Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences

But Dr. Barnardo says in his magazine, Night and Day, that much injury to the work of emigration has been effected by supposing that boys who have committed grave moral faults can do well, if only shipped off to Canada. He contends that a number of young fellows of that sort sent to Canada, would seriously prejudice the prospects of emigration generally; and he urges in very strong terms that none but boys and girls of thoroughly good physique, industrious, honest, and of good general character, should be encouraged to emigrate upon any pretext whatever.

Previous to my leaving Toronto I had the pleasure of an interview with the Hon. Edward Blake, the head of the Opposition, whose utterances are watched and waited for by all parties in the State with breathless interest. Travelling from Winnipeg, I had listened to a conversation on that gentleman’s merits by two young gentlemen – who were a little incoherent in their language, owing to the quantity of refreshment they had on board – which certainly somewhat raised my expectations. Nor was I disappointed on my personal interview with the subject of their praise.

The Hon. Edward Blake is a man in the prime of life, of fresh complexion, of more than average height and build, with a keen and intellectual face. He was born in Canada, was educated at the University, followed his father in the profession of the bar, and as a cross-examiner, especially of an unwilling witness, and in the art of turning a man inside out, may claim to have no equal in Canada at the present time. He has visited Europe more than once – at one time in an official capacity – has mixed with our public men as well as with those of the Continent, has been in office, and, it is believed, will soon be in office again. He received me with great courtesy, and talked on things in general in a lively and interesting manner. On the Province of Ontario as a home for the British farmer he had much to say.

Taking me to the map hanging up in his office, and pointing to the district between Toronto and Detroit, he affirmed that there was no finer land to be found anywhere in the United States. His first constituency was a very poor one – consisting of English settlers and others who had gone there with very little, if any, money, and they had all done well, and their children were now mostly wealthy men. He did not approve of the Government plan of emigration; but he did think there was a fine field in Canada for the British farmer and his men. As to mechanics, he thought the look-out was poor. The mechanic in that part of the world leads a very migratory life. Such was the facility offered by railways, which ran in all directions, that a slight rise in the rate of wages would send him wherever that rise was to be found. At the present time there was a depression of trade in the United States, and wages were low. In Canada the wages were a little higher, and he looked to an emigration from the United States; and then the wages in Canada would go down.

The British mechanic would thus have to face a double difficulty – the competition of the Canadian and the American mechanic alike. I must add, however, that this was not the view of an English mechanic who had been settled in Toronto some years, and with whom, subsequently, I had some chat. His opinion was that any first-class English mechanic who came out would do well, while he frankly admitted that an inferior hand would have no chance whatever.

But to return to Mr. Blake. It is evident, though he and his party are supposed to be in favour of Free Trade – and it is a matter of fact that they were driven from place and power by a Protectionist outcry – that he does not consider the question of Free Trade from an English standpoint at all. It will be long ere Canada will lift up her voice in favour of Free Trade. In Canada there is no such thing as direct taxation, and as money has to be raised for the support of Government, it is felt it is easier to do that by means of a duty on foreign manufactures than by taking it directly out of the pockets of the people.

Just now there is a feeling growing up in favour of Free Trade with America; but that will not aid the British manufacturer one jot. The system of duties between Canada and America is an enormous nuisance, when one thinks of the daily personal and commercial intercourse between the two countries. For instance, I lost by changing English money into Canadian dollars; and then again, when I had to change Canadian dollars into American greenbacks, I had to submit to a further loss. This was not pleasant, especially when you remember that every time you cross the frontier – and people are doing it daily – you have to submit to a disagreeable examination on the part of Custom House officers. Surely Canada and America will before long have to come to a better understanding than that which at present exists. Of course, I write under correction. I am an outsider.

‘Can you tell me,’ I said to the Hon. E. Blake, ‘how I am to get to a knowledge of Canadian politics?’

His reply, and it was delivered with a smile, was:

‘By living in the country some five or six years.’

Under such circumstances I feel, with the poet, that ‘where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise.’

On one thing Mr. Blake was silent – nor did I allude to it: that was the question of Canadian independence. It is raised in many quarters, it is almost daily discussed in the Canadian newspapers. People are waiting to hear what Mr. Blake has to say on it. At present the oracle is dumb. When the question is settled you may be sure sentiment will have little to do with it; on this side of the Atlantic, at any rate, that sort of thing goes a very little way when the almighty dollar is at stake. But the question to be asked is, How long Canadian independence will stand the cry for annexation with the United States that will then be raised?

One of the pleasures attending my visit to Toronto was the finding out Mrs. Moodie – whose ‘Roughing It in the Bush’ did so much to help English people to understand the hardships of Canadian life some forty years ago. She was the youngest sister of Agnes Strickland; and, like her, wrote books for children, and tales and poems for the annuals, then the rage. She then married a Major Moodie, and went out to Canada, and I had not seen her since I was a raw lad; but of her kindness and her talent I had a distinct impression, and it was with real pleasure that I found her living at an advanced age – but in peace and comfort – at her son’s, a gentleman connected with the Inter-Colonial Railway. The sprightly lady of 1834, eager and enthusiastic, had become an elderly one in 1884; yet time had dealt gently with her, and her youth seemed to me to revive as she talked of her old Suffolk home, and of men and women long since gone over to the majority.

I was glad to find that she had made her mark in Canadian literature. An intelligent Canadian critic, Mr. J. E. Collins, whose acquaintance I was privileged to make – as well as that of his friend, Mr. Charles Robins, a poet of whom Canada may well be proud – writes of Mrs. Moodie: ‘So perfect a picture is Mrs. Moodie’s book of the struggles, the hopes, the dark days, and the sun-spots of that obscure life that fell to her lot in the forest depths, that its whisperings form a delightful music to the memory. The style is limpid as a running brook, picturesque, and abounding with touches that show a keen insight into character, and an accurate observation of external things. There is no padding or fustian in the book, and no word is squandered, Mrs. Moodie regarding the mission of language to be to convey thought, not to put on a useless parade.’

Mrs. Moodie has been living in Canada now fifty years, and loves to talk of the old country, especially of the people with whom she associated when, as Susannah Strickland, she used to stay in London with Pringle, the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, whose beautiful poem, ‘Afar in the desert I love to ride,’ is still a favourite with the English public. But she has no wish to come back to England – her family are all well settled in Canada. She lives with one of her sons, and her daughter, Mrs. Chamberlain, of Ottawa, has won deserved fame by her beautiful illustrations of Canadian flowers and lichens.

English readers who may remember Mrs. Moodie as one of the gifted Strickland sisters will be glad to learn that she is regarded as one of the pioneers of Canadian literature, and although born near the beginning of the present century, possesses a mental vigour and active memory rare in one so aged. She told me anecdotes of myself when a boy that I had quite forgotten, and retains in old age the enthusiasm for which she was remarkable when young. Some of her ghost-stories were capital. For instance, one night, when her sister Agnes was lying sick, in the old hall at Reydon, Suffolk, and was being nursed by her sister Jane, there came to them a tall, stately figure in white, with long garments trailing behind her. Of course, Agnes and her sister were very much frightened at the apparition, which stood at the door, pointed her finger at Agnes, hissed at her, and then disappeared. Other stories followed, equally interesting, in which Mrs. Moodie, it was evident, firmly believed.

It was during her long and lonely residence in the woods that Mrs. Moodie performed most of her literary work. While her husband was away crushing the Rebellion, she wrote her ‘Roughing It in the Bush,’ which did more to establish her fame in Canada and in England than any of her previous productions. It is probably the best picture we have of Canadian life at that time, and written in a style of composition charming, if only on account of its ease. Undisturbed by household cares, she wrote no less than fifteen books for children; a larger work, ‘Life in the Clearings,’ and in addition contributed a mass of matter to the old Canadian Literary Garland, sufficient to fill several large volumes. ‘I remember seeing Carlyle once,’ she said, ‘but he was such a crabbed-looking man that I did not care to make his acquaintance. In fact, his appearance was quite the reverse of pleasing, but he was an honest, close-fisted man, I dare say.’ She had a good deal to say of Cruikshank, who lived next door to Pringle. ‘I went to hear Dan O’Connell,’ she continued, ‘on the Anti-Slavery question. He was completely dressed in green – green coat, green vest, green pants – everything green but his boots. I was greatly amused at his opening remark, “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “England reminds me in this great question of a large lion that has been sleeping a good many years, commencing to rouse itself, stretch, yawn, and wag its tail.” For days after, that lion, with its wagging tail, came visibly before me.’ She also remembered Shiel, who began his speech in Exeter Hall, then quite a new building, by saying that he was afraid he would not be able to make himself heard, and then roared so that he might have been heard at Somerset House. She saw the man in armour proclaim King William in Cheapside, and it touched her to tears when all the people cried: ‘God save the King!’ ‘At one time,’ she said, ‘I helped Pringle to edit one of his annuals. Proctor sent in his poem on “The Sea, the Sea,” and after reading it I recommended it for publication, but Pringle rejected it. However, afterwards he found out his mistake when the poem, published in another channel, brought fame to its author.’

Mrs. Moodie seemed to think that it was a great privilege to have been in London while the Catholic Emancipation Act and the Reform Bills were carried, and still in her comfortable house in Toronto loves to talk of the bustle and excitement of the time. I was privileged twice to see her, and then we parted, never more to meet – in this world, at least.

Near Peterborough, about a hundred and fifty miles from Toronto, I found another far-famed Canadian authoress, Mrs. Traill, whose ‘Backwoods of Canada,’ published when I was a lad by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, and now, I believe, by Messrs. Routledge and Sons, was a delight to me in my young days. I remember her well as a young woman, tall and stately, with a wonderful flow of talk – enthusiastic as a worshipper of nature – ever ready to write of Suffolk lanes, with all their richness of floral and animal life; of Suffolk copses, where the birds sang, and the partridge and the pheasant and the timid hare found shelter; of farmers, then merry, and of peasants, then contented with their humble lot.

In person she was attractive, the most so, to my mind, of all the Strickland family, and she was very stately in manner, for was not her maiden name Katherine Parr Strickland, and had she not some of the blood of that family allied to royalty in her veins? The Stricklands came of an ancient and honoured line, and besides that, there is a great deal in names, as the reader of ‘Tristram Shandy’ and ‘Kenelm Chillingly’ perfectly understands. What could you expect of a Katherine Parr Strickland but queenly manner, as assuredly the young lady who bore that name had?

When I was a lad, she married a Major Traill, and accompanied her sister, Mrs. Moodie, to Canada. I cannot think how ladies thus tenderly nursed could have done anything of the kind – or, having done it, how they could have survived the hardships they were called to endure. The lot in their case was by no means cast in pleasant places. Mrs. Moodie, in her delightful book, ‘Roughing It in the Bush,’ says: ‘A large number of the immigrants were officers of the army and navy, with their families – a class perfectly unfitted by their previous habits and standing in society for contending with the stern realities of emigrant life in the backwoods. A class formed mainly from the younger scions of great families, naturally proud, and not only accustomed to command, but to receive implicit obedience from the people under them, are not men adapted to the hard toil of the woodman’s life.’

Yet it was to such a life Major Traill took his handsome and accomplished wife; but Mrs. Traill in her backwoods settlement was not forgetful of the literary vocation to which she had dedicated her early youth. I have already referred to her ‘Backwoods of Canada’; that was in due time followed by a volume equally worthy of public favour, under the title of ‘Ramblings in a Canadian Forest.’ Indeed, she and her sister may claim to have been the pioneers of Canadian literature; and their brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Strickland, may also claim to be placed in that category by his work, ‘Twenty-seven Years in Canada West,’ a record of his own experiences, abounding with numerous realistic touches. He settled his family near his sister; and at Lakefield, near Peterborough, the residence of Mrs. Traill, there is quite a colony of Stricklands, who have all done well, so people tell me, at the lumber trade.

I am glad I paid Mrs. Traill a visit. It was a long and wearisome ride, but I was well repaid by a short interview with one with whom I was familiar half a century back. Lakefield is a charming spot, and Mrs. Traill’s wooden but picturesque cottage overlooks a lovely scene of trees and hills, and water and grass. At any rate, in the early spring it has a neat little garden; in new countries neat little gardens are rare.

Mrs. Traill has seen great changes in her time. When she came there, there were only one or two houses in Peterborough; all was forest, and now it has a mayor and a town-hall, and is one of the nicest towns in that part of Canada. Mrs. Traill’s cottage is fitted up with English comfort and taste. She has around her books and photographs of loving relatives. She showed me a book of hers recently published by Messrs. Nelson and Sons. As a Canadian authoress, she has done much to commemorate the beauty of Canadian forests, and writes of their floral charms with all the tenderness and grace with which I remember her sketches of East Anglian rural life were richly adorned. She is now hard at work with a new volume on Canadian lichens and flowers.

As we stood talking at the window – the sunbeams played gaily on the blue waters of the lake or river beneath (in Canada there are so many rivers and lakes that you can scarcely tell which is which, or where the one ends or the other begins) – fairy flowers were beginning to gem her lawn; and the American robin redbreast, a far larger bird than ours, and other birds, still more graceful, flew among the trees – I felt how, in such a spot, one weary of the world could lead a tranquil life.

Mrs. Traill must be an advanced octogenarian – she is older than Mrs. Moodie, and Mrs. Moodie claims to be far over eighty. Yet Mrs. Traill retains her conversational power intact, and is full as ever of ‘the lore that nature brings,’ and is as enthusiastic as ever in its pursuit. As much as ever her manners are queenlike. They have never left her, in spite of all the hardships she has had to undergo as wife and mother in the wilderness, and her face still retains something of the freshness and fairness of her youth. She is a wonderful old lady, and Canada must be a wonderful country for such.

CHAPTER VI.

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 enjoyment of that everlasting roar which rises 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, committed 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 marvellous 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 grandeur. 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 my 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 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 guests. I have heard of an old Scotch settler who, as his last resort, invoked the aid of bagpipes, wherewith to frighten his unwelcome guests; but even that did not frighten the Indians, who 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 Goldwin 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 ultimately 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 authority shall have become relaxed. Then we have the Acadians of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow the lead of French Canada; nor could the few Britishers of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island escape the same fate. France is quite prepared 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, which, 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 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. Government 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, viâ Hudson’s Bay, the distance is less by 1,100 miles than by way of the St. Lawrence, and they are now talking of making a railway along that route. From Liverpool to China and Japan, viâ the northern route, the distance is 1,000 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 possession 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 statesmen 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 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.