Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences

‘It is a pity,’ said a Canadian lady to me, ‘that Queen Victoria’ – for whom all Canada prays that long may she reign over us, happy and glorious – ‘fixed upon Ottawa as the site of the Government.’

I am very much inclined to a similar feeling. At Montreal the change of water affected me very disagreeably. At Ottawa I was completely floored. It is a curious fact that almost everyone who goes to Ottawa is taken ill. I was complaining of my first terrible night to Sir Leonard Tilley, the Finance Minister, and he said that when he first came to Ottawa it was the same with him.

A lady told me that Lady Tupper, who has just left the Colony for England, where, it is said, her lord and master hopes to find a seat in the Imperial Parliament – a consummation devoutly to be wished, as to my mind it is clear that all our colonies should have representatives in Parliament – made a similar complaint as to the effect of the place on her children, and I have it on the best authority that scarcely a session passes but an M.P. pays the penalty of a residence in Ottawa.

In my case I was preserved, as the man in the ‘Arabian Nights’ says, for the greater misfortunes yet to befall me by the use of Dr. Browne’s far-famed ‘Chlorodyne’ – an indispensable requisite, I am bound to say, when an emigrant takes his trial trip to Canada. I know not who is the inventor – I believe it is what we call a patent medicine – that is, a medicine not sanctioned by the faculty – but, as has been observed of the Pickwick pen, it is indeed a boon and a blessing to men. I used ‘Chlorodyne,’ and was soon all right. Sir Leonard Tilley told me he did the same, and no one should go to Ottawa without having a small bottle of it in his carpet-bag.

Yet Ottawa is not without a certain freshness of beauty that one associates primâ facie with perfect health. The stately Government buildings, all of grey stone, are placed on a hill, whence you have a peerless view of river and country and distant hill, and far away forests all around. A more picturesque site it would be assuredly most difficult to find. As to the town itself, it is a curious compound – almost Irish in that respect – of splendour and meanness. There are magnificent shops – and then you come to wooden shanties, which in such a city ought long ere this to have been improved off the face of the earth. If on a rainy day, unless very careful, you attempt to cross the streets, you are in danger of sticking in the mud, which no one seems to ever think of removing, and in many parts there are disgraceful holes in the plank pavement on which you walk, which are dangerous, especially to the aged and infirm.

In Ottawa the contrasts are more violent than I have seen elsewhere. Everyone comes to the place. It is the headquarters of the Dominion. I met there statesmen, adventurers, wild men of the woods, or prairie, deputies from Manitoba, lawyers from Quebec, sharpers and honest men, all staying at one hotel; and it seemed strange to sit at dinner and see great rough fellows, with the manners of ploughmen, quaffing their costly champagne, and fancying themselves patterns of gentility and taste. In one thing they disappointed me. Sir Charles Tupper was to leave for England, and his admirers met outside the hotel to see him off. There was a carriage and four to convey him to the station, and other carriages followed. There was a military band in attendance, much to the disgust of the Opposition journals – and yet, in spite of all, the cheers which followed the departing statesman were so faint as to be perfectly ridiculous to a British ear, and seemed quite out of proportion to all the display that had been made. Certainly they seemed quite childish compared with those which greeted a certain individual, whose name delicacy forbids my mentioning, when, on the last night on board the Sarnia, he ventured humbly to reply to the toast of the Press which had been given in the smoking-room by a Quebec artist returning home from study in Paris.

In Ottawa, certainly, there is no demand for emigrants, unless it be good female servants, who are wanted much more, and can have much more comfortable living, at home. A lady asked me to send her a few good servants from England. I replied that my wife wanted them as much as she did, and that it was my duty to attend to her requirements first.

It is curious the airs the raw servant-girls from Ireland give themselves out here. One day, when I was at Peterborough, one of the head-quarters of the lumber trade – which yesterday was a dense forest, and is now a town of 8,000 people – I heard of the arrival of a lot of girls from Galway. The drill-hall was set apart for their use, and there they were respectfully waited on by the chief ladies of the district in need of that rarest of created beings – a good maid-of-all-work. In this particular case one of the arrivals was fixed on.

‘What can you do?’ said the lady.

The girl seemed uncertain on that point.

‘Can you wash?’

‘Oh no!’

‘Can you cook?’

‘Oh no!’

‘Can you do housemaid’s work?’

Well, she thought she could.

Then came the question of wages.

‘Will you take eight dollars a month?’

No, she would not. Would she accept of nine? Oh no! Would she take ten? Certainly not.

‘What do you want?’ said the lady, beginning to be alarmed.

‘They told me I was to have twelve dollars a month,’ said the girl, and that put a stop to the negotiation.

When I state that an English sovereign is worth at this time four dollars and eighty-six cents, I think you will agree with me that this charming daughter of Erin somewhat overrated the value of her services. The Canadians are a well-to-do people, but they cannot afford twelve dollars a month for a mere housemaid. I think it would be well if the respectable young women – of whom there are thousands in England who do not care for the pittance given to a governess, and who prefer the life of a lady-help – were to come out. They would soon be appreciated.

The average girl selected to be sent out to the colony, so far as I have seen her, is not a model of loveliness or utility. Were I a Canadian mother, I would sooner have a lady-help. Nor need the lady-help be afraid of the roughness of her lot. In Ontario, all the difficulties of the pioneers of civilization have long since disappeared. One hears strange tales of what those brave men and delicately nurtured ladies had to suffer.

I have seen two – whom I had known when a boy – who were familiar with the best of London literary society, who figured in all the annuals of the season, who were famous in their day, whose sires came over with William the Conqueror. They were sisters, and married two officers, who had land allotted to them in Canada, and brought out these wellborn and delicately nurtured women into what was then a waste, howling wilderness, where they had to slave as no servant-girl slaves in England, and to fight with the severity of the climate in a way of which the present generation of Canadians have no idea. Only think, for instance, of your joint roasting at the fire on one side and freezing on the other! In the settled parts of Canada, such horrors are now amongst the pleasant reminiscences of the past.

But I must return to Ottawa, where the universal testimony of all the heads of the Government was to the effect that Canada is the place for the poor, hard-working man. There is an emigration-office in every town, where the emigrant is sure to hear of work, if work is to be had.

Canada is a charming place for the traveller. He sees friends everywhere. Mr. John H. Pope, Minister of Agriculture, and Mr. John Lowe, Secretary, were especially useful in aiding me. As I called on the Minister of Finance, he insisted on my seeing the Premier – Sir John Macdonald – who came out of a Council to give me a friendly chat for half an hour, and who kindly asked me to call on him again on my return. In Canada the Council sits almost daily, and the sitting generally lasts from two till six, as all the business which is left in England to the departments, in Canada is transacted in the Council. Sir John seemed to think that a good deal of time was wasted in speeches in Parliament, which were intended not for the House, but for the constituents outside: in this respect the Canadian Parliament much resembles a more august assembly nearer home.

I had also the honour of an interview with the Marquis of Lansdowne at the Government House, in a pretty park about a mile out of the town. His lordship enjoys his residence at Ottawa very much, and said he should leave it with regret. His idea seemed to be that now was the time for English farmers with a little capital to come out to Ontario, as the old farmers are selling off their farms and going further, to take up large tracts of land in the North-West; and I think many English farmers would be wise if they adopted some such plan. The Province is called the Garden of Canada.

At present I have seen no very superior land. There is a good deal of sand where I have been and wheat-growing is out of the question; but the barley is excellent, and is in great demand in the United States, and a good deal of money is made by raising stock and horses. At any rate, no farmer here is in danger of losing all his capital – most of them are well off, and their sons and daughters prosper as well.

Let me give a few further particulars respecting Sir John Macdonald – perhaps the most abused, and the hardest working man, in all Canada. He has good Scotch blood in his veins. In the thirteenth century one of his ancestors looms up as Lord of South Kintyre and the Island of Islay. When the emigration movement to Canada began, a descendant of this Macdonald settled in Kingston, then the most important town in Upper Canada, and, next to Halifax and Quebec, the strongest fortress in British North America. He was accompanied by the future Premier, then a lad of five years of age. The boy was placed at the Royal Grammar School of Kingston, under the tuition of Dr. Wilson, a fellow of the University of Oxford, and subsequently under that of Mr. George Baxter. Meanwhile, his father moved to Quinté Bay, near the Lake of the Mountain, a lonely, wild country, in which the future Canadian statesman was often to be seen in the holiday time, with a fishing rod in his hand, with other companions as gay-hearted as himself. At that time he is described as having ‘a very intelligent and pleasing face, strange furry-looking hair, that curled in a dark mass, and a striking nose.’

Indeed, Sir John’s admirers see in him a resemblance to the late Lord Beaconsfield, and that there is a slight resemblance the most superficial observer must admit. As a lad, Sir John seems to have specially distinguished himself in mathematics. His master also, we are told, frequently exhibited the clean-kept books of young Macdonald to some careless student for emulation, and as often selected specimens of the neat penmanship of the boy, to put to shame some of the slovenly writers of his class.

At sixteen young Macdonald commenced the study of law, to which he devoted three years. The gentleman to whom he was articled speaks of him as the most diligent student he had ever seen. Before he was twenty-one years of age he was admitted to the Bar, opened an office at Kingston, and at once began to practise his profession. ‘He was,’ says a fellow-student, ‘an exemplary young man, and had the goodwill of everybody. He remained closely at his business, never went about spreeing, or losing his time, with the young men of his own age and standing, did not drive fast horses, but was always to be found at his post in his office, courteous, obliging, and prompt.’ When Sir John commenced his legal career, the country was full of revolution, and every county in Canada had its Radicals ready to take up muskets or pitchforks against the oppressor. Sir John, though a Tory, was often the means of doing good service to his friends of the opposite party. In defending a rebel who was tried for murder, the future Premier gained his first legal success. It was a time of intense excitement, and crowds thronged to see the prisoners and hear the trials. Everyone was struck with the masterly character of Sir John’s defence; and though they knew it was not within the power of human tongue or brain to save the prisoner, they admired the skill with which he marshalled his arguments, the tact he displayed in his appeal to the judges, and, above all, the deep interest he displayed in the cause of his unfortunate client. This was in 1838; from that date Sir John was looked to as a rising man. In a little while afterwards he commenced his stormy political career.

In 1841 Kingston was made the seat of Government, and Sir John was returned to Parliament, in place of a politician who had lost his popularity. The assembly was an excited one, and everyone made furious speeches, with the exception of the new member, who sat unmoved at his desk while the fray went on, looking, says a gentleman who well remembers him there, half contemptuous and half careless. In 1844, he commenced his executive career by being appointed to the Standing Orders Committee. His first speech was delivered with an easy air of confidence, as captivating as it was rare. The time ripened rapidly. The old Tory Compact Party was being swiftly broken up, and when Lord Elgin arrived in Canada, a new Government was formed, with Sir John as Receiver-General. In a little while he was moved to the Office of Crown Lands, then the most important department in the public service, and one that in the past had been most shamefully, if not most criminally abused, but he was soon out of office, and a new Ministry came into force, pledged to a Bill for the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose property had been destroyed in the rebellion. There were awful riots. The Parliament buildings in Montreal were burned, and it seemed as if the old feud between Frenchman and Englishman had been roused, never more to die.

Lord Elgin was ready to return to England The reformers were strong, but Macdonald did not despair. The new Government, amongst other things, were pledged to increased parliamentary representation, the abolition of seignorial tenure, and the secularization of the Clergy Reserves. Of the Government that attempted to do this, Sir John was a bitter opponent, on the ground that they had hesitated about questions which had set the country in a blaze. The Government had to retire, and in the Liberal-Conservative Ministry which succeeded to office we find Mr. Macdonald Attorney General, and he held office till he was defeated in his Militia Bill. He returned to office, however, in time to carry a confederation of the Colonies, and to become Premier, when Lord Monck was Governor-General.

Since he has been at the head of affairs the Hudson Bay Company has handed over its gigantic territory in the North West to the Dominion. That great work, the Canada Pacific Railway, has nearly been brought to a successful termination, and Canada has taken a leap upwards and onwards to matured life and independence, of which not yet have we seen the end. It is a terrible scene of personal attack, political life in Canada. Even since Parliamentary Government has been established, the fight between the ins and the outs has been bitter and constant. No one can understand it, unless he is a native of the country; and it says much for Sir John that he has risen to the top, and kept himself there so long. To have done so, he must have possessed more merit than his enemies give him credit for.

CHAPTER V.

TORONTO – THE TOWN – THE PEOPLE – CANADIAN AUTHORS – THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

Toronto, or the Queen City of the West, as she loves to call herself, stands upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, and has not only achieved a great success, but may be said, in spite of all the moving to the North-West of which we hear so much, to have a great future before it, on account of its position with regard to railways, which alone in this great country decide the fate of towns and cities. Immediately in front is a broad bay, from which you get an imposing view of the city, while its forest of spires and factory chimneys gives evidence of prosperous and busy life. I have never been in a city where the Sabbath was more strictly observed. The omnibus ceases to run on a Sunday, the cab is locked up, and even the cigar-store is closed. At seven on Saturday evening all the liquor-shops are shut, and in Toronto, as in all the Province, no one can buy a drop of whisky, or wine, or beer, till a decent hour on Monday morning. It is true, I was invited one Sunday to go and have a glass of whisky and water – an offer which, it is needless to say, I refused; but then, had I accepted the offer, I should have had to go into a club of which my friend was a member. In Canada, as in England, the club-member may indulge his taste, however strictly the abstinence of his less fortunate brother may be enforced by law. But the Sunday quiet of Toronto is remarkable. There are few people but church-goers in the streets, and the churches of all religious denominations are quite as numerous and quite as handsome as any we have in England. They are all built on a larger scale, and are all well-filled. On Sunday evening I had to light my way into the Congregational church, of which Dr. Wild is the minister. He hails from America, and is quite the sensation of the hour. There was no standing-room anywhere, and as I made to the door I met many coming away. However, I had made up my mind to hear the Doctor, and hear him I did. It seems that the subscribers have a door to themselves; I made for it, and luckily found a chair, which I wedged in under the platform. As I entered, the Doctor was making the people laugh by answering questions that had been sent to him in writing. Then we had quite a service of song. The choir behind him performed, a lady sang a solo, the congregation joined in a well-known English hymn. The Doctor prayed, and then we had a sermon about Revelation, containing much that was very effective, if not about his text, at any rate about that mysterious part of Scripture from which the text was taken. The Doctor is now in the prime of life, and his preaching powerful and effective. The audience consisted chiefly of men; perhaps that may be considered in the Doctor’s favour. One thing did surprise me, and that was to see seated at a table right under the pulpit platform a reporter coolly taking notes. Our English reporters in a place of worship on a Sunday are certainly more modest, and prefer to blush unseen.

Toronto rises up, with its grand public buildings, proudly from the shore. The site of the city was very marshy, and at one time it was known as Muddy York. Only yesterday a lady was telling me how her mother was near losing her life in the mud of the chief street, leaving behind her the English pattens of which she was so proud. The further from the lake, the more the land rises, till you reach where, as Tom Moore wrote —

‘The blue hills of old Toronto shedTheir 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, about 116,000. King Street, the principal one, is built up with substantial brick and stone buildings, many of which are equal to any on the American Continent. Forty years since, it was completely composed of wooden structures, and was barely passable to pedestrians. Now, it is adorned with stately stores, where the latest novelties of the Old World and the New are ostentatiously displayed. The public buildings are quite an ornament to the place, and the offices of the leading newspaper, The Toronto Mail, are one of the sights of the city. The yearly civic income and expenditure is over 2,000,000 dollars, and the assessed value of property last year was 61,942,581 dollars. The streets are spacious, well laid out, and regularly built. The two main arteries of the city are King and George Streets, which, crossing each other at right angles, divide the city into four large sections. I don’t think house-rent is cheap. I have been in one or two private houses, the rents of which seemed to me certainly dearer than would be the rents of similar houses in London. But, then, in Toronto – think of it, O respected Paterfamilias! – the best cuts of meat are about eightpence a pound, and prime butter is not much more, and – Sir Henry Thompson will rejoice to hear this – there is a plentiful supply of fish. The city also boasts of fine theatres, and halls, and colleges; while the Episcopalian Cathedral in James Street possesses the celebrated chimney and illuminated clock which took the first prize at the Vienna Exhibition, and which was purchased by the citizens, and presented to the Dean and churchwardens of the place on Christmas-eve, 1876. They tell me, however, that the strongest body of Christians in the city is that of the Wesleyans. I am staying at Walker House, the most comfortable place which I have discovered thus far. Toronto itself offers few opportunities to the emigrant, and the citizens are not enthusiastic in his favour. I met a reverend gentleman from England here, who, the other night, at a meeting of mechanics, vainly endeavoured to say a word in favour of emigration, and had to desist under the threat that if he did not they would knock off his head. The mechanics here are very much afraid that if more of their own class come out, wages will be lowered. Nor are Irish emigrants in much favour here, as they stop in the city instead of going into the country in search of work, and have to be supported by the charitable and humane. Only a few days since a large batch of Irish arrived. Work had been found for them which they agreed to accept, and they were on the point of being forwarded, when they were got at by the Irish already in the city, and now they refuse to budge.

The other day I met Dr. Barnardo’s agent, who has come out with some of his trained boys to settle them in Peterborough, where Mr. G. A. Cox, the Mayor of the place, has kindly given a commodious house for their use. Already, I believe, the Doctor has sent out 780 boys and about 470 girls, who have all been planted out. Mr. W. Williams, of the Chichester and Arethusa, has sent many more, and so have others, of whom I hope to hear tidings in the course of my travel. The manager of Dr. Barnardo’s home at Peterborough, in answer to inquiries from the farmers and others, writes that boys from seven to twelve years of age are usually sent out on terms of adoption, to be treated in every respect as children of the household, and to receive, on attaining their twenty-first birthday, a sum of not less than one hundred and fifty dollars. Boys of thirteen and over are hired as ‘helps,’ at wages varying from thirty-five to ninety-five dollars per annum, with lodging, food, and medical attendance. Girls are sent out at ages ranging from four to sixteen years. Those of eleven and under are usually adopted into families; while those of twelve and upwards are hired at wages from two dollars to nine dollars a month, with board, lodging, washing, and medical attendance. The utmost care is taken that these children should be placed in good hands. The applicant for a child has to get his letter recommended by a clergyman or magistrate; then he has to give his Christian name and surname in full, his address, his occupation; to say if he hires his farm, or if it is his own; whether he is a member of a Christian Church; what work the child will have to perform; on what terms the child comes into the family; what length of engagement is desired; what church the child will attend; and so on.

Moreover, Dr. Barnardo’s system provides for the regular and frequent visitation of every young emigrant at his or her place of employment; the girls by a lady of great experience, the boys by a gentleman. By this means the children are never lost sight of, and trustworthy reports of their progress and whereabouts are periodically furnished to the heads of the institution in England.

Now, I call attention to this plan, not merely to increase confidence in the labours of philanthropists who are sending out children to Canada, but in order to raise the question, why it is only the children of the destitute and the wild arabs of the street that are to have this advantage. There must be many poor people in England who have sons, perhaps a little too plucky for home, who could pay to send out their lads, and would be glad to do so, if they saw a chance of their being placed in good hands. There are many boys who would be glad to leave the somewhat overcrowded house, and who would rejoice to fight the battle of life in the New World under such advantageous conditions. Why should they not have a chance? Why should the destitute only be looked after? Why should not some one in the same way lend a helping hand to the honest son of the honest working man? It may be that his father may be too old to emigrate. It may be that he is doing fairly well at home, and that it is not worth his while to emigrate. But why should not his son have a chance, and be sent out under a system as excellent as that to which I have referred? Assuredly that is a question to be asked by others.