emigrants. I If I get back to the west I shall have to work my passage back to England as fireman or stoker, or in some such ignoble capacity. If I was younger I would turn gardener. I believe anyone who would come out here with sufficient capital to plant a nursery ground or to stock a good fruit garden would make a lot of money, as the farmers, of course, do not think of such things, and the supply is quite unequal to the demand. In Calgary they did not have three inches of frost all last winter. It is true they have even now a sharp nip of frost ; but I hear of peas flourishing at a farmer's close by, and the region abounds with wild strawberries and raspberries and cherries. If they grow wild, surely they will equally prosper under more careful culture. A Special Committee of the Dominion House of Commons which was appointed last session to obtain evidence upon the agricultural industries of the country, exa- Life on the Prairie. 171 mined several witnesses as to the suitability of Canada, and especially of the Canadian North-West, for the growth of forest and fruit trees. The testimony given showed that there are many varieties of fruit which thrive in Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and other European countries, which would, if transplanted, be equally suited to the climate of the North- West, it being stated that excellent fruit is grown in great quan- tities in Europe at points where the tempera- ture ranges considerably lower than it does in Canada. It is urged that the example of the Russian and German Governments should be followed in the establishment of planta- tions of fruit trees and experimental farms in different parts of the Dominion, to test the kind of trees and fruits best suited to the different localities. Since my return the following paper has been put into my hands : — ' The following is a reliable estimate of this season's wheat crop I 172 To Canada with Emi of this year is estimated to be 40 per cent, better. Exj^erts from Montana who have recently visited this section of the Canadian North-West, state that they never saw any grain in the United States to equal that on and around the Bell Farm.' i I CHAPTER VIII. AMONGST THE COW-BOYS. I AM writing from Calgary, a little but grow- ing collection of huts and wooden houses planted on a lovely plain with hills all around, a river at my feet, on the banks of which some poplars flourish, and I can almost fancy I am in Derbyshire itself. It is a gay place, this rising town, at the foot, as it were, of the Rockies, and just now is unusually gay, as the Queen's birthday is being celebrated with athletic sports and a ball ; and, besides, a new clergyman has made his appearance, the Rev. Parks Smith, from a Bermondsey parish, who is to preach in the new Assembly Hall, which is to be set apart as a church on :[ Amongst the Cozo boys. 175 Sundays. I am going to hear him, and already I feel somewhat of a Pharisee — I have on a clean collar, which I religiously preserved for the occasion, and have had my boots blackened. The sight is so novel that I have spent half an hour on the prairie con- templating the effect of that operation. Al- ready I feel six inches higher. I can't say that I think quite so much of Calgary as do the people who live in it. In splendour, in wealth, in dignity, and import- ance, they evidently anticipate it will be a second Babylon. Well, a good deal has to be done first. The situation is pleasant, I admit. You incline to think well of Calgary after the dreary ride across the prairie, and you have quite a choice of hotels, and of shops, all well stocked ; but then these shops are little better than huts, and the hotels cer- tainly don't throw the shops into the shade. For instance, I am in the leading hotel. It is too far from the railway, but that is because r 176 To Canada with Emigrants. the C.P.R. have moved their station a little further on, where the new town of Calgary is springing up. We have an open room, where I am writing — a dark dining-room on one side, and then, on the other, a little row of closets, which they dignify by the name of bedrooms. I am the proud possessor of one. It holds a bed, whereon, I own, I slept soundly ; a row of pegs, on which to hang one's clothes ; and a little shelf, on which is placed a tiny wash-hand basin ; while above that is a glass, in which it is impossible to get a good view of yourself — a matter of very small consequence, as the glass certainly reflects very poorly the looker's personal charms, whatever they may be. I ought to have said there is a window ; and as my bedroom is on the ground floor (upper rooms are rare in these wooden houses in the North- West), I am much exercised in my mind as to whether that window may not be opened in the course of the night, and the roll of Amongst the Cow-boys. ^77 little iry is ;vhere 1 one ow of me of if one. slept ► hang lich is above ' to get very rtainly rsonal eht to as my rooms North- lind as pened roll of o dollars I have hidden under my pillow carried off. Then, just as I am getting into bed, I discover somebody else's boots. That is awkward — very. It is with a sigh of relief I discover that they are not feminine. Sup- pose the owner of those boots comes into my bedroom and claims to be the rightful owner ? Suppose he resorts to physical force ? Sup- pose, in such a case, I got the worst of it ? Fortunately, before I can answer these questions satisfactorily to myself, I am asleep, and yet they are not so irrelevant as you fancy. Last night, for instance, as I was sitting in the cool air, smoking one of the peculiarly bad cigars in which the brave men of Canada greatly rejoice, and for which they pay as heavily as if they were of the finest brands, a half-drunken man came up, abusing me in every possible way, threatening to smash every bone in my body, and altogether be- having himself in a way the reverse of polite. 12 Hi m rr" I I i, 178 To Canada with Emigrants. Perhaps you say, Why did you not knock him down? In novels heroes always do, and come clear off; but I am not writing fiction, and in real life I have always found discretion to be the better part of valour. The fact is, the fellow was a strapping Hercules, and I could see in a moment, if the appeal were to force, what the issue might be. Yet I had not done anything intentionally to offend him. He had come galloping up to the hotel, as they all do here — the horses are not trained to trot — and his horse had bucked him off. I believe I did say something to a friend of a mildly critical nature, but I question whether the rider heard it. The fact was, he was angry at having been thrown, and seeing that I was a stranger, he evidently thought he could pour the vials of his wrath on me. I must admit that in a little while he came up and apologized, and there wae< an end of the matter. But the worst part of it was that his friend remarked to me that this drunken Amongst the Cow-boys. »79 insulting ruffian was one of the best fellows in the place. If so, Calgary has to be thank- ful for very small mercies indeed. You ask, How could the fellow be drunk, seeing that there is a prohibitory liquor-law in existence ? I have every reason to believe that Calgary is a very drunken place, never- theless. I have already referred to one case of drunkenness. I may add that, in the afternoon of the same day, I had seen another in the shape of an old gentleman who was going to head a revolt which would cut off the North-West from the Dominion, and which would make her a Crown colony. He was very drunk as he stood on the bar oppo- site me declaiming all this bunkum. I re- marked his state to the landlord, who seemed to feel how unfair it was that men could get drunk on the sly, and that a decent landlord, like himself, should be deprived of the privilege of selling them decent liquor. I own it is very hard on the publicans. At Moose 12- i8o To Canada with Emigrants. I Jaw one of them told me he would give five hundred pounds for a liquor license. * They call this a free country,' said an indignant English settler to me, 'and yet I can't get a drop of good liquor. Pretty freedom, ain't it i*' Unfortunately, the Government, while it prohibits the sale of liquor, does not ex- terminate the desire for it — perhaps only increases it — as we always cry for what we can't get. Unfortunately, also, it is true that, as long as this demand exists, the supply will be found somehow. In Montana there are a lot of blackguards and daredevils who will run the thing in some- how. Liquor is also brought in by the railway as coal-oil, oatmeal, flour, varnish, and then it is doctored up and sold at £\ the bottle to the thirsty souls. Now, what is the conse- quence ? Why, that, as a local journal re- marks, liquor is sold ; the dealers are pests and outlaws ; they sell their poison for ten times the price of what people who don't X. Amongst the Cow-boys. i8i belong to the Blue Ribbon Army call good liquor, and then vanish with their ill-gotten money out of the country, excepting such as they may leave behina them in the shape of fines, when found out. I do think the hotel- keeper has much reason to complain of pro- hibition. It presses hardly on him, and does not put drunkenness down. I mentioned these facts to a Baptist minister from England, whom I met in Toronto. He would not believe them ; I gave him cuttings from news- papers to support my viev/. His reply was that they were hoaxes. I have now been in Calgary a day, and already I find that these hoaxes, as my friend calls them, are veritable facts. I believe that many of my travelling com- panions were a little fresh last night, from their soberness and dejection of manner this morning. They were away down town, and had not returned when I retired to rest ; and this morning several of the householders com- 1 82 To Canada with Eviigrants. plain of having had their doors knocked at at most unseasonable hours. At meals I meet queer company. We have a Chinese cook. I have a faint idea that he has murderous designs on us all, his smile is so childlike and bland ; yet I prefer his placid pleasant round face to those of his female helps, sour and ill-looking, who earn wages such as an English servant- girl never dreams of. His messes seem to be appreciated, and little is left after meal-time. It is enough for me to see the men q^t. Every particle of food is conveyed into the mouth by means of the knife, which Is also freely used If sugar or salt be required. Our dining-room is simply a shed, and a very dark one, having a canvas on one side and unpainted deal on the other. Few houses at Calgary are painted, though a painted house looks so much prettier than a deal one that I wonder painting Is not more resorted to, especially when you remember how paint Amongst the Coiv-boys. ■83 preserves the wood. Many of the houses here are brought all the way from Ontcirio, and, perhaps, this accounts for their small- ness. They chiefly consist of two rooms, one a shop, the other a sitting and night-room ; and the larger number have been erected within the last few months. What we call in England a gentleman's house, I should say does not exist in the whole district. A gentle- man would find existence intolerable here, though the air is fine, and the extent of the prairie is unbounded. There are two news- papers in the town, and the professions are all well represented. As to my companions, the less I say of them the better. They are young and vigorous, and use language not generally tolerated in polite society. Their talk is chiefly of horses and bets. They ride recklessly up and down the dusty path which forms the main street, and would not break their hearts if they knocked a fellow down ; or they drive light 184 To Canada loith Hniigrants. l! waggons on four wheels, creating the most overwhelming clouds of dust as they rush by. As to their saddles, they are as unlike English ones as can well be imagined, rising at each end, so as to give the rider a very safe seat, while their stirrups are as long almost as the foot itself; but the saddles have this advan- tage, that they never give the horses sore backs. As to the horses, they are all branded, and turn^jd loosr on to the prairie when not required. Most of the men are prospectors — people who go round the country in search of mines ; or cow-boys — that is, men employed in the' cattle ranches in the district. The cow- boy is a fearful sight. His hands and face are as brown as leather, he wears a straw hat — or one of felt — with a very wide brim. His coat or jacket is, perhaps, decorated with Indian work. Around his waist he wears a belt, which he makes useful in many ways. Then he has brown leather leggings, orna- mented down the sides with leather fringes, AnnmQ'st the Coio-boys. >X5 and on his heels he puts a tremendous pair of spurs. The men on the mountains have much the same style of dress, and are fine specimens of muscular, rather than intellectual or moral, development. On the whole, 1 am not unduly enamoured of these pioneers of civilization ; but, then, I was born in the old country, and learned Dr. Watts's hymns, and was taught to— - ' Thank the goodness and the grace That on my birth has smiled, And made me in these Christian days A happy English child.' I see a good deal more of Calgary than I wish to. I feel that I have been made a fool of by the station-master. I am, as you may be aware, at the foot of the Rocky Moun- tains. They are some 60 miles off, yet ; already I have seen their far-off peaks, glistening with snow, rising into the summer sky. As I have got so far, I must see them. There are trees up there, and the sight of a 1 86 To Canada with Emigrants, tree would be good for sore eyes ; there are cooling shades out there, and here, though it is but early morning, it is too hot to stir. The scenery out there is the finest to be seen in all the Canadian continent, and I would carry away with me, to think of in after years, something of their leauty. I travelled all this way for that purpose, and hoped to have been off before, and now find I must wait, owing to a blunder on the part of the station-master. He promised he would let me know if he sent a freight-train to the Rocky Mountains. Well, he sent off a train at one o'clock this morning, and never let me know anything about it, and the consequence is I must stay two more days in this dreary spot, without conveniences such as I could find in the meanest cottage in England, and at a cost which would enable me to live in luxury and fare sumptuously at home. One lesson I have learned, which I repeat for the benefit of my readers. Never • • Amo7tgst the Coiv-boys. 187 depend upon other people ; hear all they say, and then act for yourself. Had I done so, I should have been now in the Rocky Moun- tains. I trusted in others, and I am, in con- sequence, the victim of misplaced confidence. I gather a few items of interest to intend- ing emigrants. Crops raised in the vicinity of Calgary during 1883 gave the following yields per acre : — Wheat, 33 bushels ; barley, 40 bushels ; oats, 60 bushels. The Govern- ment farm a few miles off, which I have visited, does well. The country round offers especial advantages to sheep and dairy farmers, cheese manufacturers, and hog raisers. My own impression is, and I have mentioned it to several persons who all think it excellent, that any man would easily make his fortune who set up a poultry farm. Eggs and fowls are almost entirely unknown, and if the producer did not find a market here, he could easily send his produce by the rail- way to where it was wanted. Eggs and fowls 1 I 188 To Canada with Emigrants. help one as well as anything to keep body and soul together. I am glad I went to church yesterday. My presence there gave quite a tone to the place (said the head man to me this morning), and so far I may presume I did good service. The congregation consisted chiefly of men, and the collection amounted to nearly 16 dollars — pretty good, considering (said the above mentioned gentleman) there are two or three schism shops in the place. In the evening I went to the Wesleyan Methodist schism shop, as he called it, and heard a sermon, which touched me more than any sermon I have heard a long time. As I came out the effect was startling. The sun was sinking in crimson glory just behind the green hills by which Calgary is surrounded. Far off a dim splendour of pink testified to the existence of a prairie fire, while before me stood a gigantic Indian, with his big black head rising out of a pyramid of gorgeous robes, Amongst the Cow-boys. 189 body irday. to the ning), irvice. n, and lollars above three ning I I shop, which '. have \ effect ng in ills by a dim stence ;ood a head robes, really dazzling to behold. There is an Indian Mission near here, but the Indians are not the only heathens out here. I have just had a ride in a buck-cart, which is the kind of vehicle the colonists use. It is of boards on four wheels, on which is placed a seat for a couple of persons, while the luggage is piled up behind. Some of them have springs, as fortunately was the case with the one on which T rode, or I should have had a very uncomfortable ride indeed. Perhaps I ought not to be so angry with the station-master as I was when I interviewed him this morning. I have just seen a man who got on to the freight train, but he tells me it was so uncomfortable that he preferred to wait, and got off after he had taken his passage. Money seems scarce. I have just been to the post-office to send a letter to England. The postmaster could give me no change, and I had to take post-cards instead. I I go To Canada with Emigrants, t I suppOvSe all the money goes to the smugglers. In this small town 500 dollars are sent weekly to Winnipeg for liquor ; so much for prohibi- tion in Calgary. As there is no bank here, people find it hard to get money. A young man wait- ing here to make up a mining party for the Rockies, tells me he had to telegraph to Toronto for 500 dollars, which were sent in the shape of a post-office order. The post- master charged him five dollars for cashing the order. I have just heard of a loan of 300 dollars effected ; the borrower has agreed to pay, in the shape of interest, the moderate sum of four dollars a month. Calgary, according to some, can have no enduring prosperity ; if so, the land-grabbers who have scattered themselves all over if will be deeply disappointed. Edmonton, where they get gold out of the river sand, and where they have already a kind of dredging machine employed for that Ai7iongst the Cozu-boys. 191 >lers. eekly )hibi- ind it wait- y for iph to itit in post- ishing )an of orreed erate ve no ibbers er it )f the ady a that purpose, it is said, will shortly have a railway to itself, and the men fr *m the mountains, who are the mainstay of Calgary, will go that way. I fancy I hear some one exclaim : On those wide plains over which sweeps the ice-laden air of the Rockies, what pleasant walks you must have! My dear sir, you are quite mistaken. Perhaps, as you set out, there comes a herd of wild horses — and then I remember how poor George Moore was knocked down by one, and avoid the bound- less prairie accordingly. Then there are the dogs, * their name is Legion,' and they are big, and as wild as they are big, and I am not partial to hydro- phobia. No ; it is better to sit at the door of my tent and watch the flight of the horses, the fights of the dogs, and the stream of dust a mile long which denotes that some Jehu is at hand, who will pull up at the door, deeply drink water, smoke a cigar, use a little 192 To Canada with Emigrants. strong language, and then mount again and ride off into boundless space. Here and there a pedestrian rnay be seen making his way to his solitary hut or shop, where at no time do you see any sign of life ; and how the people here make a living (with the exception of the hotel-keepers, who are always busy) puzzles me. I meet good fellows, I own. They are friendly in their way. As humour is a thing unknown in Canada and the North-West, they generally grin when I make a remark, which I do at very protracted intervals, fearing to be worn out before the long day is done. Neverthe- less, I begin to doubt whether I am not relapsing into the wild life of those around me. Fortunately, I have not yet acquired the habit of speaking through my nose, nor do I make that fearful sound — a hawking in the throat — which is a signal that your neigh- bour is preparing to expectorate, and which renders travelling, even in a first-class car. >n and e seen shop, Df life ; f (with ho are good 1 their )wn in nerally do at e worn verthe- im not around cquired 3se, nor king in r neigh- 1 which ass car, Atno7igst the Cow-boys. 193 almost insupportable; but my handT^e tanned. I sit with my waistcoat open, and occasionally in my shirt-sleeves. I care little to make any effort to be polite ; I am clean forgetting all my manners, and feel that in a little while I shall be as rough as a cow-boy or as the wild wolf of the prairie. It is clear I must not tarry at Calgary too long. 13 f CHAPTER IX. IN THE ROCKIES — HOLT CITY — LIFE IN THE CAMP A ROUGH RIDE — THE KICKING HORSE LAKE BRITISH COLUMBIA. I AM writing from Holt City — so named after a famous contractor out here — in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Here the rail come's, but no further, as yet, though some 2,000 men are at work a few miles ahead, and making incredible speed in the construc- tion of this gigantic intercolonial undertaking — an undertaking which would have been completed by this time had the late Sir Hugh Allan (the founder of the Allan line of steamers) and Sir John Macdonald had their way. Ill the Train. 195 I left Calgary without sheddinqr a tear — the train was only three hours late — atttr remarking to the manager of the leading hotel that, much as I had enjoyed myself under his humble but hospitable roof, I would give him leave to charge me twenty dollars a day if ever he caught me within his doors again. When the train arrived, of course there was no room. This is the working season, and the C.P.R., as everyone calls it in Canada, is hurrying on men to the front as fast as they can be got. However, I was permitted to get inside the mail van, in company with a contractor, his wife, and a baby, which behaved itself as well as could be expected under the circum- stances ; a lady who was going to visit her husband, one of the contractors on the line ; and an invalid from Pennsylvania, who did not seem much to enjoy that rough mode of travelling. We reached Holt City about 13 — 2 196 To Canada tvitJi Eniis^rants. eleven, when it was quite dark, and the only bed I could find was a shelf in the van, on which I was glad to lie down — but not, alas 1 to sleep. Had I got out, I should have been lost, or run over by an engine — that is positive, as there is no road, only divers rails, as, for instance, the Continental Hotel at Newhaven. I am now writing in the post-office, which seems the great social centre of the place, though the mail only leaves twice a week. It is a decent-sized tent, with a desk and counter in the middle for the sale of stamps and cigars and the delivery of letters. Be- hind 'it are a couple of beds on which men are reposing in a way that I envy, and covered with buffalw skins — the possession of which I envy them still more. In front is a table, fitted up with old papers and a couple of un- commonly uncomfortable benches, whereon are sitting various loafers, smoking and talk- ing, and warming themselves as best they can at the big stove — one of which you now MOUNT STEPHEN IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS ON THE LINE OK THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY. To face p. 197. THE CANADIAN To face p. 197- Holt City, 197 see in every Canadian house, and which but feebly keeps out the raw cold of the morning. Holt City is admirably located, to use an American phrase which I heartily detest. It is a clearance in the forest, bordered by the Bow River, which dashes foaming along. There is a shed, which does duty for a railway station ; a collection of tents, in which the cmployds of the company dwell, or which hold the large stores it collects here ; a large shed for meals, a railway car, in which Mr. John Ross, the able administrator of the C.P.R. in these parts, resides with his accomplished wife ; and further off are other tents, which do duty as hotels, billiard-rooms, and shops. Up here, I see little to remind me of the Old Country, except bottles of Stephens' inks, of Aldersgate Street, London, which, says the head accountant, are the only inks on which they can rely. We are in a valley — a valley high up among the mountains — as fair as that in I 19S 1\) CiDUxda ivitli E))u^i^ rants. which Rassclas studii^d to be a virtuous prince, but of a character common in the length and breadth of the Rockies. I have seen scores of valleys as fair ; and yet 1 own thc! exquisite lovelinc^ss of the spot — at any rate, in summer time — is marvellous. i\round me rise Alps on Alps, up into the cloudless blue. Firs, all larch and piiU!, in all the freshness of their new-found greenery, clothe their base ; while the snow, in wreaths like marble, glistens on their dark sid(!S or crowns their rugged peaks. It would seem as if there could be no world beyond. It is really wondcrrful what pleasant nooks of this kind one sees everywhere. I stopped at one such last night, a station called Can more, which, however, seemed to be the fairest of them all — and so the fish think, as the station-master tells me he often catches speckled trout seven or eight pounds in weight. Very near are valuable sulphur and other springs, and when the railway shall be completed, I look forward Health /\('sorfs. 100 to the tlnir when I*ulliTian cars shall comer h(T(! laden with health seekers from all i)arts of the world, who arc; fond of fishiiij; and fine air. I had a narrow escape from not cominj; here at all. When w(! stoi)|)ed at Caninori* for our (!venintj n\eal, I found I was iiltcrly unabl(! to climb back into the mail van. I may bo youni; in heart, but, alas ! I hav(! lost somewhat of th(! ai^ility of early youth. I mentioned this to the station- mast(!r and guard, who both i)romis(Ml me n^peatedly that they would have tlu! train drawn up for me. Knowinjj; this, I listeiK'd unconcernc^dly to the cry of * All on board 1' Ju(1l;(.', then, of my horror when I saw the train gradually gliding past. 'Jump into the last car,' cried the guard, as he saw me looking daggers at him. r'ortunatcly I succeeded in doing so : it is easier to get on to an American car when In motion than on an English one, on account of i 200 To Canada with Emigrants. its peculiar construction. This is fortunate, as the railway passenger in Canada has to trust entirely to .himself. He is ignored by guards and porters and station-master alto- gether. Unfortunat'^Iy, I jumped on to the car sacred to the person of Sir John McNeil, and I was requested by the black cook to move off, which I declined doing till we reached the next station, when I moved into another car, and created not a little laughter as I told my story. It is to be trusted that Sir John enjoyed himself all the more for having got rid of my vulgar presence. I hope Sir John may enlighten his friends on his return ; but I fear he will gain little know- ledge of the people or the country, travellinj:^ in such a way. Perhaps he will learn as iruch about it as the Marquis of Lome, or the Earl of Carnarvon, who recommends the poor people of the East-end to come to Canada, where the chances are they will be worse off than they are at home. Canada requires ■ R02lo;/u)lQ- it. 20I hardy, muscular men — if with money in their pockets so much the better — not the refuse of our towns. Again, I repeat, people in England ought to have fuller information about Canada ere they go thither. It is a fortune for the strong man, but even he has to run risks. Every- where I hear of what is called mountain fever, or Red River fever, or fever with some other name which stands for typhoid disease. Grand and beautiful as is the country, fertile as is the soil, people forget to observe sanitary laws at m times and suffer in consequence. But I must own that all the men I met in Holt City were pictures of health and strength. For one thing, the company feeds them well. I have just breakfasted in camp with the men. We had good coffee and fried ham and other good things for breakfast, and good tins of preserved fruits, to which everyone did justice. Every- one here has to rough it. I washed this morning in the open air, having myself ladled 202 To Canada with Bmicrants. into a tin basin the water out of a cask in which still floated the broken ice. Holt City is, I suppose, the head-quarters of the C.P.R. Yet it is a place by itself. Nothing can btj rougher than the rail from here to Calga , or finer than the view. It is an advantage that the trains are so slow, as you have more time to enjoy the scenery, which has almost shaken my attachment to the Hebrides, though one misses the purple heather which lends such a charm to the grey hills of the North. But comparisons are odious, and the Rockies, in all their charms, must be seen to be appreciated. It was a wonderful view I had last night as I sat on the steps of the last car, drinking in all the strange beauties of the place. We were climbing hour by hour a wilderness of moun- tains. We were hemmed in by them from afternoon till night came down upon the face of the earth. Mostly they were black, with snowy variations ; some were bare, others 11 Mo2intain Scenery. 20' in clothed with verdure. Some raised their heads in the clear blue sky as fortresses, others were peaks, others ragged and uneven, shapeless masses of matter growing out of one another. Some seemed to like good company, others stood solitary and apart. In the dells and shadows there are tales yet to be told. For instance, here are some remains of the ancient road to British Columbia. Here, a man tells me, last year there was a terrible tragedy. An English gentleman and his son were camping near the spot. There came a forest fire. Awful to relate, when the son had time to look around him, his father was burnt to death. Fearful are some of the solitudes through which the passenger plunges. The bear and the eagle have them entirely to themselves. Few have explored them ; fewer still have scaled the mountain heights by which they are girdled. But nowadays one is in search of silver or gold or coal, and has no time to think of I mountain grandeur. Cities rise and fall very quickly here. Silver City, for instance, where we stopped last night, was all the rage a year or two ago. It is now deserted. Yet people say silver is still to be found there, and at Calgary, as an illustration of the fact, a 'prospector' showed me a fine specimen of silver, at the same time asking me to come and see the shaft. I replied I was as fond of silver as he was, but i sought it in another way. But to return to the Rockies. , I wonder not that in times past the Indians saw in them the home of the gods, or that there the scientist discovers in them the source of the whirlwind or the storm. I am again train-bound. No one knows when we may have a train from the east, and till we have one it is impossible for me to get away. Physically, perhaps, this is a good thing for me, as it enables me to recuperate. Here I am, 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the level of the In a Caboose. 205 sea, breathing mountain air, and luxuriatin<^ in mountain scenery. Last night I slept in a caboose, and it was the best night's rest I have had for a long time. I went to bed at nine and was up again at five. Do my readers know what a caboose is .f* It is a railway luggage-car on wheels. Mine is rather a superior one, and has an upper and a lower chamber, and has in the upper chamber a row of shelves, which do service as beds. I had one of these to myself, and, as I -was well provided with blankets, did not much grieve at the absence of linen sheets. My dear old friend, Mrs. Moodie, wrote a capital book, called * Roughing It in the Bush.' Ass'iredly I may, one of these days, write one on roughing it in the Rockies, though the keeper of the caboose, out of respect for my age and infirmities, does all he can to make me comfortable. Already I feel the better for the air. For the first time since I have been in Canada I have felt hungry ; for the 2o6 ^^0 Canada luith Emigrants. first time, also, since I have been in Canada I have not had to physic myself with chlorodyne. A month up here in the Rockies would make a young man of me or of anyone else. I must be off before I become as gay as a horse fed on beans. This is, I take it, the real and sufficient reason of the peculiar spirits of the mountaineers, who rather alarmed me with their liveliness at Calgary. Their exuberance is due to air, and air alone. As I sit, a long row of mules files past ; a man is riding at the head, the others follow with tbeir burdens packed on their backs. He is a * prospector,' and is on his way to the other side. Already as many as a thousand such have gone the same road this summer. The mountains are full of wealth — in the shape of gold or silver, or coal or slate, or other precious commodities. Hitherto the cost of conveyance has kept people away. The opening of the C.P.R. wiP. remove that inconvenience. They will have a chance now .da I lyne. nake . I lorse 1 and •f the with ranee L long ng at rdens ctor,' ready e the In the :e, or the Lway. that now Mineral Stores. 207 of getting rid of their minerals, when dis- covered, and of fetching up their stores from the East at 1' ss expense. As it is, things are dear enough in Holt City. For instance, if I send or receive a letter, 1 have to pay the postmaster a few cents in addition to the usual postage-stamp. Calga. / 1 thought bad enough, but up here prices may be quoted as much higher. Yesterday I had a ride over the mountains. It will be long before I take such a ride again. No English coachman would drive such a road for five hundred a year. No English carriage could stand it, nor English horses either. I expected the buggy, as it was called, to be shattered into atoms every minute — it looked so light and frail, and the horses — a handsome pair, the property of Mr. Ross — to be ruined for life ; yet we got safely to the front — where the men are hard at work cutting down trees, removing earth, tunnelling, and pushing on the work with all their might ; and there, I must say, there are 2o8 To Canada ivith E}U2<^ran/s. openings for any number of men who like to come out. Last year little was done in the winter, because the contractors believed the climate would be against them. No one before then had wintered in the Rockies, and evci'yone believed the climate to be much worse than it really is. But to return to the ride. I yet feel it in every bone in my body, as all the time I had to hold on to my seat like grim death. Sometimes the coachman was high above me ; sometimes I was at the «top and he at the bottom ; now we were deep in the mud, the next moment high and dry on a formid- able boulder, bigger than a hogshead, and came down with a bang, which sent me quivering all over. Here we were with the water up to the floor ; and then we came on a mudbank quite as deep. Not an inch of the ground was level. It was all collar work or the reverse. Fortunately we were shaded by the firs which climb all the mountains out A Talk zuiih a 'Boy: 209 here, or the heat would have been unbear- able. As to conversation, that was quite out of the question, though the ' boy ' who drove me came when a child from Devonshire, and had a strong wish to see the old country again, of whose lanes, yellow with primroses, and cottages bright with roses and honey- suckles, and farmhouses green with ivy, he had a very vivid recollection. He made a Jot of money, he said. Indeed, he had more than he knew what to do with. Last winter, for instance, he stopped a month in Winnipeg, and spent there four hundred dollars. * How did it all go ?' * Oh ! in treating the boys !' was his answer. I rather intimated that was a poor way of using his money. * Oh !' said he, 'they all do it. That is the way of the boys in this country !' I was glad to hear him say that he thought of taking a farm soon, and was putting by the money for that purpose. The Rocky Mountains cannot be a bad place for a ' boy.' One of them yester- 14 2IO To Canada with Eviigrants. day told me how he had vainly written to his father to come out, who was now in the old country breakino- stones on the road. Here, at any rate, he would have been better off. It is a long journey, I know, for the British emigrant. We are more than 1,000 miles from Winnipeg, and the ride is a dreary one till you reach the Rockies. The run to Winnipeg from Toronto by Port Arthur and Owen Sound is a real enjoyment. It took us two days and two nights to reach Port Arthur from Toronto, and the' trip from Port Arthur to Winnipeg is accomplished easily in twenty hours. * Any bears about here ?' said I to the ' boy,' in one of the few minutes allowed for conversation in the course of our rough ride yesterday. * Not many. I seed one near where we are passing. He was a black bear, and stood up and looked at me, and then I looked at him. I wished I'd had a gun, and then I would have shot him.' Sunday in the Rockies. 2 I I en to in the road, better >r the I, GOO Ireary run to ir and t took 1 Port n Port sily in the ved for h ride ire we 1 stood kedat hen I Fortunately I saw no bear, black orbrown, in the woods as we drove amongst them ; scarcely a bird — only one, an owl 1 think, on the top of a tree, which never moved, though we were close upon it. ' Do you make any difference in work on Sunday ?' I asked of one of the men. ' Oh no ; Sunday ain't of much account here.' This is to be regretted, if only for physical considerations. Everyone can work all the better for a day of rest. Again, I think the C.P.R. injures itself in this way, that it may lose the ser- vices of useful men who like to keep the Sabbath, either from physical or religious considerations. As a matter of fact, I found many did take a rest on Sunday, and it was amusing to see how the morning was devoted to haircutting and shaving and mending clothes in the open air. A man, I know, can spend his Sunday at honest work better than in drinking. But when we think of the wild life of the miners and navvies in the 14 — 2 212 To Canada zinth EmigraJits. ends of the earth — a life so wild that the C.P.R. has got a laA\ passed to forbid the sale of intoxicating drink, and people are appalled when they read, in spite of the law, whisky is supplied to men who have a large number of revolvers at their side — it seems that a little provision might be made for the religious wants of the community. The philosopher will laugh, I admit. My reply is : Men were lifted out of degradation by the Christian religion in some form or other, and as we root that out we may expect society to retrograde. These men to the front will pay for 'looking after. They are fine fellows mostly. At any rate, they are the pioneers of modern civilization, and should be rever- enced as such. They are to be honoured for their work's sake. They plant, we gather the fruit. They sow the seed, we reap the harvest, and their work remains a monument of perseverance, of the benefits of the Union, of enterprise, and capital and skill. That Kickino- Horse Lake, 213 It the id the [e are ,e law, , large seems "or the The reply by the IX, and iety to ill pay Fellows oneers rever- -ed ior gather ip the ument Jnion, That Cana(Ja has thus carried the railway and the telegraph across the Rockies shows that England and America will have to look to their industrial laurels. I am alive, I am thankful to say ; but it seems to me that I should have left my bones on the Kicking Horse Lake, which lies on the slope of the Rockies, situated in British Columbia, where the scenery becomes grander and the air balmier as it comes up laden with the soft breeze of the Pacific. You see that ac once in the superior size of the trees which clothe the sides of that part of the Rockies. As far as what the navvies call the front, I had the benefit of the temporary railway by which Mr. Ross sends his labourers. It is then the great difficulties of the work com- mence, as the rocks are tremendous, and one of the tunnels making will be three-quarters of a mi le long. f 214 To Canada with Emigrants. This hot weather I can scarce Imagine how the men and horses stand the work ; of the former, some were digging, others cutting down the trees, others removing rocks, others filling up the swamps. Here the waggons were being laden with stores to be oent further to the front ; now and then a lone trail of mules sweeps by with miners and miners' stores, and I plunge into the forest, shaded from the fierce sun by the tall firs, and as I struggle in the swamps caused by the melting snows, I can realize something of the hardships of the early travellers — hard- ships of which the tourist, when the rail is completed, will have no idea, though he will be a little alarmed as the mountains drop away beneath his feet for more than a hundred miles to the Columbia river, while the narrow track of rails winds along its sides. In the winter this pass, when covered with snow, is very dangerous, and many are the mules and horses dashed to pieces over the precipice. Alone in the Forest. 215 The lake, when I reach it, is full of ice and snow, and all round the mountains rear their snow-capped heads. One of the pecu- liarities of this region is the abundance of water in some shape or other, and the shadows on the lakes reflect as a mirror all the surroundinqf scene — the dark forest at the base, the masses of slate-like rock above, the snow in all its radiant white higher up, the unclouded azure that crowns and glorifies all. Heated and tired, I throw myself on the moss, and realize, in all its intensity, the appalling loneliness of forest life — I startle three wild ducks, that is all. Down on my left comes the rushing torrent in a series of picturesque waterfalls into the lake. I climb the mountain by the side of them. The water sends to me an ice-laden air, which revives me as I struggle upwards and on- wards, watching the whirlpools and cascades as the water angrily struggles to force its way through the iron barriers by which it is 2i6 To Canada with Emigrants. hemmed in. I secure a fine specimen of petrified moss from a stream close by. But I may not linger. Already I feel weak as I plunge into the frozen snow, or sink where the sun has melted it into morass, or stumble over an old moss-grown trunk, or climb the big trunks which the axeman has already levelled, or pass the streams which intersect the plain on logs off which I expect to slip every moment. Then I come to the railway men, and avail myself of the imperfect and unconnected track which they have formed ; but now the sun beats fiercely on me, and I can scarcely put one foot before another. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. For- tunately, I reach the tent of a good Samaritan. I refresh myself with water from the crystal stream. I lunch on bread and cheese, with tea kindly fetched from the company's hut, but I have to lie down three hours before I feel myself equal to urging on my wild career again. Jh'itish Colniuhia. 217 British Columbia seems at present to be chiefly occupied by miners. No other kind of emigrants are needed there. The country is mountainous — a regular sea of mountains ; but, writes an occasional correspondent of The Toronto Mail, ' there are beautiful valleys, far surpassing anything you have in Ontario, and the mountains and hills furnish pasture. Considering the climate, the rich soil, and the high price paid for all farming produce, I believe there cannot be a more desirable place for the farmer. I have no hesitation in saying that a farm of fifty acres is worth more than a hundred in the East. All you have to do is to sow your land with good seed and you are sure of a bountiful return. No weevil, midge, wire-worm, potato bug, nor, in fact, any farmers' pests, exist here. There are no scorching hot days and sultry nights ; no heavy frost or deep snow to impede work ; consequently you are not driven like a slave for six months and frozen 2 1 8 To Canada ivith Emigrants. in for the other six, but have steady work all the year round.' Other writers bear a similar testimony. With all its advantages, however, the country has one drawback — the scarcity and high price of labour. It seems well looked after by the Episcopalians, who have a Bishop here and several clergymen, and, as I may suppose the other denominations are equally in earnest and equally active, it is clear settlers may enjoy the advantages of the forms of religious life with which they are familiar, and under which they have been reared. Bnitish Columbia, which entered the Cana- dian Confederation in 1871, is the most westerly of the Canadian Provinces. It has a coast-line on the Pacific Ocean of about 600 miles, that is, in a straight line. If its p.lmost innumerable indentations and bays were measured, the coast-line would extend to several thousands of miles. The area of the Province, according to the British Columbia. 219 all the Census measurement, is 341,305 square miles. Its position on the American continent is one of great commercial importance, and its re- sources are in keeping with its position. If it were to be described from the characteris- tics of its climate, its mineral wealth, and its natural commercial relations, it might be said to be the Great Britain and California com- bined of the Dominion of Canada. The Province is divided into two parts : the Islands, of which Vancouver is the prin- cipal, and the Mainland. Vancouver is about 300 miles long, with an average breadth of about sixty miles, containing an area of about 20,000 square miles. British Columbia has numerous harbours and rivers, some of which are of importance, and all are remarkable for their bountiful, in fact wonderful, supplies of fish. The scenery which it possesses is magnificently beautiful. Ihe climate on the coast is more equable and much milder in winter than in any other 2 20 To Canada i^'i/fi Jin/ii^ran/s. part of Canada ; but as the mountains arc ascended, greater cold prevails, with more snow, and the characteristics of greater dry- ness of atmosphere which mark the climate of the interior of the continent are loind. The population of British Columbia, by the Census of 1881, did not exceed 49,459, of which 25,661 were Indians. This compara- tively sparse population is due to the hitherto isolated position of the Province ; but now that railway communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Dominion of Canada is being rapidly pushed forward to completion by a route which offers the easiest gradients and the most important natural commercial advantages of any possible line across the continent of America, the inducements the Province offers to settlers are beginning to attract the attention, as well of the emigrating classes of the Old World, as of the migrating classes of this continent ; and population is already beginning to flow The Ii/incnni/s. 221 rapitlly in. It is Ix-yoiid doiihl ih.iL tlu! pcrc(Mitai;(^ of incn.'asc which will hv. sliovvn at the next tl(!CH'nnial Omisus will he a statis- tical fact to excite men's wonder. lis fisheries, its fon'sts, its inin(;ral resources, will proviih; work lor thousands who an; starving' at home. And it will be easily n^ached when the; Cana- dian Pacifu" Railway is completed. I havc! now readied tlu^ end of my journe) , and I sum up my (;mi<^rati()n (;xp(;ri(!nc<;s. 'V\\i\ emi<;rant, if strong and industrious, and ready to take advaiUai^c; of opi)ortuniti<;s, and not avers(! to rou^hini^ it, will \n\ sure to fmd work; but lu; must Ix; shy, if Ik; has cash, of land sc]ie.m(;rs, and I would advist* him, if he thinks of settlinij", not to Ix; in a hurry about it, but to take time to look around. I hav(; seen as fine; farmino- country as anywJK^re in the world. I have seen othcn jjarls where no one can ij-ct a liviin^ Amon'^st th(t emi- jL^rants I .se(; many who must succeed any- 2 22 To Canada "mth E/niorants. where, and 'many who will go to the wall wherever they may he. Let me give you another illustration of the bursting of an emigration scheme. The London dailies often have advertisements offering for a certain bonus to provide young men with homes where farming in all its branches is taught The London (Ont.) papers tell how a number of young fellows have been talcen in in this way. They paid the advertisers sums from thirty pounds up- wards, in addition to their passage money, the consideration being that on their arrival in Ontario they were to be placed on farms and kept there at the agent's expense. Of course, when they reached their journey's end, no farmers were to be found. If a young Englishman wishes to try farming in Canada, he cannot do better than hire himself to a farmer for a year or two and keep his monev in his pocket for the purchase of a ley farm. Land Sharpers. 223 But even then he must not buy a farm till he knows something about it, and he can- not be long out here before he will find out where the good land is. A Canadian whom I met at Calgary, told me that he knew a farm near Toronto which was regularly in the market every year. It is safe to be bought by an Englishman, who tries it for a time, gives it up in despair, and then it comes into the market again. ' Are there any stones on the farm ?' asked an Englishman, after he had purchased his farm. * I only saw one,' was the encouraging reply : and it was a truthful one. There was but one stone, but then it embraced the sur- face of the whole farm. The English purchaser must have his wits about him. Here he is by many regarded as a stranger, and they take him in. The poet tells us where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise. Ignorance is not bliss in / / 2 24 T^^^ Canada 7vith Eviigrants. Canada, emigrants really must have their wits about them or they will suffer much. Near Moosomin there is some fine country where many Eni^lish have settled. Only last week an Ene^lishman selected a farm in that locality for a homestead. He at once proceeded there, having at considerable ex- pense hired a conveyance for his wife and four children. When he orot there he found tlie land already occupied. To add to his troubles, when he returned to Moosomin one of his children died ; the result is that the wife has grown home-sick, the poor man disheartened ; he wants to return to England, but he has already exhausted his means. This want of harmony between the land office and the guides, according to The Manitoba Free Press, is said to be of frequent occurrence. The Dominion Govern- ment ought to see to th?*^. They are eager to promote emigration, but many such cases will make English farmers naturally a little reluctant to come out. CHAPTER X. cases little BANGERS OF THE ROCKIES. — PRAIRIE FIRES. THE RETURN. PORT ARTHUR. EMI- GRANTS. There is a great deal of snow in the Rockies. In June that snow begins to melt. The result is, a violent body of water rushes down, which makes the railway people very uncomfortable. On Sunday I met the engine-driver of the train by which I was to travel east next morning. At Holt City it seems no one knows from what particular spot the train will start. * You won't start without me ?' I said. ' No ; I will look to see whether you are on board.' 226 To Canada with Emigrants. * But,' said I, * you must leave at five, whether I am on board or not.' * Oh ! as to that,' he said, * no one can make me start before I am ready. But,* said he, perhaps v^e may not get away at all. I don't like the look of the bridge, and there is a deal of water about.' I smiled incredulously. Had not I seen, only an hour before, with my own eyes, a special train arrive from the west filled with labourers and freight ? If that could cross in safety, surely our lighter train could do the same. •Thus reasoning, I lay down with a light heart in my caboose, having invoked, not the saints, but every decent Christian I could find, to take care that I might be aroused at four p.m., in order that I might have a good wash before I started on my little run of 1,500 miles, as far as Port Arthur. Just as I was falling into the arms of Morpheus, to speak poetically — a habit to Leaving Holt City. 227 which I was much given in my earlier days — a fellow-traveller came rushing into the caboose, saying timidly : * You'd better get on board at once. The bridge has given way, and they may go across at once,' and so saying, he left me in the dark. However, I managed to jump out of my bed, collect my luggage, and scramble down the plank, the only and somewhat perilous means of access to my caboose, and stumble along the confusing lines of railway by which Holt City is adorned, and climb up into a car, wondering much all the while why we should start at all, when the bridge had partly given way, or whether I had come all that distance merely to find a watery grave. In the car I found a company as grotesque and rough as any I had yet seen anywhere, discussing the situation with more or less earnestness. The bridge, I heard, was being repaired ; 15—2 2 28 To Canada ivith Emuzrants. that was a comfort. But still no one knew when we should start. Now and then we moved a few feet forward, or a few feet back- ward ; but, in reality, I believe we remained in the same position all night, and started at the usual hour next morning. But the horror of that night was something inexpressible. Sleep was quite out of the question. You can't sleep in an American lailway-car unless you are a navvy or a contractor — who can sleep any- where. In England, even in a third-class car- riage, the chances are you can lie down at your full length and sleep. In Canada you can't do. that, as the seats are too short. So there I sat, bolt upright, all through that tedious night, watching for the light of day, while my companions sat smoking and talking and expectorating. In a playful moment one of them suggested that they should all take off their boots. Fortunately the proposition did not meet with universal approval, and I was saved that horror. Prairie Fires. 2 29 In the Rockies life is not all beer and 'baccy. One day there was an alarm of fire. It seems the woods are on fire all day loni^'-, and week after week. In this way much valuable timber is destroyed, and no one knows who does the mischief, or how it wil terminate. Daily we saw the smoke of a forest fire ; one day the flames came so close to Holt City that everyone was alarmed. If a spark or two reached the place where the explosives were stored, Holt City and all its inhabitants might have been blown to atoms. Down in the prairies fire does a vast amount of mischief to the settler, who awakes in the night to find his tent or house reduced to ashes, and all his worldly goods destroyed. Such cases are of frequent occurrence, es- pecially at this season of the year, when the settler sets fire to the prairie before ploughing, or to insure a better crop of grass. One dark night, in particular, I remember the prairie fire lent quite a mournful grandeur to mmm 230 To Canada luith Emigrants. the scene. Then there came a day I shall never forget as long as I live. A Canadian summer may have its peculiar charms, but I candidly own, not being a salamander, it is far too hot for me. On that particular day the heat was intense. It affected everyone. Those who dared drank gallons of iced water, others pulled off their coats and collars and lay down on the cushions with which the bleeping-car is plentifully provided, and went off to sleep. It was in vain one tried to pass away the time in smoking — it was too hot for that. Newspapers and cheap nov'els were all neglected — conversation was out of the question. Everyone seemed on the point of giving up the ghost. Even the blackie, who invariably acts as conductor to the sleeping-car — and who is about the only civil official (with the exception of the steam- boat attendants, who are models of good behaviour) one meets in Canadian travel, seemed, thinly clad as he was, quite over- A TJmnder-Storm. 231 come. The sun took all the colour out of his cheeks, and he became quite pale — almost white. In the course of our return journey we stopped at Moose Jaw for supper, and then I witnessed a new development of prairie life in the shape of a thunder-storm, which seemed to me unusually vivid and protracted. The lightning was grand as it swept over the wide sea of grass, making everything as bright as noon-day, and then all was dark again. It brought us a rain that had really healing in its wings. While ;he heat lasted I was a martyr to prickly heat. It seemed to me that I was going to have small-pox of measles. I had little pimples all over me, and as to my wrists, they were really painful, and I could not keep from scratching with a vivacity which a Scotchman might have envied. Was it that vulgar disease to which, it is said, the gallant Scot is peculiarly liable ? I could not say. I had shaken hands with 232 To Canada with Enii(^rants. so many rilthy Indians, and it might- be that, as I learn they are much amicted in that wry. Happily the thunder-storm cooled the air, and I lelt all the better for it. When I got as far as Port Arthur, and inhaled the cool air of Lake Superior, I suffered no more from unpleasant irritation of the skin. It was with joy I embarked on the C.P.R.'s fine steamer, the Alberta^ for Owen Sound. But even travelling on Lake Superior has its disadvantages. The water of the Lake is intensely cold, and when the sun beats fiercely on it there is sure to be a fog. Such happened to be the case on my return, and we ploughed slowly along for a while, seeing hardly anything of the beauty of the scene, while every few minutes we were cheered by the dismal notes of the fog-horn. Fortu- nately the fog lifted, and then what a display we had of islands, green as emerald, on the tranquil sea ! I must add, also, I had good company everywhere, with the exception of Thunder Bay. O 1 '> the great Sir John IvrNeill, who had his meals apart from us at a table all to himself, and an English clergyman from Staffordshire, whom a Canadian gentleman described to me as * a regular crank,' whatever that may mean. The parson is going to write a book, so he tells the people ; but he shuns me, which is a pity, as I met a friend at Calgary who told me they had great fun with the parson on their way up from Winnipeg, telling him all sorts of cock-and-bull stories, which he greedily entered in his note-book. I must give you one more sketch of a Canadian town as an illustration of the enter- prise and pluck which are the main charac- teristics of the Canadian of to-day. If you look at the map, you will see Port Arthur is situated in Thunder Bay, and Thunder Bay, when you pass the rocky barrier by which it is encircled, opens out into Lake Superior. Thunder Bay is a sheet of water some 13 by 19 miles in area, sheltered from the wild 234 ^<^ Canada with Einigraitts. storms which swf^ep over the northern lakes by the Pie and Welcome Islands and the Thunder Cape on one side, and by the terraced bluOs of ever-green forest on the other ; lorm'i ^ thus an unsurpassed harbour for extent and accommodation, and having claim to be what its admirers say it is, the prettiest of all the American Lakes, i It is not an agricultural district that sur- rounds Port Arthur, though it is a fact that there are vast stretches of rich lands within its borders, including the Kamanistique and oth^r valleys, on which at least 3,000 families could settle and get a good living by agri- culture. The timber resources of the surrounding country, which must find its centre and point of collection in the quiet waters of the bay, comprise thousands of square miles of spruce and other trees ; while iron, copper, zinc, and silver are to be found in the neighbouring Port Arthur. 235 rocks. Gold also is said to be hidden in the bowels of the earth ; though not yet dis- covered in paying quantities. However this may be, one thing is clear, that from Thunder Bay the whole agricultural exports of the countless fertile acres of the Canv>.di^ North-West must find an outlet. Tr:;i. did the Marquis of Lome, when here, descr '.e it as * The Silver Gate.' Port Arthur — as it was termed when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived here on his way to suppress the Riel revolt in the North-West, out of compliment to the Duke of Connaught — is in reality one of the few places in Canada that have a history. As early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, some of the French settlers had formed an idea that the great Lake Superior was a highway to the vast fur-producing countries of the North-West, although not till 1641 did any white man venture upon its waters. In 1678 a French- man built himself a house in the vicinity of ■^*i l-i The Grand Trunk Railway. 243 of the wonders of Canada— a tubular struc- ture of magnificent proportions, which spans the St. Lawrence, and gives uninterrupted communication to the western traffic with that of the United States. Including the abutments, the bridge is 9,084 feet in length. The tubes rest on twenty-four piers, the main tubes being sixty feet above the level of the river. It may well be called the Grand Trunk Railway, as it operates under one management over six thousand miles of first- class railway road. Having close connection at Port Huron, Detroit and Chicago with the principal Western American lines, it offers great advantages to emigrants to all part of the compass. At Montreal I had the ea- sure of a long chat wath Mr. Joseph Hi' ^on the general manager, who takes a de -p in- terest in the subject of emigration, a d Mr. W. Wainwright, the assistant-manager, to whom I am indebted and grateful for many acts of kindness, especially welcome to the 1 6- 0;' 244 To Canada with Emigrants. stranger in a strange land. It is the Grand Trunk that takes the traveller over Niagara Falls — on the International Suspension Bridge connecting the Canadian Railways with those of the States. This structure, which is 250 feet above the water, commands a fine view up to the Falls. It is to be feared that as long as Canada and che United States have separate tariffs there will be not a little smuggling along this bridge. When I was there I heard of a Canadian judge, who with his family had been stopping at one or other of the hotels on the Canadian side. t)ne fine morning some of the ladies of the party walked off to the American side, and returned laden with bargains which had paid no duty. In their innocence they boasted of the little transaction to the judge. * How can I,' said he indignantly, 'punish people for smuggling, if I find my own family do it ?' and the ladies had to pay the duty, so the story goes, after all. CHAPTER XI. BACK TO ENGLAND. — CANADIAN IIOSPITALITY. — THE ASSYRIAN MONARCH. HOME. "My time was up, and I had to be oil, after we got a look at pleasant London in the wood, as my Canadian friends who have been to England call it. I came back from Chicago to New York, and had again to encounter the horrors of nights in a Pullman sleep- ing-car. Why cannot the railway authorities separate the part of the car devoted to the gentlemen from that part inhabited by the ladies ? The way in which the sexes are mixed up at night is, to say the least, un- pleasant. I shall never forget my last experience in a Pullman sleeping-car. An 246 To Canada ivitJi Emigrants. ancient dame with blue spectacles, my vis-a-vis, as the shades of evening came on, gave me the horrors. In my despair I began undress- ing, thinking that the outraged female would rush away in disgust. Alas ! she had stronger nerves than I calculated, and there she sat gazing serenely with her tinted orbs till I plunged myself behind my curtained berth, to encounter, early in the morning, once more those eyes. New York and Boston are full of fairy forms. Why don't they travel ? The change would be pleasant for sore eyes like mine. No wonder I sat all that night thinking of the great kindness I had received in Canada, and regretting especially that I had refused an invitation to dine that evening at the home of one of the leading barristers of Toronto, to meet some clergymen there who were familiar with my name, and who wished to meet me. Surely I did wrong to leave Toronto, with Canadian Hospitality. 247 all its friendly faces and kindly hearts. It will be long ere I cease to remember how the Canadians made me at home, as I met them on the rail, or on the boat, or in the hotel. Said a London Evangelist to me : ' You will find the Canadians a cold people, who will show you no hospitality. While I was there not one of them invited me to have a cup of tea.' All I can say is, I found the Canadians quite the reverse. But then my friend went on a mission, and is a man of very serious views, while I travelled merely to see a land of whose wonders I had heard much, to talk to sinners as well as saints, and to learn from them what I could. I was a great reformer once myself, and had glorious visions which never came to pass. In youth we have all such dreams. Now, as the days darken round me and the years, I seek to put up with the shortcomings of my brother-man, trusting that he in his 24S To Canada with Eniigranis. Christian charity may extend a similar for- bearance to my own. I came back in the Assyrian ]\Tonarch. I was glad I did so. That fine ship has a distinguished record. It has carried no end of theatricals to New York ; it did the same kind office for Jumbo; it carried troops and horses to Egypt ; and when we English undertook to punish Arabi, it was a home for the refugees for a while. Perhaps we have no ship more noticeable than the Assyrian Monarc/i, belonging to the Monarch Line, w^hich runs weekly, I fancy, between New York and London. It is a great treat in the fine weather to take that route. You are a little loncjer at sea — you glide along the south coast till you reach the Scilly Isles, and the ships of the company are all that can be desired It is a great deal of trouble and expense to some to go with all their goods and chattels to Liverpool, then unpack them, and get them TJie Assyrian Monarch. 249 down to the landing-stage, and then repack them in one or other of the far-famed steamers of that busy spot, and all this you save if you patronize the ships of the Monarch Line, which carry chiefly cargo, with a few saloon pas- sengers as well. We had a very heavy cargo on board the Assyrian JMonarch as we came back from New York. We carried 260 bullocks, be- sides cheese and grain, to make glad the heart and fill the stomach, and thus one felt that if the screw were to fail or the fo2f to hinder a rapid transit, there was corn in Egypt, and that there was something to fall back on. Happily, we were not driven to that alternative. We fared well in the saloon of the Assyrian Monarch; so well, indeed, that a poor elderly lady, who seemed at death's door when we started, became quite vigorous, comparatively speaking, by the time we ended our voyage. We had more freedom in the way of sitting I v> t> IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) '<° -it?. 1.0 I.I 1.25 '-IIIIM IIM •^ l» III Z2 % 40 2.0 1.8 1.4 III 1.6 V] <^ /^ % 7 ^i^ .'^ 250 To Canada with Emigrants. up late and having lights than is possible in a crowded passenger ship, and we came more into contact with the captain of the ship and his merry men. In the case of the Assyrian Monarch this was a great advantage, as Captain Harrison is a good companion as well as an able navi- gator, and I felt myself safe in his hands, that is, as far as anyone can be safe at sea. Further, I felt that the chances were in my favour. The Assyrian Monarch had carried over the Atlantic, in stormy weather, the highly-respected and ever-to-be-regretted by Londoners Jumbo ; surely it could be trusted to perform the same kind office for myself in the summer season, when the air is still and the seas are calm ; and so it did, though every now and then we encountered that greatest of all dangers at sea, fog, more or less dense, especially on the Banks of Newfoundland, where the ice-laden waters of the Arctic come in contact with the warmer waves of the Gulf Stream. As our course was very fortunately much to the south, we had a good deal of the latter. That Gulf Stream was a revelation to me. When I took my morning bath it seemed as if I were in warm water, and the new forms of life it fostered and developed were particu- larly pleasant to a casual observer like myself. There one could see the nautilus, or the Por- tugeuse man-of-war, as it is familiarly termed, in the language of the poet, ' Put out a tier of oars on either side, Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,' and cruel, big-headed sharks, which, indeed, followed us almost all the way to England (the fact is that now, when so many cattle are thrown overboard, the Atlantic abounds with sharks), and lovely flymg-fish like streaks of silver flashing along the deep and boundless blue ocean. Of these latter one flew on board. It met with a cruel fate. It was «. 2^2 To Canada with Emiirrants. eaten by the first officer of the Assyrian Monarch for breakfast. It ought to have choked him. It did nothing of the kind; he, hardened sinner that he was, enjoyed it greatly, and said that it was as good "as a whiting. • In the Gulf Stream we found the usual number of whales and porpoises. The latter would play around the bow or race along the side of the ship in considerable quantities of all sorts of sizes. There were other fish of which I know not the names to be seen occasionally leaping out of the water as high and repeatedly as possible, as if a shark were in their midst seeking whom he might devour. One sight I shall never forget in the Gulf Stream. It was that of a tortoise. I was leaning over the ship's side, when something big and round seemed to be coming to the surface. I could not make out what it was ; then all at once the truth flashed upon me as .♦ «. Turtles. 253 he wobbled along, paddling with his fins, his head erect, his little eyes peering at the ship as if he wondered what the dickens it was, and what business it had there. He seemed to he-treading the water. m ' I saw him but a moment, But methinks I see him now.' The sight gave me quite an appetite, though my friend Sir Henry Thompson will insist upon it that turtle soup is made of conger-eel, but in the wide Atlantic one has time to think of such things ; day by day passes and you see nothing but the ocean — not even a distant sail, or the smoke of a ' passing steamer. People complain of the uneventfulness of life on board a ship. That, however, is a matter of great thankfulness. A collision or a shipwreck are exciting, but they are dis- agreeable, nevertheless. It seems the home- ward voyage is always the pleasantest as far x=g 254 To Canada zuith Emigrants. as the sea is concerned, the wind being more frequently in the west than in any other quarter. Perhaps that is one reason why the Americans are so ready to cross the Atlantic. When I left New York, Cook's office, in the Broadway, was full of tourists, including Mrs. Langtry and other distinguished personages. Mr. John Cook seems as popular in New York as he is elsewhere. Indeed, I was confidentially informed that he was engaged in organizing a personally-conducted tour for the relief of Gordon and the capture of the Mahdi, and I hear from Egypt that he has a cl>ance of being made Khedive, a position which I am certain he would fill with credit to himself and advantage to the people. Of course, there is a little exaggeration in this, but the American tourist has good reason to revere the name of Cook, and so have we all. As much as anyone he has promoted travel between the Old World and the New, and has made us better friends. It is to English Weather. •DD be hoped that every steamer that crosses the Atlantic does something- similar. I must own, however, that the nearer I approached England the more 1 felt ashamed of my native land. The weather was villainous. It rained every day, and the worst of it was, I had had the audacity to assure the Americans on board that we had dry weather in England, that occasionally we saw the sun, and that we were not a web- footed race. Fortunately, at the time of writing this I have not yet encountered any of my American friends, or I should feel, as they say, uncommonly mean. However, the weather was fine enough to admit of a good look at Bishop's Rock, the name of the lighthouse at the Scilly Isles, where we got our first sight of land ; you can imagine how we all rushed on deck to see that. In fine weather, I say, by all means return from America in one of the fine, steady, well-built ships of the Monarch Line The scenery is 256 To Canada with Emigrants. far finer than that offered by Queenstown and Liverpool. You have the Scilly Isles to look at, and the Land's End, and the Lizards. At Portland Bill we laid off till a pilot came on board, and we had a good look at the estab- lishment where so many smart men are sent for a season, and Weymouth heading the distant bay : and then what a fine sweep you have up the Channel — crowded v/ith craft of ?^' kinds, from the eight thousand ton steamer . , the frail and awkward fishing lugger — and round the Nore ; whilst old towns and castles, speaking not alone of the living present, but of the dead and buried past, are to be seen. Even Americans, fond as they are of modern life, feel the charm of that ; whilst to the returning traveller the landscape speaks of * home, sweet home.' CHAPTER XII. COLONIZATION IN CANADA. be of to aks I WAS glad to see, the other day, Mr. Morley's letter advocating the propriety of taking up land and settling on it some of the too numerous class who drift into our great cities, finding no work to do iii the country, there to lead indifferent lives and come to an un- timely end. It is a step I have repeatedly advocated. Land is cheap enough now ; there is no oc- casion to wait for an Act of Parliament. It is as easy to buy an estate, and to split it up into small portions, of which each shareholder will become in time the proprietor, as to form a building society, and thus enable any man 17 I } 258 To Canada with Emigrants. to become his own landlord. But there are certain drawbacks. There is the parson to be dealt with, who will be sure to claim his higher tithes ; there are burdens on property, of which the working man, who is told by Mr. Chamberlain that he is more heavily taxed than any other class of the community (is not the reverse of this the case ?), has no idea ; and last, and not least, there is the un- fitness for peasant proprietorship of the average English workman, who has no idea of living on the scant fare of the peasant proprietor of Belgium or France, or, I fear, of working as hard. Granting, however, that he does, the great fact remains, that peasant proprietorship is no remedy for all the ills of life, and that France has its surplus popula- tion quite as badly off, and a great deal more difficult to deal with than our own. What is to be done to relieve the distress, the existence of which all must own and deplore ? I answer. Emigrate. Colonization in Canada. 259 Emigration is the natural means of relieving the poverty of a nation. Every man is an emigrant. No one lives and dies in the village in which he was born. He finds his way to the neighbouring town in search of work ; then to the great metropolis ; then across the water to one or other of our colonies. Greece and Rome realized the face that under no conditions could a certain tract of territory maintain more than a certain number of people, and had their settled plans of emigration. In England, at any rate since the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, we have too much left the matter to chance, and an ordi- nary emigrant, with the ordinary want of backbone, it seems to me, is just as likely to go to the dogs in New York, or Toronto, or Melbourne, as in London. What we want is what is now being attempted by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, the leading members of which have established 17- 26o To Canada with Efm'grants. a Church Colonization Land Society. Its object is to assist, in a practicable, business- like manner, on a remunerative basis, the great and pressing work of emigration to the British colonies in connection with the Church of England. This society, I learn from a proof of a circular just placed in my hands, issued by Canon Prothero, the chairman, will, under proper safeguards, render temporary pecu- niary aid in such cases as approve them- selves to the council, take charge of the emigrants on the journey to the colony, provide for their settlement on lands selected, from those acquired by the society, provide temporary dwellings until the emigrants can put together their own (the materials for which may be bought ready to hand, or the society itself can erect dwellings for them), will break up the land if desired, and secure for the emigrant religious services similar to those enjoyed at home. Colonization in Canada. 261 The society have secured land in Manitoba, near the railway, which land has been selected by a practical farmer, a Yorkshireman, who is to act as local manager. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge have laid particular stress in looking after the spiritual welfare of emigrants in all our colonies; and in Liverpool, as some of my readers may be aware, the society have placed the Rev. J. Bridger, of St. Nicholas Church, as emigrants' chaplain ; chaplains have also been appointed at several other ports, such as Plymouth, Glasgow, Cork, and London- derry ; but, as is manifest, the great centre of emigration is Liverpool, and there Mr. Bridger finds his hands full. No pains are spared to show every atten- tion to emigrants going from or arriving at Liverpool, and occasionally Mr. Bridger sails with the first party of emigrants to their new homes. It seems to me that the idea of the Church Colonization Society is the right 262 To Canada with Emigrants. \\ \ one ; but that it might be further extended by sending out at the same time the school- master, and the doctor, and the storekeeper, and the shoemaker, and tailor, and baker, and butcher, ard thus forming a village com- munity. It is at home impossible to realize the solitariness of the settler's life, far away from friends and the civilizing and elevating in- fluences of home. I met men in the North- West who seemed to have almost lost the power of speech, so long had they been left on their homesteads alone. Emigration in comjnunities would do away with this state of things. At present it is a serious sacrifice for a man with a family to emigrate into a new country. It is not good for man to be alone. As a rule, he degenerates on the prairie ; civilization is the gift of towns to humanity. A man does not live on bread alone. He needs that his heart and head be stimulated by contact with his fellow-men ; Colonization in Ca7iada, 26 not, as in the old country, in consequence of the extensive competition, by rivalry for the crust of bread, but b)' mutual aid and com- panionship in the greai, work of subduing the wilderness and making it to rejoice and blossom as the rose. In a month or two the emigration season will have commenced, and there is no time to spare. Why cannot other denominations do what the Church of England is now pre- paring to do ? Canada can feed and fatten millions, who in England will have to live as a burden on the community. There is many a man who does ill here who would do well there. We are all more or less the creatures of circumstances. In England the beershop has degraded the community, and many a man finds it hard to get away from its foul companionship : here, he de- clines into a criminal or a sot; there, not only will he be neither the one nor the other, but he will develop all the better 264 To Canada with Emigrants. tendencies of his character, and become a man. Make him a peasant-proprietor at home, and the chances are the old Adam in him will be too strong. Plant him in a colony, he feels in a new world, with a new aim. Here, he is looked down on : there, he is hailed as a man and a brother. We who are old must stop at home ; but there is no reason why our sons should do so. Why should a young man be a drudge because his father was a mere hewer of ^yood and drawer of water, when in a colony there are many ways of becoming well-off to a man who has good muscles and brains, has the sense to avail himself of opportunity when it occurs, and to keep his money in his pocket ? I say Canada, because Canada is easy to get at, and is yet almost in a virgin state. It is only recently that it has been opened up by the Canadian Government and the Canadian Pacific Railway. I say Canada, because Canada is English, and I am an Englishman ; Colonization in Canada. 265 because the Canadian Government does all it can to help the emigrant ; and because the Canadians are mostly healthy, honest men. Englishmen thrive there better, at any rate, than they do in the United States, or in South Africa. Arrangements for a colony can easily be made. In London, the Cana- dian Pacific Railway have a fine office in Cannon Street, where you can see for your- self what are the results of farming in the North-West, and where you will find its courteous and intelligent representative, Mr. Alexander Begg, whose only fault is that he will persist in maintaining that the English climate is killing him, and that he enjoys much better health in that frosty Canada, the cold of which is a bugbear that has kept too many away. Go to him, and he will tell you where to plant your colony, 'l he money which is now squandered in keeping paupers at home surely might be better spent in forming village communities in the boundless 1 11 266 To Canada with Emigrants. plains of the North- West. Let Dissenters imitate the Church. Let them have their communities as the Church of England seek to have theirs. Some people say the Salvationists are a nuisance in our crowded cities : let General Booth betake himself to Manitoba; he will find few people to com- plain of his processions there. But this is no subject to trifle about ; day by day the poor are becoming poorer, and the middle-classes and the rich also. The leaders of the coming democracy seem un- willing to recognise that fact, and are angry when I tell them it is better to emigrate than to agitate in the old country for the ruin of the capitalist, the destruction of our trade, the abolition of the landlord, the advent of the working man's candidate, and the rights of man. Are they the friends of the poor who bid him stay where he is to cheapen the labour market, already overstocked ; to crowd the cities with an unwholesome pau- Colonization in Canada. ij 267 perism ; to see his sons ripen into thieves, and his daughters cast on the streets ; and to look forward to the workhouse as the refuge of his old age ? Even if we had a revolution as complete as that of France, what then ? Over-population will breed sorrow and sick- ness and want and despair all the same. In Canada, the man who cares to work is sure of his reward ; he has a future before him and his. I am glad to find, since the above was written, there has been formed by the Con- gregational Union a special emigration scheme, of which the Rev. Andrew M earns, of the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, is Secre- tary, and that they have already sent out over a hundred qualified emigrants. The outfit and passage money of each man costs ;^7, and it is proposed to give each £2 when he arrives ill Canada. The men to be selected are drawn from the ranks of the unemployed who are brought together at the various Mission Halls. The case of each applicant is fully- examined, and the men themselves are thoroughly tested as to their honest desire and ability to work. The men having been approved and their record found satisfactory, they are sent to the emigration agent of the colony, who also examines into the cases of the various applicants. This acceptance having been notified, the next and, perhaps, the greatest difficulty is to provide a tem- porary home for them in the colony lo w^hich they are to be sent. As the result of much labour, each man will be sent to the care of som'e gentleman in the colony, who will see that he is properly provided for, and started in a fair way to obtain work. They are thus going to various towns in the Dominion, such as Kingston, Ontario, Ottawa, Hamil- ton, London, Toronto, St. Thomas's, Bell- ville, and Guelph. Among those to uhom introduction has been given are directors of railways, officers of Christian Associations, I Colonizatior in Canada. 269 gardeners, farmers, merchants, and various ministers of influence. It is almost unneces- sary to add that the spiritual needs of the men have not been forgotten, and in the kit of each one have been packed a Bible, supplied by the kindness of the Bible Society — who have intimated their willing- ness to make a similar presentation to every man the Union sends out — and an assortment of suitable and practical religious literature. Thus far have I told the story of my Cana- dian experiences. Those who wish to fully pursue the subject will do well to get * Pic- turesque Canada,' now being published by Messrs. Cassell and Co. THE END. BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY. I I Just Commenced, in Monthly Parts, Price 2s. 6d. PICTURESQUE CANADA. A Delineation by Pen and Pencil of all the Features of Interest in the Dominion of Canada, from its Discovery to the Present Day. WITH ABOUT Six Hundred Original Illustrations. Wi*h Part I is issued a Beautiful Steel Plate of Quebec, engraved by permission from the Picture painted for Her Majesty the Queen by L. R. O'Brien, President of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Cassell & Company, Limited, Lmigate Hill, London ; and all Booksellers. MAGAZINES for EVERY HOME. Price 6d. THE QUIVER, for Sunday Reading. ' A safer and more interesting magazine we do not know than The Quiver.' — Standard. * Sermon, story, and song are alike imbued with the bright spirit which the magazine has created for itself.' — British Quarterly Revieiv, Price yd. CASSELL'S FAMILY MAGAZINE. * In Cassell's Magazine we find articles to suit all members of the household. The stories are good, the pictures clever, and the contents unusually attractive.* — Times. Cassell & Comi-anv, Limited; and all BookscU s. A CLASSIFIED CATALOGUE, giving particulars of nearly One Thousand Volumes published by Messrs. Cassell & Company, ranging in price from SIXPENCE TO TWENTY-FIVE GUINEAS, will be sent on request post free to any midress. Cassell & Company, Limited, Lndgate Hill, London. Pr. ^arnarlio's '^omts for geBti ttttc ^ojia anil ®irls. P'-esMent—Tha Ri^ht Hon. the E \RI. CAIRNS. Vic<^.P>vsi,/cn(-T\\Q Riijht Hon. the LORD KIN^^AIRD. Tn-asnn-r-\W\h\.lkM FOWLER, Esq., M.P., 35, Cornhill, E.G. Ban'cers -hosoon & South-Western Hank (Bow Branch, E.). JHHESE ' Homes,' besides doing a vast amount of general mission work in East A London, feed, clothe, and provide a Christian and industrial training for over 1,300 poor children, and have since their formation rescued more than 6,000 Destitute Boys and Girls. In connection with these Institutions there are now thirty Cottage Homes for Girls, forming a Village upon thcfatitily system, at Ilford, Essex ; a Home for Little Boys at Jersey, a House for Babies at Hawkhurst, Kent, and three large Homes for Bovs and G-ri.s in the East of London. There is also in operation a Hospital for Sick Children, containing thirty-one beds, under skilful profes- sional care ; and an Hotel for Young Workmen who have left the Homes; whilst a Labcfur House for Destitute Youths too old to enter the Boys' Home, and a Servants' Home for Older Girls, have recentlybeen added. An Emigra- tion Department and Distributing Home, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, is also in operation. These ' Homes ' present some special features which distinguish them from all others in the Metropolis, not the least remarkable being that poor children are sought for by day and night in the Lodging Houses and other miserable haunts of the homeless poor. Really Destitute Children are always eligihle, and may be sent to the Office at anjr hour of the day or night. Other cases not so urgent are, if brought under notice, carefully inquired into, and decided upon as speedily as possible. Clyldren are admitted irrespective of differences of age, sex, or creed, and in spite of physical disqualifications that frequently lead to their being rejected else- where. No voting or promise of money payment is ever required to obtain admission for a suitable, i.e. a destitute case. There is no endmvment, and the whole work is dependent solely upon the free-will offerings 0/ the benevolent. £16 will support a healthy child for a whole year in any of our London Homes ; £15 will keep a sick boy or girl in our Children's Infirmary or at a Seaside Con- valescent Home for six months ; £10 will maintain a child for a whole year in our Little Boys' Home, Jersey ; £9 will pay for the complete outfit and passage money of any little one Emi- grated, for prudential reasons, to our Branch Homes in the Colonies ; £8 will give a homeless child all the benefits of the Institutions for Six Months ; £5 will Apprentice a child (disqualified perhaps by physical infirmity for ordinary pursuits') to some useful trade ; £3 lOs. will provide means by which 100 homeless children can be gathered from lodging houses and the streets to a Supper, at which the most needy may be selected for the permanent benefits of the Institution ; £1 6s. 8d. will give a homeless child all the benefits of the Institutions for A Month, or 6s. for a week. All communications should be addressed to the Treasurer, Wm. Fowler, Esq., M.F. ; or to the Director, Dr. T. J. Barnardo, 18 to 26, Stepney Cause- way, London, E. Post Office Orders should be made payable (7«^ at the G.P.O., and, as well as cheques, should be crossedl-iOnd^on and South-Western Bank, Bow Branch. THE BANK OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. Established In 1836 -Incorporated by Royal Charter In 1840. PAID UP CAPITAL, ONE MILLION STERLING. Head Oice, 3, Clement's Lane, Lombard Street, London. COURT OF DIRECTORS. JOHN H. P.RODIE, Esq. I. J. CATER, Esq. HENRY R. FARRER, Esq. RICHARD H. GLYN, ^sq. EDWARD A. HOARE, Esq. HENRY I. B. KENDALL, Esq. J. J. KINGSFORD, Esq. FREDERIC LUBBOCK, Esq. A. H. PHILLPOTTS, Esq. J. MURRAY ROBERTSON, Esq. Bankers— THE BANK OF ENGLAND ; Messrs. GLYN, MILLS, CURRIE & CO. ESTABLISHMENTS IN AMERICA'- General Manager— R. R. GRINDLEY.Esq., MONTREAL. DOMINION OF CANADA. PARIS Quebec. Ontario. ■ \ Ontario. .Nova Scotia. LONDON... HALIFAX.. ST. JOHN )., ^ FREDERIOTON f'^^^ Brunswick. VICTORIA British Columbia. MONTREAL ) 8UEBEC TTAWA TORONTO KINGSTON HAMILTON BRANTFORD ... AOENTS Iir MANZTOBA.-The Imperial Bank of Canada. NEW YORK. -Agency, 52, Wall Street. CHICAGO.— Agkncy, 158, Washington Street. SAN FRANCISCO.— Agency, 312, Pine Street. The BANK GRANTS CREDITS on its Branches and Agents, payable on presentation, free of charge. Also purchases or forwards for Collection BILLS on AMERICA and COUPONS for Dividends on AMERICAN STOCKS, and undertakes the Purchase and Sale of STOCK, and other Money Business in the BRITISH PROVINCES and the UNITED STATES. Deposits are received in the London Office for fixed periods at rates which can be obtained on application. AGENTS IN LIVERPOOL— Bank of Liverpool, Limited. AUSTRALIA- Union Bank of Australia, Limited; Bank of New Zeala.id ; Bank of Victoria; Bank of South Australia; Mercantile Bank of Sydney. NEW ZEALAND— Union Bank of Australia, Limited; Bank of New Zealand; Colonial Bank of New Zealand ; Union Bank of /usiralia. Limited. FIJI —Union Bank of Australia, Limited ; Bank of New Zealand. INDIA. CHINA, & JAPAN— Chartered Mercantile Bank cf India, London and China; Agra Bank, Limited; Hong-kong and Shanghai Banking Corpora- tion. WEST INDIES-Colonial Bank. BRAZILS- English Bank of Rio de Janeiro, Limited ; New London and Brazilian Bank, Liniiteil. f'.\RIS— Messrs. Marcuard, Krauss and Co., Society Gendralc. LYONS— Ljcdit Lyonnaib ; Societe Uenerale. A. G. WALLIS, Secretary. 3, Clbment's Lane, Lombard Stkeeti Lunuon, E.C. Dr. J. COLLIS BROWNE'S CHLORODYNE, THE ORIGINAL & ONLY GENUINE. Advice to Invalids. OHLT OENUINX If you wish to obtain quiet refreshing sleep, fiee from hcn'Jaehe, relief from pain and anguish, to calm and assuat^e the weary achinps of protracted disease, invigorate the nervous media, and regulate the circulating systems of the ImkIv, you will pro- vide yourself with that marvellous remedy dis- covered by Dr. J. COLLIS BROWNE (late Army Medical Staff), to which he gave the name of CHLORODYNE. CHLORODYNE is the best remedy known for Coughs, Consumption, Bronchitis, Asthma. CHLOBQDYNE effectually checks and arrests those too often fatal diseases — Diphtheria, Fever", CroupJAgue. CHLORODYNE acts like a charm in Diarrhn?a, and is the only specific in Cholera and Dysenter' CHLORODYNE effectually cuts short all attacks of Epilepsy, Ilysteria, Palpitation, and Spasms. CHLORODYNE is the only palliative in Neuralgia, Rheumatism, Gout, Cancer, Toothache, Meningitis, etc. From Dr. B. J. Boulton & Co., Horncastle. * We have made pretty extensive use of Chlorodyne in our prac- tice* lately, and look upon it as an excellent direct sedative and antispasmodic. It seems to allay pain and irritation in whatever organ and from whatever cause. It induces a feeling of comfort and quietude not obtainable by any other remedy, and it seems to possess this great advantage over all other sedatives, that it leaves no unpleasant after-effects.' Caution— Beware of Piracy and Imitations ! CAUTION.— Vice-chancellor Sir W. Page Wood stated that Dr. J. COLLIS BROWNE was undoubtedly the inventor of CHLORODYNE ; that the story of the Defendant Freeman was deliberately untrue, which, he regretted to say, had been sworn to. — See Times, 13th July, 1864. Sold in Bottles at is. li., 2s. gd., 4s. 6d., and lis. each. None are genuine without the "words 'Dr. J. COLLIS BROWNE'S" CHLORODYNE' on the Government Stamp. Overwhelming medical testimony accompanies each bottle. SOLE manufacturer: J. T. DAVENPORT, 33, Great Russell Street, W.C. I I 1 ^ T) > « I >. *: ^1 ^ "S >. f 5 •s o Ph •3 a 8 ^ 09 js 'a g -2 CO*S qQUJ J. -J -J U. uj- o o UJ^ z 5 «5 OQ OQ OQ UJ LJ lU OC ■J -IQ m OQ 09 nmmmummm^rr Just published, 168 2^P-> crown Sw., One Shilling ; cloth boards, gilt, \s. 6d. LIGHT AND SHADE: |3ktur^0 of l^onbon Jifc. A SEQUEL TO 'THE BITTER CRY OF OUTCAST LONDON,' Congregational Uniox, Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London, E.C. WWVWWWVN/WN/WVWN/WWN/N/W* This Sequel furnishes some account of tlie Mission Work carried on by the London Congregational Union, and contains* much touqhiug and thrilling evidence of th? privations of the Poor of the Metropolis. EMIGKATION on a large scale has been undertaken, with the object of improving the condition of those who, although willing to work, are unable to procure sufficient employment at home. Othp' features of Mission Work may be briefly enumerated : L^pwards of 30,000 garments have been distributed to the deserving poor during the year 1884. Upwards of 2,000 pairs of boots have been provided for poor children. Upwards of 10,000 free breakfasts have been supplied weekly to destitute children in 26 of the most needy districts of London. Similar provision has been made for supplying dinners. Social entertainments and religious services have been largely provided. Numerous additional agencies are in operation side by side with the singing and preaching of the Gospel. Contributions in aid of this multifarious and far-reaching Mission Work will be thankfully received by the Eev. Andrew Mearns, Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London, E.C. Cheques should be crossed * Smith, Payne, and Smith.' Price Six Shillings. EAST AN G LI A. Personal Recollections and Historical Associations. By J. Ewing Ritchie. ' Mr. Ritchie always works conscientiously and apart from the mere compiler of lK)oks, and at the same time always contrives to give his information in that Ijleasant and genial way which reminds one of the gossip of an old and privileged friend. Mr. Ritchie is a Suffolk man— the son of a Nonconformist minister of Wrentham in that county— and he looks back to the old neigh- bourhood and the old times with an affection which is likely to communicate itself to his readers. His field extends to the whole of that corner of England which is generally included under the designation chosen for the title of this volumo ; and it Is clear that he knows the coui^ty well, together with its associations both biographical and historical. The reader will perhaps be surprised to find how respectable -we may even say how illustrious— an assembly in literature, divinity, law, science and art are the Norfolk and Suffolk worthies ; nor have these counties failed to take an important place in English annals. But the author's purpose is not so much to remind us of all this as to linger over his personal recollections of men and places, and to recall scenes which have a significance as illustrating character or bygone phases of manners, while mingling with all this many anecdotes which have a pleasant flavour. As his recjllections extend back to the days of un- refomied Parliaments and thence onward through the stormy period of reform, we need hardly say that politics and political feeling in these parts also furnish him with much matter for his pages, and this not the least interesting. It may perhaps be imagined from this that the work appeals to East Anglians alone, but this would be to leave our reader under a mistaken impression, as the work will be found to have a special interest to all those who care to know something of their country's history — topographical, his- torical and geographical.'— Pic^orici World. Price One Shilling. CHRISTOPHER CRAYON AMONG THE GOOD SAMARITANS. ' Some nineteen philanthropic institutions in London and its vicinity, beginning with the Cat and, Dog Hospifcil and ending with Dr. Barnard's coffee palace at the East-End, are graphically described in the shilling brochure, "Christopher Crayon Amongst the Good Samaritans" (James Clarke and Co.). Mr. Ritchie has probably had a longer experience in visiting and sketching such places than any other member of the metropolitan press ; and he has a happy knack in conveying all the salient facts in a pleasant gossipy style that is appreciated by thousands. His latest work is full of suggestive hints for those who are seeking to do good.' —Christian Leader. Price One Shilling. CHRISTOPHER CRAYON IN SCOTLAND; or, From the Strand to Stor- noway. Being a reprint of ' Yatching in the Hebrides,' and other papers. ' The book will amuse travellers over the same ground, and it is just the thing for them to buy at a railway bookstall. It is the journal of a man out . for a holiday, written for others who are in like case.' — Mr. Spukoeon in Tlie Stvm-d and Troa-ei. JAMES CLARKE & CO., FLEET STREET, LONDON. THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE has, during 186 years, originated or supported a variety of Agencies in this country and abroad of the greatest importance to the progress of Christianity. The Society's means for affecting its purpose are derived chieflyfrom voluntary contributions, such as annual subscriptions, Church offertories, and legacies ; and there isGrEATNBED that its income should be increased, so that its work may be maintained and extended. It is the Bible and Prayer Book Society of the Church of England. It is the Church of England Tract and pure Literature Society. It is a Church Education Society. It is a Missionary Society. It is a Church and School and College Buildipg Society for the Colonial and Missionary Dioceses. It is an Emigrants' Spiritual Aid Society, and in con- nection with this work has arranged that emigrants may be commended to any of the following Clergy ; — GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. Rev. J. Bridger, St. Nicholas' Church, Liverpool. Rev. R. O. Creep, do. Rev. R. G. Brearey, do. Rev. R. F. Winter, do. Rev. James Davies — for Welsh Emi- grants — 15, Oxford Street, Liver- pool. Rev. F, Barnes, Holy Trinity Vicarage, Plymouth. Rev. G. Barr, Holy Trinity .Vicarage, Gravesend. Rev. F. C. N41SH, 9, The Terrace, Gravesend. Rev. Anton Tien, i, Cumberland Terrace, Tilbury. Rev. A. E. Clementi-Smith, Graves- end. Rev. C. W. Holland, Shirehampton, Bristol. Rev. T. W. Bankes Jones— for Welsh Emigrants— Ellerslie, Victoria Squa-e, Cotham, Bristol. Archdeacon Crosse, St. George's, Barrow- in-Furness. Rev. A. Whittall, 8, Bellahouston Ter- race, Ibrox, Glasgow. Rev. J. Trew, 61, Union Street, Greenock. Rev. F. L. RiGGS, 33, Clarendon Street, Londonderry. Rev. W. Daunt, Queenstown. Rev. T. Heany, Sligo. CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. Rev. T. W. Fyles, Point Levis, Quebec. Rev. Dr. Partridge, Halifax. Rev. J. H. Dixon, 813, (Jraig Street, Montreal. Rev. R. T. Leslie, 52, Common Street, Winnipeg. Rev. Cornelius L. Tvving, 66, Cooper Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. Incumbent of Mariners' Church, 20, Par- nienter Street, Boston. Rev. G. A. Leakin, Trinity Church, Balti- more. Rev. Isaac Martin, 1102, Walnut Street. Philadelphia. AUSTRALIA. v Ven. Archdeacon King, Trinity Church,* Sydney. Rev. J. Lang ley, St. Philip's, Church Hill, Sydney. , Rev. W. A. Brooke, Port Melbourne. Rev. T. W. Serjeant, Williamstown. Rev. H. J. Wilkinson, Queenscliffe. Canon Green, Port Adelaide. Rev. F. R. Coghlan, Semaphore. Rev. S. French, Glenelg. Rev. P. R. P. DoDD, Port Augusta. Rev. T, R. CoRVAN, Port Pirie; Rev. C. G. Taplin, Wallaroo. Rev. D. G. Watkin, Freemantle. Rev. A. Harrison, Cooktown. Rev. G. K. T. Noises, Cairns. Rev. T. Taylor, Herbert River. Ven. Archdeacon Plume ) rp„„ „„ ... Rev. A. Edwards | Townsville. Rev. W, F. Tucker, Bowen. Rev. E. A. Anderson > ]>t.-k„^ Rev. T. Worthington f ^^'^cKay. Rev. W. A. Diggens, Rockhampton. Rev. R. R. Eva, Maryborough. Ven. Archdeacon Glennie, Brisbane. Rev. Wm. Morris, Bundaberg, TASMANIA. Ven Archdeacon Davenport, Hobart. Ven. Archdeacon Hales, Launceston. NEW ZEALAND. The Mo.st Rev. the Bishop, Bishop's Court, Christchurch. Ven. Archdeacon Dudley, Parsonage, Symmonds Street, Auckland. Rev. W. Tebbs, St. Matthew's Parsonage, Wellesley Street, Auckland. Rev. C. M. Nelson, St. Paul's Parsonage, Emily Place, Auckland. SOUTH AFRICA. Rev. T. Browning, St. John's, Cape Town. Rev. W. F. Taylor, Mossel Bay. Rev. C. E. Jones, Port Nolloth. Rev. B. C. Mortimer, Knysna. SOUTH AMERICA. Rev. Hugh Davies, Chuput, Patagonia. On the application of any clergyman forms of letters of commendation will be supplied. Sub.scriptions, Donations, Church Collections, and Legacies are earnestly Soi;ght, that the .Society may be able to increase its activity in proportion to the growing wants of the Church.— A II Cofitmnnicationsfor the Society should be addressed to The Secretaries, S.P.C.K., Northumberland Avenue, London W.L. y and means innual icome hurch It is "or the n con- of the V hurch,* ;hurch le. rn. re. ^'ille. ly- n. le. art. on. Court, onage, ;onage, ;onage, Cape gonia. jplied. lESTLY rowing to The o s «■ W si o a S=S Pi c-g to 4~ S 0) a 00 o i^" £'4 si II «.9-a F^ -a P4 *5 rt CO ^ LU loss's. u P a a a, «J o (3 . (0 2 o •- 5 3 '53 -^ rt -o o S .0 3) h ^ o ^ o ■•-' i> Ja a 1* on 0; -M . H ♦< >, "O K 5 2 to » 00 S* Pt 60 . .2 S a ^^ g. •s^ « i^ S te 09 OS .2 8 n a) o u »^ M° O oj n 0) Pk s o bo 4J ).> . 3 "^ "^ a* ^■^ o 2 4)03 tog. s S s' P<8] i CO H 5 0) .2 H c3 V ^-*^£ O e3E-l; §^•5.5-^ A- - 0£ 'V*' a^a =^ I j!r'-Sbas.2 a l-H o CO MS W'jiM «s>;1.2 § ""i m Hod K 3 ►« 1-^ r3 ^, 4 (A O w § <5 ^) fi ^tel o o^P^ ft^ o a. gt*!©? tt; » w CO 5,