Toronto of Old (part 2)

Immediately north of the church plot, and separated from it by an allowance for a street, was a large field, almost square, containing six acres. In a plan of the date 1819, and signed "T. Ridout, Surveyor-General," this piece of ground is entitled "College Square." (In the same plan the church reservation is marked "Church Square;" and the block to the west, "Square for Court House and Jail.") The fact that the Jail was to be erected there accounts for the name "Newgate Street," formerly borne by what is now Adelaide Street.

In the early days, when the destined future was but faintly realized, "College Square" was probably expected to become in time, and to continue for ever, an ornamental piece of ground round an educational institution. The situation, in the outskirts of York, would be deemed convenient and airy.

For many years this six-acre field was the play-ground of the District Grammar School. Through the middle of it, from north to south, passed a shallow "swale," where water collected after rains; and where in winter small frozen ponds afforded not bad sliding-places. In this moist region, numerous crayfish were to be found in summer. Their whereabouts was always indicated by small clay chimneys of a circular form, built by the curious little nipping creatures themselves, over holes for the admission of air.

In different places in this large area were remains of huge pine-stumps, underneath the long roots of which it was an amusement to dig and form cellars or imaginary treasure-vaults and powder-magazines. About these relics of the forest still grew remains of the ordinary vegetation of such situations in the woods; especially an abundance of the sorrel-plant, the taste of which will be remembered, as being quite relishable. In other places were wide depressions showing where large trees had once stood. Here were no bad places, when the whim so was, to lie flat on the back and note the clouds in the blue vault over head; watch the swallows and house-martins when they came in spring; and listen to their quiet prattle with each other as they darted to and fro; sights and sounds still every year, at the proper season, to be seen and heard in the same neighbourhood, yielding to those who have an eye or ear for such matters a pleasure ever new; sights and sounds to this day annually resulting from the cheery movements and voices of the direct descendants, doubtless, of the identical specimens that flitted hither and thither over the play-ground of yore.

White clover, with other herbage that commonly appears spontaneously in clearings, carpeted the whole of the six acres, with the exception of the places worn bare, where favourable spots had been found for the different games of ball in vogue—amongst which, however, cricket was not then in these parts included—except, perhaps, under a form most infantile and rudimentary. After falls of moist snow in winter, gigantic balls used here to be formed, gathering as they were rolled along, until by reason of their size and weight they could be urged forward no further: and snow castles on a large scale were laboriously built; destined to be defended or captured with immense displays of gallantry. Preparatory to such contest, piles of ammunition would be stored away within these structures. It was prohibited, indeed, in the articles to be observed in operations of attack and defence, to construct missiles of very wet snow; to dip a missile in melted snow-water prior to use; to subject a missile after a saturation of this kind, to the action of a night's frost; to secrete within the substance of a missile any foreign matter; yet, nevertheless, occasionally such acts were not refrained from; and wounds and bruises of an extra serious character, inflicted by hands that could not always be identified, caused loud and just complaints. Portions of the solid and extensive walls of the extemporized snow-fortresses were often conspicuous in the play-ground long after a thaw had removed the wintry look from the rest of the scene.

The Building into which the usual denizens of the six-acre play-ground were constrained, during certain portions of each day, to withdraw themselves, was situated at a point 114 feet from its western, and 104 from its southern boundary. It was a large frame structure, about fifty-five long, and forty wide; of two storeys; each of a respectable altitude. The gables faced east and west. On each side of the edifice were two rows of ordinary sash windows, five above, and five below. At the east end were four windows, two above, two below. At the west end were five windows and the entrance-door. The whole exterior of the building was painted of a bluish hue, with the exception of the window and door frames, which were white. Within, on the first floor, after the lobby, was a large square apartment. About three yards from each of its angles, a plain timber prop or post helped to sustain the ceiling. At about four feet from the floor, each of these quasi-pillars began to be chamfered off at its four angles. Filling up the south-east corner of the room was a small platform approached on three sides by a couple of steps. This sustained a solitary desk about eight feet long, its lower part cased over in front with thin deal boards, so as to shut off from view the nether extremities of whosoever might be sitting at it.

On the general level of the floor below, along the whole length of the southern and northern sides of the chamber, were narrow desks set close against the wall, with benches arranged at their outer side. At right angles to these, and consequently running out, on each side into the apartment, stood a series of shorter desks, with double slopes, and benches placed on either side. Through the whole length of the room from west to east, between the ends of the two sets of cross benches, a wide space remained vacant. Every object and surface within this interior, were of the tawny hue which unpainted pine gradually assumes. Many were the gashes that had furtively been made in the ledges of the desks and on the exterior angles of the benches; many the ducts cut in the slopes of the desks for spilt ink or other fluid; many the small cell with sliding lid, for the incarceration of fly or spider; many the initials and dates carved here, and on other convenient surfaces, on the wainscot and the four posts.

On the benches and at the desks enumerated and described, on either side, were ordinarily to be seen the figures and groups which usually fill up a school interior, all busily engaged in one or other of the many matters customary in the training and informing the minds of boys. Here, at one time, was to be heard, on every side, the mingled but subdued sound of voices conning or repeating tasks, answering and putting questions; at another time, the commotion arising out of a transposition of classes, or the breaking up of the whole assembly into a fresh set of classes; at another time, a hushed stillness preparatory to some expected allocution, or consequent on some rebuke or admonition. It was manifest, at a glance, that the whole scene was under the spell of a skilled disciplinarian.

Here, again, the presiding genius of the place was Dr. Strachan. From a boy he had been in the successful discharge of the duties of a schoolmaster. At the early age of sixteen we find that he was in charge of a school at Carmyllie, with the grown-up sons of the neighbouring farmers, and of some of the neighbouring clergy, well under control. At that period he was still keeping his terms and attending lectures, during the winter months, at King's College, Aberdeen. Two years afterwards he obtained a slightly better appointment of the same kind at Denino, still pursuing his academical studies, gathering, as is evident from his own memoranda, a considerable knowledge of men and things, and forming friendships that proved life-long. Of his stay at Denino he says, in 1800: "The two years which I spent at Denino were, perhaps, as happy as any in my life; much more than any time since." "At Denino," the same early document states, "I learned to think for myself. Dr. Brown [the parish-minister of the place, afterwards professor at Glasgow,] corrected many of my false notions. Thomas Duncan [afterwards a professor at St. Andrew's] taught me to use my reason and to employ the small share of penetration I possess in distinguishing truth from error. I began to extend my thoughts to abstract and general ideas; and to summon the author to the bar of my reason. I learned to discriminate between hypotheses and facts, and to separate the ebullitions of fancy from the deductions of reason. It is not to be supposed that I could or can do these things perfectly; but I began to apply my powers: my skill is still increasing."

Then for two years more, and up to the moment of his bold determination to make trial of his fortunes in the new world beyond the seas, he is in charge of the parish-school of Kettle. We have before us a list of his school there, March the 22nd, 1798. The names amount to eighty-two. After each, certain initials are placed denoting disposition and capability, and the direction of any particular talent. Among these names are to be read that of D. Wilkie, afterwards the artist, and that of J. Barclay, afterwards the naval commander here on Lake Erie. We believe that Thomas Campbell, author of the Pleasures of Hope, was also for a time under his care.

In the history of Dr. Strachan's educational labours in Canada, the school at York presents fewer points of interest than that at Cornwall, which is rendered illustrious by having had enrolled on its books so many names familiar in the annals of Upper Canada. Among the forty-two subscribers to an address accompanying a piece of Plate in 1833, there are Robinsons, and Macaulays, and McDonells, and McLeans, and Joneses, and Stantons, and Bethunes; a Jarvis, a Chewett, a Boulton, a Vankoughnet, a Smith of Kingston, an Anderson; with some others now less known.—So illustrative is that address of the skill and earnest care of the instructor on the one hand, and of the value set upon his efforts by his scholars, on the other, after the lapse of many years, that we are induced to give here a short extract from it.

"Our young minds," the signers of the address in 1833 say, referring to their school-days in Cornwall—"our young minds received there an impression which has scarcely become fainter from time, of the deep and sincere interest which you took, not only in our advancement in learning and science, but in all that concerned our happiness or could affect our future prospects in life." To which Dr. Strachan replies by saying, among many other excellent things—"It has ever been my conviction that our scholars should be considered for the time our children; and that as parents we should study their peculiar dispositions, if we really wish to improve them; for if we feel not something of the tender relation of parents towards them, we cannot expect to be successful in their education. It was on this principle I attempted to proceed: strict justice tempered with parental kindness; and the present joyful meeting evinces its triumph: it treats the sentiments and feelings of scholars with proper consideration; and while it gives the heart and affections full freedom to shew themselves in filial gratitude on the one side, and fatherly affection, on the other, it proves that unsparing labour accompanied with continual anxiety for the learner's progress never fails to ensure success and to produce a friendship between master and scholar which time can never dissolve."

Notwithstanding the greater glory of the school at Cornwall, (of which institution we may say, in passing, there is an engraving in the board-room of the Toronto Mechanics' Institute,) the lists of the school at York always presented a strong array of the old, well-known and even distinguished, Upper Canadian names. This will be seen by a perusal of the following document, which will also give an idea of the variety of matters to which attention was given in the school. The numerous family names which will at once be recognized, will require no comment.—The intervals between the calling up of each separate class for examination appear to have been very plentifully filled up with recitations and debates.

"Order of examination of the Home District Grammar School [at York]. Wednesday, 11th August, 1819. First Day. The Latin and Greek Classes. Euclid and Trigonometry. Thursday, 12th August. Second day. To commence at 10 o'clock. Prologue, by Robert Baldwin.—Reading Class.—George Strachan, The Excellence of the Bible. Thomas Ridout, The Man of Ross. James McDonell, Liberty and Slavery. St. George Baldwin, The Sword. William McMurray, Soliloquy on Sleep. Arithmetic Class—James Smith, The Sporting Clergyman. William Boulton, jun., The Poets New Year's Gift. Richard Oates, Ode to Apollo. Orville Cassell, The Rose. Book-keeping.—William Myers, My Mother. Francis Heward, My Father. George Dawson, Lapland.—First Grammar Class.—Second Grammar Class.—Debate on the Slave Trade. For the Abolition: Francis Ridout, John Fitzgerald, William Allan, George Boulton, Henry Heward, William Baldwin, John Ridout, John Doyle, James Strachan. Against the Abolition: Abraham Nelles, James Baby, James Doyle, Charles Heward, Allan McDonell, James Myers, Charles Ridout, William Boulton, Walker Smith.—First Geography Class.—Second Geography Class. James Dawson, The Boy that told Lies. James Bigelow, The Vagrant. Thomas Glassco, The Parish Workhouse. Edward Glennon, The Apothecary.—Natural History.—Debate by the Young Boys: Sir William Strickland, Charles Heward. Lord Morpeth, John Owens. Lord Hervey, John Ridout. Mr. Plomer, Raymond Baby. Sir William Yonge, John Fitzgerald. Sir William Windham, John Boulton. Mr. Henry Pelham, Henry Heward. Mr. Bernard, George Strachan. Mr. Noel, William Baldwin. Mr. Shippen, James Baby. Sir Robert Walpole, S. Givins and J. Doyle. Mr. Horace Walpole, James Myers. Mr. Pulteney, Charles Baby.—Civil History.—William Boulton, The Patriot. Francis Ridout, The Grave of Sir John Moore. Saltern Givins, Great Britain. John Boulton, Eulogy on Mr. Pitt. Warren Claus, The Indian Warrior. Charles Heward, The Soldier's Dream. William Boulton, The Heroes of Waterloo.—Catechism.—Debate on the College at Calcutta. Speakers: Mr. Canning, Robert Baldwin. Sir Francis Baring, John Doyle. Mr. Wainwright, Mark Burnham. Mr. Thornton, John Knott. Sir D. Scott, William Boulton. Lord Eldon, Warren Claus. Sir S. Lawrence, Allan Macaulay. Lord Hawkesbury, Abraham Nelles. Lord Bathurst, James McGill Strachan, Sir Thomas Metcalf, Walker Smith. Lord Teignmouth, Horace Ridout.—Religious Questions and Lectures.—James McGill Strachan, Anniversary of the York and Montreal Colleges anticipated for 1st January, 1822. Epilogue, by Horace Ridout."

In the prologue pronounced by "Robert Baldwin," the administration of Hastings in India is eulogized:

"Her powerful Viceroy, Hastings, leads the way For radiant Truth to gain imperial sway; The arts and sciences, for ages lost, Roused at his call, revisit Brahma's coast."

Sir William Jones is also thus apostrophized, in connection with his "Asiatic Researches":

"Thy comprehensive genius soon explored The learning vast which former times had stored."

The Marquis of Wellesley is alluded to, and the college founded by him at Calcutta:

"At his command the splendid structures rise: Around the Brahmins stand in vast surprise."

The founding of a Seat of Learning in Calcutta suggests the necessity of a similar institution in Canada. A good beginning, it is said, had been here made in the way of lesser institutions: the prologue then proceeds:

"Yet much remains for some aspiring son, Whose liberal soul from that, desires renown, Which gains for Wellesley a lasting crown; Some general structures in these wilds to rear, Where every art and science may appear."

Sir Peregrine Maitland, who probably was present, is told that he might in this manner immortalize his name:

"O Maitland blest! this proud distinction woos Thy quick acceptance, back'd by every muse; Those feelings, too, which joyful fancy knew When learning's gems first opened to thy view, Bid you to thousands smooth the thorny road, Which leads to glorious Science's bright abode."

"The Anniversary of York and Montreal Colleges anticipated" is a kind of Pindaric Ode to Gratitude: especially it is therein set forth that offerings of thankfulness are due to benevolent souls in Britain:

"For often there in pensive mood They ponder deeply on the good They may on Canada bestow— And College Halls appear, and streams of learning flow!"

The "Epilogue" to the day's performances is a humorous dissertation in doggrel verse on United States innovations in the English Language: a pupil of the school is supposed to complain of the conduct of the master:

"Between ourselves, and just to speak my mind, In English Grammar, Master's much behind: I speak the honest truth—I hate to dash— He bounds our task by Murray, Lowth and Ashe. I told him once that Abercrombie, moved By genius deep had Murray's plan improved. He frowned upon me, turning up his nose, And said the man had ta'en a maddening dose. Once in my theme I put the word progress— He sentenced twenty lines, without redress; Again for 'measure' I transcribed 'endeavour'— And all the live-long day I lost his favour." &c., &c.

At the examination of the District School on August 7th, 1816, a similar programme was provided.

John Claus spoke the prologue on this occasion, and the following boys had parts assigned them in the proceedings. The names of some of them appear in the account for 1819, just given: John Skeldon, George Skeldon, Henry Mosley, John Doyle, Charles Heward, James Myers, John Ridout, Charles Ridout, John FitzGerald, John Mosley, Saltern Givins, James Sheehan, Henry Heward, Allan McDonell, William Allan, John Boulton, William Myers, James Bigelow, William Baldwin, St. George Baldwin, K. de Koven, John Knott, James Givins, Horace Ridout, William Lancaster, James Strachan, David McNab, John Harraway, Robert Baldwin, Henry Nelles, Warren Shaw, David Shaw, Daniel Murray.

In 1816, Governor Gore was at the head of affairs. He is advised, in the Prologue spoken by John Claus, to distinguish himself by attention to the educational interests of the country: (The collocation of names at the end will excite a smile.)—

"O think what honour pure shall bless thy name Beyond the fleeting voice of vulgar fame! When kings and haughty victors cease to raise The secret murmur and the venal praise, Perhaps that name, when Europe's glories fade, Shall often charm this Academic shade, And bards exclaim on rough Ontario's shore, We found a Wellesley and Jones in Gore!"

We have ourselves a good personal recollection of the system of the school at York, and of the interest which it succeeded in awakening in the subjects taught. The custom of mutual questioning in classes, under the eye of the master, was well adapted to induce real research, and to impress facts on the mind when discovered.

In the higher classes each lad in turn was required to furnish a set of questions to be put by himself to his class-fellows, on a given subject, with the understanding that he should be ready to set the answerer right should he prove wrong. And again: any lad who should be deemed competent was permitted to challenge another, or several others, to read or recite select rhetorical pieces: a memorandum of the challenge was recorded: and, at the time appointed, the contest came off, the class or the school deciding the superiority in each case, subject to the criticism or disallowance of the master.

It will be seen from the matters embraced in the programme given above, that the object aimed at was a speedy and real preparation for actual life. The master, in this instance, was disembarrassed of the traditions which, at the period referred to, often rendered the education of a young man a cumbersome, unintelligent and tedious thing. The circumstances of his own youth had evidently led him to free himself from routine. He himself was an example, in addition to many another Scottish-trained man of eminence that might be named, of the early age at which a youth of good parts and sincere, enlightened purpose, may be prepared for the duties of actual life, when not caught in the constrictor-coils of custom, which, under the old English Public-School-system of sixty years since, used sometimes to torture parent and son for such a long series of years.

Dr. Strachan's methods of instruction were productive, for others, of the results realized in his own case. His distinguished Cornwall pupils, were all, we believe, usefully and successfully engaged in the real work of life in very early manhood. "The time allowed in a new country like this," he said to his pupils at Cornwall in 1807, "is scarcely sufficient to sow the most necessary seed; very great progress is not therefore to be expected: if the principles are properly engrafted we have done well."

In the same address his own mode of proceeding is thus dwelt upon: "In conducting your education, one of my principal objects has always been to fit you for discharging with credit the duties of any office to which you may hereafter be called. To accomplish this, it was necessary for you to be accustomed frequently to depend upon, and think for yourselves: accordingly I have always encouraged this disposition, which when preserved within due bounds, is one of the greatest benefits that can possibly be acquired. To enable you to think with advantage, I not only regulated your tasks in such a manner as to exercise your judgment, but extended your views beyond the meagre routine of study usually adopted in schools; for, in my opinion, several branches of science may be taught with advantage at a much earlier age than is generally supposed. We made a mystery of nothing: on the contrary, we entered minutely into every particular, and patiently explained by what progressive steps certain results were obtained. It has ever been my custom, before sending a class to their seats, to ask myself whether they had learned anything; and I was always exceedingly mortified if I had not the agreeable conviction that they had made some improvement. Let none of you, however, suppose that what you have learned here is sufficient; on the contrary, you are to remember that we have laid only the foundation. The superstructure must be laid by yourselves."

Here is an account of his method of teaching Arithmetic, taken from the introduction to a little work on the subject, published by himself in 1809: "I divide my pupils," he says, "into separate classes, according to their progress. Each class has one or more sums to produce every day, neatly wrought upon their slates: the work is carefully examined; after which I command every figure to be blotted out, and the sums to be wrought under my eye. The one whom I happen to pitch upon first, gives, with an audible voice, the rules and reasons for every step; and as he proceeds the rest silently work along with him, figure for figure, but ready to correct him if he blunder, that they may get his place. As soon as this one is finished, the work is again blotted out, and another called upon to work the question aloud as before, while the rest again proceed along with him in silence, and so on round the whole class. By this method the principles are fixed in the mind; and he must be a very dull boy indeed who does not understand every question thoroughly before he leaves it. This method of teaching Arithmetic possesses this important advantage, that it may be pursued without interrupting the pupil's progress in any other useful study. The same method of teaching Algebra has been used with equal success. Such a plan is certainly very laborious, but it will be found successful; and he that is anxious to spare labour ought not to be a public Teacher. When boys remain long enough, it has been my custom to teach them the theory, and give them a number of curious questions in Geography, Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, a specimen of which may be seen in the questions placed before the Appendix."

The youths to be dealt with in early Canadian schools were not all of the meek, submissive species. With some of them occasionally a sharp regimen was necessary; and it was adopted without hesitation. On this point, the address just quoted, thus speaks: "One of the greatest advantages you have derived from your education here, arises from the strictness of our discipline. Those of you who have not already perceived how much your tranquillity depends upon the proper regulation of the temper, will soon be made sensible of it as you advance in years. You will find people who have never known what it is to be in habitual subjection to precept and just authority, breaking forth into violence and outrage on the most frivolous occasions. The passions of such persons, when once roused, soon become ungovernable; and that impatience of restraint, which they have been allowed to indulge, embitters the greatest portion of their lives. Accustomed to despise the barriers erected by reason, they rush forward to indulgence, without regarding the consequences. Hence arises much of that wretchedness and disorder to be met with in society. Now the discipline necessary to correct the impetuosity of the passions is often found nowhere but in well-regulated schools: for though it should be the first care of parents, they are too apt to be blinded by affection, and grant liberties to their children which reason disapproves. . . . . . That discipline therefore, which you have sometimes thought irksome will henceforth present itself in a very different light. It will appear the teacher of a habit of the greatest consequence in the regulation of your future conduct; and you will value it as the promoter of that decent and steady command of temper so very essential to happiness, and so useful in our intercourse with mankind."

These remarks on discipline will be the more appreciated, when it is recollected that during the time of the early settlements in this country, the sons of even the most respectable families were brought into contact with semi-barbarous characters. A sporting ramble through the woods, a fishing excursion on the waters, could not be undertaken without communications with Indians and half-breeds and bad specimens of the French voyageur. It was from such sources that a certain idea was derived which, as we remember, was in great vogue among the more fractious of the lads at the school at York. The proposition circulated about, whenever anything went counter to their notions, alway was "to run away to the Nor'-west." What that process really involved, or where the "Nor'-west" precisely was, were things vaguely realized. A sort of savage "land of Cockaigne," a region of perfect freedom among the Indians, was imagined; and to reach it Lakes Huron and Superior were to be traversed.

At Cornwall the temptation was in another direction: there, the idea was to escape to the eastward: to reach Montreal or Quebec, and get on board of an ocean-going ship, either a man-of-war or merchantman. The flight of several lads with such intentions was on one occasion intercepted by the unlooked-for appearance of the head-master by the side of the stage-coach as it was just about to start for Montreal in the dusk of the early morning, with the young truants in or upon it.

As to the modes of discipline:—In the school at York—for minor indiscretions a variety of remedies prevailed. Now and then a lad would be seen standing at one of the posts above mentioned, with his jacket turned inside out: or he might be seen there in a kneeling posture for a certain number of minutes; or standing with the arm extended holding a book. An "ally" or apple brought out inopportunely into view, during the hours of work, might entail the exhibition, article by article, slowly and reluctantly, of all the contents of a pocket. Once we remember, the furtive but too audible twang of a jewsharp was followed by its owner's being obliged to mount on the top of a desk and perform there an air on the offending instrument for the benefit of the whole school.

Occasionally the censors (senior boys appointed to help in keeping order) were sent to cut rods on Mr. McGill's property adjoining the play-ground on the north; but the dire implements were not often called into requisition: it would only be when some case of unusual obstinacy presented itself, or when some wanton cruelty, or some act or word exhibiting an unmistakable taint of incipient immorality, was proven.

Once a year, before the breaking-up at midsummer, a "feast" was allowed in the school-room at York—a kind of pic-nic to which all that could, contributed in kind—pastry, and other dainties, as well as more substantial viands, of which all partook. It was sometimes a rather riotous affair.

At the south-east corner of the six-acre play-ground, about half-an-acre had been abstracted, as it were, and enclosed: here a public school had been built and put in operation: it was known as the Central School, and was what would now be called a Common School, conducted on the "Bell and Lancaster" principle. Large numbers frequented it.

Between the lads attending the Central School, and the boys of the Grammar School, difficulties of course arose: and on many occasions feats of arms, accompanied with considerable risk to life and limb, were performed on both sides, with sticks and stones. Youngsters, ambitious of a character of extra daring, had thus an opportunity of distinguishing themselves in the eyes of their less courageous companions. The same would-be heroes had many stories to tell of the perils to which they were exposed in their way to and from school. Those of them who came from the western part of the town, had, according to their own shewing, mortal enemies in the men of Ketchum's tannery, with whom it was necessary occasionally to have an encounter. While those who lived to the east of the school, narrated, in response, the attacks experienced or delivered by themselves, in passing Shaw's or Hugill's brewery.

Mr. Spragge, the master of the Central School, had enjoyed the superior advantage of a regular training in England as an instructor of the young. Though not in Holy Orders, his air and costume were those of the dignified clergyman. Of the Central School, the words of Shenstone, spoken of a kindred establishment, became, in one point at all events, true to the letter:—

"E'en now sagacious foresight points to shew A little bench of bishops here,— And there, a chancellor in embryo, Or bard sublime."

A son of Mr. Spragge's became, in 1870, the Chancellor of Ontario, or Western Canada, after rising with distinction through the several grades of the legal profession, and filling previously also the post of Vice-Chancellor. Mr. John Godfrey Spragge, who attained to this eminence, and his brothers, Joseph and William, were likewise pupils in their maturer years, in the adjoining more imposing Royal Grammar or Home District School.

Mr. Spragge's predecessor at the Central School was Mr. Appleton, mentioned in a preceding section; and Mr. Appleton's assistant for a time, was Mr. John Fenton.

Across the road from the play-ground at York, on the south side, eastward of the church-plot, there was a row of dilapidated wooden buildings, inhabited for the most part by a thriftless and noisy set of people. This group of houses was known in the school as "Irish-town;" and "to raise Irish-town," meant to direct a snowball or other light missive over the play-ground fence, in that direction. Such act was not unfrequently followed by an invasion of the Field from the insulted quarter. Some wide chinks, established in one place here between the boards, which ran lengthwise, enabled any one so inclined, to get over the fence readily. We once saw two men, who had quarrelled in one of the buildings of Irish-town, adjourn from over the road to the play-ground, accompanied by a few approving friends, and there, after stripping to the skin, have a regular fight with fists: after some rounds, a number of men and women interfered and induced the combatants to return to the house whence they had issued forth for the settlement of their dispute.

The Parliamentary Debates, of which mention has more than once been made in connection with the District School, took place, on ordinary occasions, in the central part of the school-room; where benches used to be set out opposite to each other, for the temporary accommodation of the speakers. These exercises consisted simply of a memoriter repetition, with some action, of speeches, slightly abridged, which had actually been delivered in a real debate on the floor of the House of Commons. But they served to familiarize Canadian lads with the names and characters of the great statesmen of England, and with what was to be said on both sides of several important public questions; they also probably awakened in many a young spirit an ambition, afterwards gratified, of being distinguished as a legislator in earnest.

On public days the Debates were held up-stairs on a platform at the east end of a long room with a partially vaulted ceiling, on the south side of the building. On this platform the public recitations also took place; and here on some of the anniversaries a drama by Milman or Hannah Moore was enacted. Here we ourselves took part in one of the hymns or choruses of the "Martyr of Antioch."

(Other reminiscences of Dr. Strachan, the District Grammar School, and Toronto generally, are embodied in "The First Bishop of Toronto, a Review and a Study," a small work published by the writer in 1868.)

The immediate successor of Dr. Strachan in the school was Mr. Samuel Armour, a graduate of Glasgow, whose profile resembled that of Cicero, as shewn in some engravings. Being fond of sporting, his excitement was great when the flocks of wild pigeons were passing over the town, and the report of fire-arms in all directions was to be heard. During the hours of school his attention, on these occasions, would be much drawn off from the class-subjects.

In those days there was not a plentiful supply in the town of every book wanted in the school. The only copy that could be procured of a "Eutropius," which we ourselves on a particular occasion required, was one with an English translation at the end. The book was bought, Mr. Armour stipulating that the English portion of the volume should be sewn up; in fact, he himself stitched the leaves together.—In Mr. Armour's time there was, for some reason now forgotten, a barring-out. A pile of heavy wood (sticks of cordwood whole used then to be thrust into the great school-room stove) was built against the door within; and the master had to effect, and did effect, an entrance into his school through a window on the north side. Mr. Armour became afterwards a clergyman of the English Church, and officiated for many years in the township of Cavan.

The master who succeeded Mr. Armour was Dr. Phillips, who came out from England to take charge of the school. He had been previously master of a school at Whitchurch, in Herefordshire. His degree was from Cambridge, where he graduated as a B. A. of Queen's in the year 1805. He was a venerable-looking man—the very ideal, outwardly, of an English country parson of an old type—a figure in the general scene, that would have been taken note of congenially by Fuller or Antony à Wood. The costume in which he always appeared (shovel-hat included), was that usually assumed by the senior clergy some years ago. He also wore powder in the hair except when in mourning. According to the standards of the day, Dr. Phillips was an accomplished scholar, and a good reader and writer of English. He introduced into the school at York the English public-school traditions of the strictest type. His text books were those published and used at Eton, as Eton then was. The Eton Latin Grammar, without note or comment, displaced" Ruddiman's Rudiments"—the book to which we had previously been accustomed, and which really did give hints of something rational underlying what we learnt out of it. Even the Eton Greek Grammar, in its purely mediæval untranslated state, made its appearance: it was through the medium of that very uninviting manual that we obtained our earliest acquaintance with the first elements of the Greek tongue. Our "Palæphatus" and other Extracts in the Græca Minora were translated by us, not into English, but into Latin, in which language all the notes and elucidations of difficulties in that book were given. Very many of the Greek "genitives absolute," we remember, were to be rendered by quum, with a subjunctive pluperfect—an enormous mystery to us at the time. Our Lexicon was Schrevelius, as yet un-Englished. For the Greek Testament we had "Dawson," a vocabulary couched in the Latin tongue, notwithstanding the author's name. The chevaux-de-frise set up across the pathways to knowledge were numerous and most forbidding. The Latin translation, line for line, at the end of Clarke's Homer, as also the Ordo in the Delphin classics, were held to be mischievous aids, but the help was slight that could be derived from them, as the Latin language itself was not yet grasped.

For whatever of the anomalous we moderns may observe in all this, let the good old traditional school-system of England be responsible—not the accomplished and benevolent man who transplanted the system, pure and simple, to Canadian ground. For ourselves: in one point of view, we deem it a piece of singular good fortune to have been subjected for a time to this sort of drill; for it has enabled us to enter with more intelligence into the discussions on English education that have marked the era in which we live. Without this morsel of experience we should have known only by vague report what it was the reviewers and essayists of England were aiming their fulminations against.

Our early recollections in this regard, we treasure up now among our mental curiosities, with thankfulness: just as we treasure up our memories of the few years which, in the days of our youth, we had an opportunity of passing in the old father-land, while yet mail coaches and guards and genuine coachmen were extant there; while yet the time-honoured watchman was to be heard patrolling the streets at night and calling the hours. Deprived of this personal experience, how tamely would have read "School-days at Rugby," for example, or "The Scouring of the White Horse," and many another healthy classic in recent English literature—to say nothing of "The Sketch Book," and earlier pieces, which involve numerous allusions to these now vanished entities!

Moreover, we found that our boyish initiation in the Eton formularies, however little they may have contributed to the intellectual furniture of the mind at an early period, had the effect of putting us en rapport, in one relation at all events, with a large class in the old country. We found that the stock quotations and scraps of Latin employed to give an air of learning to discourse, "to point a moral and adorn a tale," among the country-clergy of England and among members of Parliament of the ante-Reform-bill period, were mostly relics of school-boy lore derived from Eton books. Fragments of the As in præsenti, of the Propria quæ maribus; shreds from the Syntax, as Vir bonus est quis, Ingenuas didicisse, and a score more, were instantly recognized, and constituted a kind of talismanic mode of communication, making the quoter and the hearer, to some extent, akin.

Furthermore; in regard to our honoured and beloved master, Dr. Phillips himself; there is this advantage to be named as enjoyed by those whose lot it was, in this new region, to pass a portion of their impressible youth in the society of such a character: it furnished them with a visible concrete illustration of much that otherwise would have been a vague abstraction in the pictures of English society set before the fancy in the Spectator, for instance, or Boswell's Johnson, and other standard literary productions of a century ago. As it is, we doubt not that the experience of many of our Canadian coevals corresponds with our own. Whenever we read of the good Vicar of Wakefield, or of any similar personage; when in the biography of some distinguished man, a kind-hearted old clerical tutor comes upon the scene, or one moulded to be a college-fellow, or one that had actually been a college-fellow, carrying about with him, when down in the country the tastes and ideas of the academic cloister—it is the figure of Dr. Phillips that rises before the mental vision. And without doubt he was no bad embodiment of the class of English character just alluded to.—He was thoroughly English in his predilections and tone; and he unconsciously left on our plastic selves traces of his own temperament and style.

It was from Dr. Phillips we received our first impressions of Cambridge life; of its outer form, at all events; of its traditions and customs; of the Acts and Opponencies in its Schools, and other quaint formalities, still in use in our own undergraduate day, but now abolished: from him we first heard of Trumpington, and St. Mary's, and the Gogmagogs; of Lady Margaret and the cloisters at Queen's; of the wooden bridge and Erasmus' walk in the gardens of that college; and of many another storied object and spot, afterwards very familiar.

A manuscript Journal of a Johnsonian cast kept by Dr. Phillips, when a youth, during a tour of his on foot in Wales, lent to us for perusal, marks an era in our early experience, awakening in us, as it did, our first inklings of travel. The excursion described was a trifling one in itself—only from Whitchurch, in Herefordshire, across the Severn into Wales—but to the unsophisticated fancy of a boy it was invested with a peculiar charm; and it led, we think, in our own case, to many an ambitious ramble, in after years, among cities and men.—In the time of Dr. Phillips there was put up, by subscription, across the whole of the western end of the school-house, over the door, a rough lean-to, of considerable dimensions. A large covered space was thus provided for purposes of recreation in bad weather. This room is memorable as being associated with our first acquaintance with the term "Gymnasium:" that was the title which we were directed to give it.—There is extant, we believe, a good portrait in oil of Dr. Phillips.

It was stated above that Cricket was not known in the playground of the District Grammar School, except possibly under the mildest of forms. Nevertheless, one, afterwards greatly distinguished in the local annals of Cricket, was long a master in the School.

Mr. George Antony Barber accompanied Dr. Phillips to York in 1825, as his principal assistant, and continued to be associated with him in that capacity. Nearly half a century later than 1826, when Cricket had now become a social institution throughout Western Canada, Mr. Barber, who had been among the first to give enthusiastic encouragement to the manly English game, was the highest living local authority on the subject, and still an occasional participator in the sport.

We here close our notice of the Old Blue School at York. In many a brain, from time to time, the mention of its name has exercised a spell like that of Wendell Holmes's Mare Rubrum; as potent as that was, to summon up memories and shapes from the Red Sea of the Past—

"Where clad in burning robes are laid Life's blossomed joys untimely shed, And where those cherish'd forms are laid We miss awhile, and call them dead."

The building itself has been shifted bodily from its original position to the south-east corner of Stanley and Jarvis Street. It, the centre of so many associations, is degraded now into being a depot for "General Stock;" in other words, a receptacle for Rags and Old Iron.

The six acres of play-ground are thickly built over. A thoroughfare of ill-repute traverses it from west to east. This street was at first called March Street; and under that appellation acquired an evil report. It was hoped that a nobler designation would perhaps elevate the character of the place, as the name "Milton Street" had helped to do for the ignoble Grub Street in London. But the purlieus of the neighbourhood continue, unhappily, to be the Alsatia of the town. The filling up of the old breezy field with dwellings, for the most part of a wretched class, has driven "the schoolmaster" away from the region. His return to the locality, in some good missionary sense, is much to be wished; and after a time, will probably be an accomplished fact.

[Since these lines were written, the old District Grammar School building has wholly vanished. It will be consolatory to know that, escaping destruction by fire, it was deliberately dismantled and taken to pieces; and, at once, walls of substantial brick overspread the whole of the space which it had occupied.]

XII.

King Street from Church Street to George Street.

We were arrested in our progress on King Street by St. James' Church. Its associations, and those of the District Grammar School and its play-ground to the north, have detained us long. We now return to the point reached when our recollections compelled us to digress.

Before proceeding, however, we must record the fact that the break in the line of building on the north side of the street here, was the means of checking the tide of fire which was rolling irresistibly westward, in the great conflagration of 1849. The energies of the local fire-brigade of the day had never been so taxed as they were on that memorable occasion, Aid from steam-power was then undreamt-of. Simultaneous outbursts of flame from numerous widely-separated spots had utterly disheartened every one, and had caused a general abandonment of effort to quell the conflagration. Then it was that the open space about St. James' Church saved much of the town from destruction.

To the west, the whole sky was, as it were, a vast canopy of meteors streaming from the east. The church itself was consumed, but the flames advanced no further. A burning shingle was seen to become entangled in the luffer-boards of the belfry, and slowly to ignite the woodwork there: from a very minute start at that point, a stream of fire soon began to rise—soon began to twine itself about the upper stages of the tower, and to climb nimbly up the steep slope of the spire, from the summit of which it then shot aloft into the air, speedily enveloping and overtopping the golden cross that was there.

At the same time the flames made their way downwards within the tower, till the internal timbers of the roofing over the main body of the building were reached. There, in the natural order of things, the fire readily spread; and the whole interior of the church, in the course of an hour, was transformed, before the eyes of a bewildered multitude looking powerlessly on, first into a vast "burning fiery furnace," and then, as the roof collapsed and fell, into a confused chaos of raging flame.

The heavy gilt cross at the apex of the spire came down with a crash, and planted itself in the pavement of the principal entrance below, where the steps, as well as the inner-walls of the base of the tower, were bespattered far and wide with the molten metal of the great bell.

While the work of destruction was going fiercely and irrepressibly on, the Public Clock in the belfry, Mr. Draper's gift to the town, was heard to strike the hour as usual, and the quarters thrice—exercising its functions and having its appointed say, amidst the sympathies, not loud but deep, of those who watched its doom; bearing its testimony, like a martyr at the stake, in calm and unimpassioned strain, up to the very moment of time when the deadly element touched its vitals.

Opposite the southern portal of St. James' Church was to be seen, at a very early period, the conspicuous trade-sign of a well-known furrier of York, Mr. Joseph Rogers. It was the figure of an Indian Trapper holding a gun, and accompanied by a dog, all depicted in their proper colours on a high, upright tablet set over the doorway of the store below. Besides being an appropriate symbol of the business carried on, it was always an interesting reminder of the time, then not so very remote, when all of York, or Toronto, and its commerce that existed, was the old French trading-post on the common to the west, and a few native hunters of the woods congregating with their packs of "beaver" once or twice a-year about the entrance to its picketted enclosure. Other rather early dealers in furs in York were Mr. Jared Stocking and Mr. John Bastedo.

In the Gazette for April 25, 1822, we notice a somewhat pretentious advertisement, headed "Muskrats," which announces that the highest market price will be given in cash for "good seasonable muskrat skins and other furs at the store of Robert Coleman, Esquire, Market Place, York."

Mr. Rogers' descendants continue to occupy the identical site on King Street indicated above, and the Indian Trapper, renovated, is still to be seen—a pleasant instance of Canadian persistence and stability.

In Great Britain and Europe generally, the thoroughfares of ancient towns had, as we know, character and variety given them by the trade-symbols displayed up and down their misty vistas. Charles the First gave, by letters patent, express permission to the citizens of London "to expose and hang in and over the streets, and ways, and alleys of the said city and suburbs of the same, signs and posts of signs, affixed to their houses and shops, for the better finding out such citizens' dwellings, shops, arts, and occupations, without impediment, molestation or interruption of his heirs or successors." And the practice was in vogue long before the time of Charles. It preceded the custom of distinguishing houses by numbers. At periods when the population generally were unable to read, such rude appeals to the eye had, of course, their use. But as education spread, and architecture of a modern style came to be preferred, this mode of indicating "arts and occupations" grew out of fashion.

Of late, however, the pressure of competition in business has been driving men back again upon the customs of by-gone illiterate generations. For the purpose of establishing a distinct individuality in the public mind the most capricious freaks are played. The streets of the modern Toronto exhibit, we believe, two leonine specimens of auro-ligneous zoology, between which the sex is announced to constitute the difference. The lack of such clear distinction between a pair of glittering symbols of this genus and species, in our Canadian London, was the occasion of much grave consideration in 1867, on the part of the highest authority in our Court of Chancery. Although in that cause célèbre, after a careful physiognomical study by means of photographs transmitted, it was allowed that there were points of difference between the two specimens in question, as, for example, that "one looked older than the other;" that "one, from the sorrowful expression of its countenance, seemed more resigned to its position than the other"—still the decree was issued for the removal of one of them from the scene—very properly the later-carved of the two.

Of the ordinary trade-signs that were to be seen along the thoroughfare of King Street no particular notice need be taken. The Pestle and Mortar, the Pole twined round with the black strap, the Crowned Boot, the Tea-chest, the Axe, the Broad-axe, the Saw, (mill, cross-cut and circular), the colossal Fowling-piece, the Cooking-stove, the Plough, the Golden Fleece, the Anvil and Sledge-Hammer, the magnified Horse-Shoe, each told its own story, as indicating indispensable wares or occupations.

Passing eastward from the painted effigy of the Indian Trapper, we soon came in front of the Market Place, which, so long as only a low wooden building occupied its centre, had an open, airy appearance. We have already dwelt upon some of the occurrences, and associations connected with this spot.

On King street, about here, the ordinary trade and traffic of the place came, after a few years, to be concentrated. Here business and bustle were every day, more or less, created by the usual wants of the inhabitants, and by the wants of the country farmers whose waggons in summer, and sleighs in winter, thronged in from the north, east and west. And hereabout at one moment or another, every lawful day, would be surely seen, coming and going, the oddities and street-characters of the town and neighbourhood. Having devoted some space to the leading and prominent personages of our drama, it will be only proper to bestow a few words on the subordinates, the Calibans and Gobbos, the Nyms and Touchstones, of the piece.

From the various nationalities and races of which the community was a mixture, these were drawn. There was James O'Hara, for example, a poor humourous Irishman, a perfect representative of his class in costume, style and manner, employed as bellman at auctions, and so on. When the town was visited by the Papyrotomia—travelling cutters-out of likenesses in black paper (some years ago such things created a sensation),—a full-length of O'Hara was suspended at the entrance to the rooms, recognized at once by every eye, even without the aid of the "Shoot easy" inscribed on a label issuing from the mouth. (In the Loyalist of Nov. 24, 1827, we have O'Hara's death noted. "Died on Friday the 16th instant, James O'Hara, long an inhabitant of this Town, and formerly a soldier in His Majesty's service.")—There was Jock Murray, the Scotch carter; and after him, William Pettit, the English one; and the carter who drove the horse with the "spring-halt;" (every school-lad in the place was familiar with the peculiar twitch upwards of the near hind leg in the gait of this nag.)

The negro population was small. Every individual of colour was recognizable at sight. Black Joe and Whistling Jack were two notabilities; both of them negroes of African birth. In military bands a negro drummer or cymbal-player was formerly often to be seen. The two men just named, after obtaining discharge from a regiment here, gained an honest livelihood by chance employment about the town. Joe, a well-formed, well-trained figure, was to be seen, still arrayed in some old cast-off shell-jacket, acting as porter, or engaged about horses; once already we have had a glimpse of him in the capacity of sheriff's assistant, administering the lash to wretched culprits in the Market Place. The other, besides playing other parts, officiated occasionally as a sweep; but his most memorable accomplishment was a melodious and powerful style of whistling musical airs, and a faculty for imitating the bag-pipes to perfection.—For the romantic sound of the name, the tall, comely negress, Amy Pompadour, should also be mentioned in the record. But she was of servile descent: at the time at which we write slavery was only just dying out in Upper Canada, as we shall have occasion to note hereafter more at large.

Then came the "Jack of Clubs." Lord Thurlow, we are told, once enabled a stranger to single out in a crowd Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, by telling him to take notice of the first man he saw bearing a strong resemblance to the "Jack of Clubs." In the present case it was a worthy trader in provisions who had acquired among his fellow-townsmen a sobriquet from a supposed likeness to that sturdy court-card figure. He was a short, burly Englishman, whose place of business was just opposite the entrance to the Market. So absolutely did the epithet attach itself to him, that late-comers to the place failed to learn his real name: all which was good-humouredly borne for a time; but at last the distinction became burdensome and irritating, and Mr. Stafford removed in disgust to New York.

A well-known character often to be seen about here, too, was an unfortunate English farmer of the name of Cowper, of disordered intellect, whose peculiarity was a desire to station himself in the middle of the roadway, and from that vantage-ground to harangue any crowd that might gather, incoherently, but always with a great show of sly drollery and mirthfulness.

On occasions of militia funeral processions, observant lads and others were always on the look-out for a certain prosperous cordwainer of the town of York, Mr. Wilson, who was sure then to be seen marching in the ranks, with musket reversed, and displaying with great precision and solemnity the extra-upright carriage and genuine toe-pointed step of the soldier of the days of George the Second. He had been for sixteen years in the 41st regiment, and ten years and forty-four days in the 103rd; and it was with pride and gusto that he exhibited the high proficiency to which he had in other days attained. The slow pace required by the Dead March gave the on-looker time to study the antique style of military movement thus exemplified.

It was at a comparatively late period that Sir John Smythe and Spencer Lydstone, poets, were notabilities in the streets; the latter, Mr. Lydstone, recognizable from afar by a scarlet vest, brought out, ever and anon, a printed broadside, filled with eulogiums or satires on the inhabitants of the town, regulated by fees or refusals received. The former, Sir John Smythe, found in the public papers a place for his productions, which by their syntactical irregularities and freedom from marks of punctuation, proved their author (as a reviewer of the day once observed) to be a man supra grammaticam, and one possessed of a genius above commas. But his great hobby was a railway to the Pacific, in connection with which he brought out a lithographed map: its peculiarity was a straight black line conspicuously drawn across the continent from Fort William to the mouth of the Columbia river.

In a tract of his on the subject of this railway he provides, in the case of war with the United States, for steam communication between London in England and China and the East Indies, by "a branch to run on the north side of the township of Cavan and on the south side of Balsam Lake." "I propose this," he says, "to run in the rear of Lake Huron and in the rear of Lake Superior, twenty miles in the interior of the country of the Lake aforesaid; to unite with the railroad from Lake Superior to Winnipeg, at the south-west main trading-post of the North-West Company." The document is signed "Sir John Smythe, Baronet and Royal Engineer, Canadian Poet, LL.D., and Moral Philosopher."

The concourse of traffickers and idlers in the open space before the old Market Place were free of tongue; they sometimes talked, in no subdued tone, of their fellow-townsfolk of all ranks. In a small community every one was more or less acquainted with every one, with his dealings and appurtenances, with his man-servant and maid-servant, his horse, his dog, his waggon, cart or barrow.

Those of the primitive residentiaries, to whom the commonalty had taken kindly, were honoured in ordinary speech with their militia-titles of Colonel, Major, Captain, or the civilian prefix of Mister, Honourable Mister, Squire or Judge, as the case might be; whilst others, not held to have achieved any special claims to deference, were named, even in mature years, by their plain, baptismal names, John, Andrew, Duncan, George, and so on.

And then, there was a third marking-off of a few, against whom, for some vague reason or another, there had grown up in the popular mind a certain degree of prejudice. These, by a curtailment or national corruption of their proper prenomen, would be ordinarily styled Sandy this, Jock that. In some instances the epithet "old" would irreverently precede, and persons of considerable eminence might be heard spoken of as old Tom so-and-so, old Sam such-a-one.

And similarly in respect to the sons and nephews of these worthy gentlemen. Had the community never been replenished from outside sources, few of them would, to the latest moment of their lives, have ever been distinguished except by the plain John, Stephen, Allan, Christopher, and so on, of their infancy, or by the Bill, Harry, Alec, Mac, Dolph, Dick, or Bob, acquired in the nursery or school.

But enough has been said, for the present at least, on the humors and ways of our secondary characters, as exemplified in the crowd customarily gathered in front of the old Market at York. We shall now proceed on our prescribed route.

The lane leading northward from the north-west corner of Market Square used to be known as Stuart's Lane, from the Rev. George Okill Stuart, once owner of property here. On its west side was a well-known inn, the Farmers' Arms, kept by Mr. Bloor, who, on retiring from business, took up his abode at Yorkville, where it has curiously happened that his name has been attached to a fashionable street, the thoroughfare formerly known as the Concession Line.

The street running north from the north-east angle of Market Square, now known as Nelson Street, was originally New Street, a name which was commemorative of the growth of York westward. The terminal street of the town on the west, prior to the opening of this New Street, had been George Street. The name of "New Street" should never have been changed, even for the heroic one of Nelson. As the years rolled on, it would have become a quaint misnomer, involving a tale, like the name of "New College" at Oxford—a College about five hundred years old.

At a point about half-way between New Street and George Street, King Street was, in 1849, the scene of an election fracas which, in distant quarters, damaged for a time the good name of the town. While passing in front of the Coleraine House, an inn on the north side of the street, and a rendezvous of the unsuccessful party, some persons walking in procession, in addition to indulging in the usual harmless groans, flung a missile into the house, when a shot, fired from one of the windows, killed a man in the concourse below.

Owing to the happy settlement of numerous irritating public questions, elections are conducted now, in our towns and throughout our Provinces, in a calm and rational temper for the most part. Only two relics of evil and ignorant days remain amongst us, stirring bad blood twice a year, on anniversaries consecrated, or otherwise, to the object. A generous-hearted nation, transplanted as they have been almost en masse to a new continent, where prosperity, wealth and honours have everywhere been their portion, would shew more wisdom in the repudiation than they do in the recognition and studied conservation, of these hateful heirlooms of their race.

XIII.

King Street—Digression Into Duke Street.

On passing George Street, as we intimated a moment ago, we enter the parallelogram which constituted the original town-plot. Its boundaries were George Street, Duchess Street, Ontario Street (with the lane south of it), and Palace Street. From this, its old core, York spread westward and northward, extending at length in those directions respectively (under the name of Toronto) to the Asylum and Yorkville; while eastward its developments—though here less solid and less shapely—were finally bounded by the windings of the Don. Were Toronto an old town on the European Continent, George Street, Duchess Street, Ontario Street and Palace Street, would probably now be boulevards, showing the space once occupied by stout stone walls. The parallelogram just defined represents "the City" in modern London, or "la Cité" in modern Paris—the original nucleus round which gradually clustered the dwellings of later generations.

Before, however, we enter upon what may be styled King Street proper, it will be convenient to make a momentary digression northwards into Duke Street, anciently a quiet, retired thoroughfare, skirted on the right and left by the premises and grounds and houses of several most respectable inhabitants. At the north-west angle of the intersection of this street with George Street was the home of Mr. Washburn; but this was comparatively a recent erection. Its site previously had been the brickyard of Henry Hale, a builder and contractor, who put up the wooden structure, possessing some architectural pretensions, on the south-east angle of the same intersection, diagonally across; occupied in the second instance by Mr. Moore, of the Commissariat; then by Dr. Lee, and afterwards by Mr. J. Murchison.

(The last named was for a long time the Stultz of York, supplying all those of its citizens, young and old, who desired to make an attractive or intensely respectable appearance, with vestments in fine broadcloth.)

A little to the north, on the left side of George Street, was the famous Ladies' School of Mrs. Goodman, presided over subsequently by Miss Purcell and Miss Rose. This had been previously the homestead of Mr. Stephen Jarvis, of whom again immediately.—Two or three of these familiar names appear in an advertisement relating to land in this neighbourhood, in the Gazette of March 23rd, 1826.—"For Sale: Three lots or parcels of land in the town of York, the property of Mrs. Goodman, being part of the premises on which Miss Purcell now resides, and formerly owned by Col. Jarvis. The lots are each fifty feet in width and one hundred and thirty in depth, and front on the street running from King Street to Mr. Jarvis's Park lot. If not disposed of by private sale, they will be put up at auction on the first day of May next. Application to be made to Miss Purcell, or at the Office of the U. C. Gazette. York, March 10, 1826."

Advancing on Duke Street eastward a little way, we came, on the left, to the abode of Chief Justice Sir William Campbell, of whom before Sir William erected here in 1822 a mansion of brick, in good style. It was subsequently, for many years, the hospitable home of the Hon. James Gordon, formerly of Amherstburgh.

Then on the right, one square beyond, at the south-easterly corner where Caroline Street intersects, we reached the house of Mr. Secretary Jarvis, a man of great note in his day, whose name is familiar to all who have occasion to examine the archives of Upper Canada in the administrations of Governors Simcoe, Hunter and Gore. A fine portrait of him exists, but, as we have been informed, it has been transmitted to relatives in England. Mr. Stephen Jarvis, above named, was long the Registrar of Upper Canada. His hand-writing is well-known to all holders of early deeds. He and the Secretary were first cousins; of the same stock as the well-known Bishop Jarvis of Connecticut, and the Church Historian, Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis. Both were officers in incorporated Colonial regiments before the independence of the United States; and both came to Canada as United Empire Loyalists. Mr. Stephen Jarvis was the founder of the leading Canadian family to which the first Sheriff Jarvis belonged. Mr. Samuel Peters Jarvis, from whom "Jarvis Street" has its name, was the son of Mr. Secretary Jarvis.

On the left, one square beyond the abode of Mr. Secretary Jarvis, came the premises and home of Mr. Surveyor General Ridout, the latter a structure still to be seen in its primitive outlines, a good specimen of the old type of early Upper Canadian family residence of a superior class; combining the qualities of solidity and durability with those of snugness and comfort in the rigours of winter and the heats of summer. In the rear of Mr. Ridout's house was for some time a family burial-plot; but, like several similar private enclosures in the neighbourhood of the town, it became disused after the establishment of regular cemeteries.

Nearly opposite Mr. Ridout's, in one of the usual long, low Upper Canadian one-storey dwellings, shaded by lofty Lombardy poplars, was the home of the McIntoshes, who are to be commemorated hereafter in connection with the Marine of York: and here, at a later period, lived for a long time Mr. Andrew Warffe and his brother John. Mr. Andrew Warffe was a well-known employé in the office of the Inspector General, Mr. Baby, and a lieutenant in the Incorporated Militia.

By one of the vicissitudes common in the history of family residences everywhere, Mr. Secretary Jarvis's house, which we just now passed, became afterwards the place of business of a memorable cutler and gunsmith, named Isaac Columbus. During the war of 1812, Mr. Columbus was employed as armourer to the Militia, and had a forge near the garrison. Many of the swords used by the Militia officers were actually manufactured by him. He was a native of France; a liberal-hearted man, ever ready to contribute to charitable objects; and a clever artizan. Whether required to "jump" the worn and battered axe of a backwoodsman, to manufacture the skate-irons and rudder of an ice-boat, to put in order a surveyor's theodolite, or to replace for the young geometrician or draughtsman an instrument lost out of his case, he was equally au fait. On occasion he could even supply an elderly lady or gentleman with a set of false teeth, and insert them.

In our boyhood we had occasion to get many little matters attended to at Mr. Columbus's. Once on leaving word that a certain article must be ready by a particular hour, we remember being informed that "must" was only for the King of France. His political absolutism would have satisfied Louis XIV. himself. He positively refused to have anything to do with the "liberals" of York, expressly on the ground that, in his opinion, the modern ideas of government "hindered the King from acting as a good father to the people."

An expression of his, "first quality, blue!" used on a particular occasion in reference to an extra finish to be given to some steel-work for an extra price, passed into a proverb among us boys at school, and was extensively applied by us to persons and things of which we desired to predicate a high degree of excellence.

Over Columbus's workshop, at the corner of Caroline Street, we are pretty sure his name appeared as here given; and so it was always called. But we observe in some lists of early names in York, that it is given as "Isaac Collumbes." It is curious to note that the great discoverer's name is a latinization of Colon, Coulon, Colombe, descendant each of columba, dove, of which columbus is the masculine form.

XIV.

King Street—From George Street to Caroline Street.

We now retrace our steps to King Street, at its intersection with George Street; and here our eye immediately lights on an object connected with the early history of Education in York.

Attached to the east side of the house at the south-east angle of the intersection is a low building, wholly of stone, resembling a small root-house. Its structure is concealed from view now by a coating of clapboards. This was the first school-house possessing a public character in York.

It was where Dr. Stuart taught, afterwards Archdeacon of Kingston. The building was on his property, which became afterwards that of Mr. George Duggan, once before referred to. (In connection with St. James' Church, it should have been recorded that Mr. Duggan was the donor and planter of the row of Lombardy poplars which formerly stood in front of that edifice, and which figured conspicuously in the old engravings of King Street. He was an Irishman of strong opinions. He once stood for the town against Mr. Attorney-General Robinson, but without success. When the exigencies of later times required the uprooting of the poplar trees, now become overgrown, he warmly resented the removal and it was at the risk of grievous bodily harm that the Church-warden of the day, Mr. T. D. Harris, carried into effect the resolution of the Vestry.)

Dr. Stuart's was the Home District School. From a contemporary record, now before us, we learn that it opened on June the first, 1807, and that the first names entered on its books were those of John Ridout, William A. Hamilton, Thomas G. Hamilton, George H. Detlor, George S. Boulton, Robert Stanton, William Stanton, Angus McDonell, Alexander Hamilton, Wilson Hamilton, Robert Ross, Allan McNab. To this list, from time to time, were added many other old Toronto or Upper Canadian names: as, for example, the following: John Moore, Charles Ruggles, Edward Hartney, Charles Boulton, Alexander Chewett, Donald McDonell, James Edward Small, Charles Small, John Hayes, George and William Jarvis, William Bowkett, Peter McDonell, Philemon Squires, James McIntosh, Bernard, Henry and Marshall Glennon, Richard Brooke, Daniel Brooke, Charles Reade, William Robinson, Gilbert Hamilton, Henry Ernst, John Gray, Robert Gray, William Cawthra, William Smith, Harvey Woodruff, Robert Anderson, Benjamin Anderson, James Givins, Thomas Playter, William Pilkington. The French names Belcour, Hammeil and Marian occur. (There were bakers or confectioners of these names in York at an early period.)

From the same record it appears that female pupils were not excluded from the primitive Home District School. On the roll are names which surviving contemporaries would recognize as belonging to the beau monde of Upper Canada, distinguished and admired in later years.

A building-lot, eighty-six feet in front and one hundred and seventeen in depth, next to the site of the school, is offered for sale in the Gazette of the 18th of March, 1822; and in the advertisement it is stated to be "one of the most eligible lots in the Town of York, and situated in King Street, in the centre of the Town."

To the left, just across from this choice position, was, in 1833, Wragg & Co.'s establishment, where such matter-of-fact articles as the following could be procured: "Bending and unbending nails, as usual; wrought nails and spikes of all sizes [a change since 1810]: ox-traces and cable chains; tin; double and single sheet iron: sheet brass and copper; bar, hoop, bolt and rod iron of all sizes; shear, blister and cast steel; with every other article in the heavy line, together with a very complete assortment of shelf goods, cordage, oakum, tar, pitch, and rosin: also a few patent machines for shelling corn." (A much earlier resort for such merchandize was Mr. Peter Paterson's, on the west side of the Market Square.)

Of a date somewhat subsequent to that of Messrs. Wragg's advertisement, was the depôt of Mr. Harris for similar substantial wares. This was situated on the north side of King Street, westward of the point at which we are now pausing. It long resisted the great conflagration of 1849, towering up amidst the flames like a black, isolated crag in a tempestuous sea; but at length it succumbed. Having been rendered, as it was supposed, fire-proof externally, no attempt was made to remove the contents of the building.

To the east of Messrs. Wragg's place of business, on the same side, and dating back to an early period, was the dwelling house and mart of Mr. Mosley, the principal auctioneer and appraiser of York, a well-known and excellent man. He had suffered the severe calamity of a partial deprivation of the lower limbs by frost-bite; but he contrived to move about with great activity in a room or on the side-walk by means of two light chairs, shifting himself adroitly from the one to the other. When required to go to a distance or to church, (where he was ever punctually to be seen in his place), he was lifted by his son or sons into and out of a wagonette, together with the chairs.

On the same (north) side was the place where the Messrs. Lesslie, enterprising and successful merchants from Dundee, dealt at once in two remunerative articles—books and drugs. The left side of the store was devoted to the latter; the right to the former. Their first head-quarters in York had been further up the street; but a move had been made to the eastward, to be, as things were then, nearer the heart of the town.

This firm had houses carrying on the same combined businesses in Kingston and Dundas. There exists a bronze medal or token, of good design, sought after by collectors, bearing the legend, "E. Lesslie and Sons, Toronto and Dundas, 1822." The date has been perplexing, as the town was not named Toronto in 1822. The intention simply was to indicate the year of the founding of the firm in the two towns; the first of which assumed the name of Toronto at the period the medal was really struck, viz., 1834. On the obverse it bears a figure of Justice with scales and sword: on the reverse, a plough with the mottoes, "Prosperity to Canada," "La Prudence et la Candeur."—A smaller Token of the same firm is extant, on which "Kingston" is inserted between "Toronto" and "Dundas."

Nearly opposite was the store of Mr. Monro. Regarding our King Street as the Broadway of York, Mr. Monro was for a long time its Stewart. But the points about his premises that linger now in our recollection the most, are a tasteful flower-garden on its west side, and a trellised verandah in that direction, with canaries in a cage, usually singing therein. Mr. Monro was Mayor of Toronto in 1840. He also represented in Parliament the South Riding of York, in the Session of 1844-5.

At the north-west corner, a little further on, resided Mr. Alexander Wood, whose name appears often in the Report of the Loyal and Patriotic Society of 1812, to which reference before has been made, and of which he was the Secretary. A brother of his, at first in copartnership with Mr. Allan, and at a later period, independently, had made money, at York, by business. On the decease of his brother, Mr. Alexander Wood came out to attend to the property left. He continued on the same spot, until after the war of 1812, the commercial operations which had been so prosperously begun, and then retired.

At the time to which our recollections are just now transporting us, the windows of the part of the house that had been the store were always seen with the shutters closed. Mr. Wood was a bachelor; and it was no uncosy sight, towards the close of the shortening autumnal days, before the remaining front shutters of the house were drawn in for the evening, to catch a glimpse, in passing, of the interior of his comfortable quarters, lighted up by the blazing logs on the hearth, the table standing duly spread close by, and the solitary himself ruminating in his chair before the fire, waiting for candles and dinner to be brought in.

On sunny mornings in winter he was often to be seen pacing the sidewalk in front of his premises for exercise, arrayed in a long blue over-coat, with his right hand thrust for warmth into the cuff of his left sleeve, and his left hand into that of his right. He afterwards returned to Scotland, where, at Stonehaven, not far from Aberdeen, he had family estates known as Woodcot and Woodburnden. He died without executing a will; and it was some time before the rightful heir to his property in Scotland and here was determined. It had been his intention, we believe, to return to Canada.—The streets which run eastward from Yonge Street, north of Carleton Street, named respectively "Wood" and "Alexander," pass across land that belonged to Mr. Wood.

Many are the shadowy forms that rise before us, as we proceed on our way; phantom-revisitings from the misty Past; the shapes and faces of enterprising and painstaking men, of whose fortunes King Street hereabout was the cradle. But it is not necessary in these reminiscences to enumerate all who, on the right hand and on the left, along the now comparatively deserted portions of the great thoroughfare, amassed wealth in the olden time by commerce and other honourable pursuits,—laying the foundation, in several instances, of opulent families.

Quetton St. George, however, must not be omitted, builder of the solid and enduring house on the corner opposite to Mr. Wood's; a structure that, for its size and air of respectability; for its material, brick, when as yet all the surrounding habitations were of wood; for its tinned roof, its graceful porch, its careful and neat finish generally, was, for a long time, one of the York lions.

Mr. Quetton St. George was a French royalist officer, and a chevalier of the order of St. Louis. With many other French gentlemen, he emigrated to Canada at the era of the Revolution. He was of the class of the noblesse, as all officers were required to be; which class, just before the Revolution, included, it is said, 90,000 persons, all exempt from the ordinary taxes of the country.

The surname of St. George was assumed by M. Quetton to commemorate the fact that he had first set foot on English ground on St. George's day. On proceeding to Canada, he, in conjunction with Jean Louis, Vicomte de Chalûs, and other distinguished émigrés, acquired a large estate in wild lands in the rough region north of York, known as the "Oak Ridges."

Finding it difficult, however, to turn such property speedily to account, he had recourse to trade with the Indians and remote inhabitants. Numerous stations, with this object in view, were established by him in different parts of the country, before his final settlement in York. One of these posts was at Orillia, on Lake Couchiching; and in the Niagara Herald of August the 7th, 1802, we meet with the following advertisement:—"New Store at the House of the French General, between Niagara and Queenston. Messrs. Quetton St. George and Co., acquaint the public that they have lately arrived from New York with a general assortment of Dry Goods and Groceries, which will be sold at the lowest price for ready money, for from the uncertainty of their residing any time in these parts they cannot open accounts with any person. Will also be found at the same store a general assortment of tools for all mechanics. They have likewise well-made Trunks; also empty Barrels. Niagara, July 23."

The copartnership implied was with M. de Farcy. The French General referred to was the Comte de Puisaye, of whom in full hereafter. The house spoken of still exists, beautifully situated at a point on the Niagara River, where the carriage-road between Queenston and the town of Niagara approaches the very brink of the lofty bank, whose precipitous side is even yet richly clothed with fine forest trees, and where the noble stream below, closed in towards the south by the heights above Lewiston and Queenston, possesses all the features of a picturesque inland lake.

Attached to the house in question is a curious old fire-proof structure of brick, quaintly buttressed with stone: the walls are of a thickness of three or four feet; and the interior is beautifully vaulted and divided into two compartments, having no communication with each other: and above the whole is a long loft of wood, approached by steps on the outside. The property here belonged for a time in later years to Shickluna, the shipbuilder of St. Catharines, who happily did not disturb the interesting relic just described. The house itself was in some respects modernized by him; but, with its steep roof and three dormer windows, it still retains much of its primitive character.

In 1805 we find Mr. St. George removed to York. The copartnership with M. de Farcy is now dissolved. In successive numbers of the Gazette and Oracle, issued in that and the following year, he advertises at great length. But on the 20th of September, 1806, he abruptly announces that he is not going to advertise any more: he now once for all, begs the public to examine his former advertisements, where they will find, he says, an account of the supply which he brings from New York every spring, a similar assortment to which he intends always to have on hand: and N. B., he adds: Nearly the same assortment may be found at Mr. Boiton's, at Kingston, and at Mr. Boucherville's, at Amherstburgh, "who transact business for Mr. St. George."

Imports at York in 1805.

As we have, in the advertisements referred to, a rather minute record of articles and things procurable and held likely to be wanted by the founders of society in these parts, we will give, for the reader's entertainment, a selection from several of them, adhering for the most part to the order in which the goods are therein named.

From time to time it is announced by Mr. St. George that there have "just arrived from New York":—Ribbons, cotton goods, silk tassels, gown-trimmings, cotton binding, wire trimmings, silk belting, fans, beaded buttons, block tin, glove ties, cotton bed-line, bed-lace, rollo-bands, ostrich feathers, silk lace, black veil lace, thread do., laces and edging, fine black veils, white do., fine silk mitts, love-handkerchiefs, Barcelona do., silk do., black crape, black mode, black Belong, blue, white and yellow do., striped silk for gowns, Chambray muslins, printed dimity, split-straw bonnets, Leghorn do., imperial chip do., best London Ladies' beaver bonnets, cotton wire, Rutland gauze, band boxes, cambrics, calicoes, Irish linens, callimancoes, plain muslins, laced muslins, blue, black and yellow nankeens, jeans, fustians, long silk gloves, velvet ribbons, Russia sheetings, India satins, silk and cotton umbrellas, parasols, white cottons, bombazetts, black and white silk stockings, damask table cloths, napkins, cotton, striped nankeens, bandana handkerchiefs, catgut, Ticklenburg, brown holland, Creas à la Morlaix, Italian lutestring, beaver caps for children.

Then we have: Hyson tea, Hyson Chaulon in small chests, young Hyson, green, Souchong and Bohea, loaf, East India and Muscovado sugars, mustard, essence of mustard, pills of mustard, capers, lemon-juice, soap, Windsor do., indigo, mace, nutmegs, cinnamon, cassia, cloves, pimento, pepper, best box raisins, prunes, coffee, Spanish and American "segars," Cayenne pepper in bottles, pearl barley, castor oil, British oil, pickled oysters.

Furthermore, china-ware is to be had in small boxes and in sets; also, Suwarrow boots, bootees, and an assortment of men's, women's and children's shoes, japanned quart mugs, do. tumblers, tipped flutes, violin bows, brass wire, sickles, iron candlesticks, shoe-makers' hammers, knives, pincers, pegging awls and tacks, awl-blades, shoe-brushes, copper tea-kettles, snaffle-bits, leather shot belts, horn powder flasks, ivory, horn and crooked combs, mathematical instruments, knives and forks, suspenders, fish-hooks, sleeve-links, sportsmen's knives, lockets, earrings, gold topaz, do., gold watch-chains, gold seals, gold brooches, cut gold rings, plain do., pearl do., silver thimbles, do. teaspoons, shell sleeve buttons, silver watches, beads. In stationery there was to be had paste-board, foolscap paper, second do., letter paper, black and red ink powder and wafers.

There was also the following supply of Literature:—Telemachus, Volney's Views, Public Characters, Dr. Whitman's Egypt, Evelina, Cecilia, Lady's Library, Ready Reckoner, Looking Glass, Franklin's Fair Sex, Camilla, Don Raphael, Night Thoughts, Winter Evenings, Voltaire's Life, Joseph Andrews, Walker's Geography, Bonaparte and the French People, Voltaire's Tales, Fisher's Companion, Modern Literature, Eccentric Biography, Naval do., Martial do., Fun, Criminal Records, Entick's Dictionary, Gordon's America, Thompson's Family Physician, Sheridan's Dictionary, Johnson's do., Wilson's Egypt, Denon's Travels, Travels of Cyrus, Stephani de Bourbon, Alexis, Pocket Library, Every Man's Physician, Citizen of the World, Taplin's Farriery, Farmer's Boy, Romance of the Forest, Grandison, Campbell's Narrative, Paul and Virginia, Adelaide de Sincere, Emelini, Monk, Abbess, Evening Amusement, Children of the Abbey, Tom Jones, Vicar of Wakefield, Sterne's Journey, Abelard and Eloisa, Ormond, Caroline, Mercutio, Julia and Baron, Minstrel, H. Villars, De Valcourt, J. Smith, Charlotte Temple, Theodore Chypon, What has Been, Elegant Extracts in Prose and Verse, J. and J. Jessamy, Chinese Tales, New Gazetteer, Smollett's Works, Cabinet of Knowledge, Devil on Sticks, Arabian Tales, Goldsmith's Essays, Bragg's Cookery, Tooke's Pantheon, Boyle's Voyage, Roderick Random, Jonathan Wild, Louisa Solomon's Guide to Health, Spelling-books, Bibles and Primers.

Our extracts have extended to a great length: but the animated picture of Upper Canadian life at a primitive era, which such an enumeration of items, in some sort affords, must be our apology.

In the Gazette of July 4, 1807, Mr. St. George complains of a protested bill; but consoles himself with a quotation—

Celui qui met un frein à la fureur des flots, Sait aussi des méchants arrêter des complots.

Rendered rich in money and lands by his extemporized mercantile operations, Mr. St. George returned to his native France soon after the restoration of Louis XVIII., and passed the rest of his days partly in Paris and partly on estates in the neighbourhood of Montpellier. During his stay in Canada he formed a close friendship with the Baldwins of York; and on his departure, the house on King Street, which has given rise to these reminiscences of him, together with the valuable commercial interests connected with it, passed into the hands of a junior member of that family, Mr. John Spread Baldwin, who himself, on the same spot, subsequently laid the foundation of an ample fortune.

(It is a phenomenon not uninteresting to the retrospective mind, to observe, in 1869, after the lapse of half a century, the name of Quetton St. George reappearing in the field of Canadian Commerce.)

Advancing now on our way eastward, we soon came in front of the abode of Dr. Burnside, a New-England medical man of tall figure, upright carriage, and bluff, benevolent countenance, an early promoter of the Mechanics'-Institute movement, and an encourager of church-music, vocal and instrumental. Dying without a family dependent on him, he bequeathed his property partly to Charities in the town, and partly to the University of Trinity College, where two scholarships perpetuate his memory.

Just opposite was the residence of the venerable Mrs. Gamble, widow of Dr. Gamble, formerly a surgeon attached to the Queen's Rangers. This lady died in 1859, in her 92nd year, leaving living descendants to the number of two hundred and four. To the west of this house was a well-remembered little parterre, always at the proper season gay with flowers.

At the next corner, on the north side, a house now totally demolished, was the original home of the millionaire Cawthra family, already once alluded to. In the Gazette and Oracle of June 21, 1806, Mr. Cawthra, senior, thus advertises:—"J. Cawthra wishes to inform the inhabitants of York and the adjacent country, that he has opened an Apothecary Store in the house of A. Cameron, opposite Stoyell's Tavern in York, where the Public can be supplied with most articles in that line. He has on hand also, a quantity of Men's, Women's, and Children's shoes and Men's hats. Also for a few days will be sold the following articles, Table Knives and Forks, Scissors, Silver Watches, Maps and Prints, Profiles, some Linen, and a few Bed-Ticks, Teas, Tobacco, a few casks of fourth proof Cognac Brandy, and a small quantity of Lime Juice, and about twenty thousand Whitechapel Needles. York, June 14, 1806." And again, on the 27th of the following November, he informs the inhabitants of York and the neighbouring country that he had just arrived from New York with a general assortment of "apothecary articles;" and that the public can be supplied with everything in that line genuine: also patent medicines: he likewise intimates that he has brought a general assortment of Dry Goods, consisting of "broad cloths, duffils, flannels, swansdown, corduroys, printed calicoes, ginghams, cambrick muslins, shirting, muslin, men and women's stockings, silk handkerchiefs, bandana shawls, pulicat and pocket handkerchiefs, calimancoes, dimity and check; also a large assortment of men's, women's, and children's shoes, hardware, coffee, tea and chocolate, lump and loaf sugar, tobacco, &c., with many other articles: which he is determined to sell on very low terms at his store opposite Stoyell's tavern." York, Nov. 27, 1806. (The Stoyell's Tavern here named, had previously been the Inn of Mr. Abner Miles.)

Immediately across, at the corner on the south side, was a depôt, insignificant enough, no doubt, to the indifferent passer-by, but invested with much importance in the eyes of many of the early infantiles of York. Its windows exhibited, in addition to a scattering of white clay pipes, and papers of pins suspended open against the panes for the public inspection, a display of circular discs of gingerbread, some with plain, some with scalloped edge; also hearts, fishes, little prancing ponies, parrots and dogs of the same tawny-hued material; also endwise in tumblers and other glass vessels, numerous lengths or stems of prepared saccharine matter, brittle in substance, white-looking, but streaked and slightly penetrated with some rich crimson pigment; likewise on plates and oval dishes, a collection of quadrangular viscous lumps, buff-coloured and clammy, each showing at its ends the bold gashing cut of a stout knife which must have been used in dividing a rope, as it were, of the tenacious substance into inch-sections or parts.

In the wrapping paper about all articles purchased here, there was always a soupçon of the homely odors of boiled sugar and peppermint. The tariff of the various comestibles just enumerated was well known; it was precisely for each severally, one half-penny. The mistress of this establishment bore the Scottish name of Lumsden—a name familiar to us lads in another way also, being constantly seen by us on the title-pages of school-books, many of which, at the time referred to, were imported from Glasgow, from the publishing-house of Lumsden and Son.

A little way down the street which crosses here, was Major Heward's house, long Clerk of the Peace for the Home District, of whom we had occasion to speak before. Several of his sons, while pursuing their legal and other studies, became also "mighty hunters;" distinguished, we mean, as enthusiastic sportsmen. Many were the exploits reported of them, in this line.

We give here an extract from Mr. McGrath's lively work, published in 1833, entitled "Authentic letters from Upper Canada, with an Account of Canadian Field Sports." "Ireland," he says, "is, in many places, remarkable for excellent cock-shooting, which I have myself experienced in the most favourable situations: not, however, to be compared with this country, where the numbers are truly wonderful. Were I to mention," Mr. McGrath continues, "what I have seen in this respect, or heard from others, it might bring my graver statements into disrepute."

"As a specimen of the sport," he says, "I will merely give a fact or two of, not unusual success; bearing, however, no proportion to the quantity of game. I have known Mr. Charles Heward, of York," he proceeds to state, "to have shot in one day thirty brace at Chippewa, close to the Falls of Niagara—and I myself," Mr. McGrath continues, "who am far from being a first-rate shot, have frequently brought home from twelve to fourteen brace, my brothers performing their part with equal success."

But the younger Messrs. Heward had a field for the exercise of their sportsman skill nearer home than Chippewa. The Island, just across the Bay, where the black-heart plover were said always to arrive on a particular day, the 23rd of May, every year, and the marshes about Ashbridge's bay and York harbour itself, all abounded with wild fowl. Here, loons of a magnificent size used to be seen and heard; and vast flocks of wild geese, passing and re-passing, high in air, in their periodical migrations. The wild swan, too, was an occasional frequenter of the ponds of the Island.

XV.

King Street, from Caroline Street to Berkeley Street.

Returning again to King Street: At the corner of Caroline Street, diagonally across from the Cawthra homestead, was the abode, when ashore, of Captain Oates, commander of the Duke of Richmond sloop, the fashionable packet plying between Niagara and York.

Mr. Oates was nearly connected with the family of President Russell, but curiously obtained no share in the broad acres which were, in the early day, so plentifully distributed to all comers. By being unluckily out of the way, too, at a critical moment, subsequently, he missed a bequest at the hands of the sole inheritor of the possessions of his relative.

Capt. Oates was a man of dignified bearing, of more than the ordinary height. He had seen service on the ocean as master and owner of a merchantman. His portrait, which is still preserved in Toronto, somewhat resembles that of George IV.

A spot passed, a few moments since, on King Street, is associated with a story in which the Richmond sloop comes up. It happened that the nuptials of a neighbouring merchant had lately taken place. Some youths, employed in an adjoining warehouse or law-office, took it into their heads that a feu de joie should be fired on the occasion. To carry out the idea they proceeded, under cover of the night, to the Richmond sloop, where she lay frozen in by the Frederick Street wharf, and removed from her deck, without asking leave, a small piece of ordnance with which she was provided. They convey it with some difficulty, carriage and all, up into King Street, and place it in front of the bridegroom's house; run it back, as we have understood, even into the recess underneath the double steps of the porch: when duly ensconced there, as within the port of a man-of-war, they contrived to fire it off, decamping, however, immediately after the exploit, and leaving behind them the source of the deafening explosion.

On the morrow the cannon is missed from the sloop (she was being prepared for the spring navigation): on instituting an inquiry, Capt. Oates is mysteriously informed the lost article is, by some means, up somewhere on the premises of Mr. J. S. Baldwin, the gentleman who had been honoured with the salute, and that if he desired to recover his property he must despatch some men thither to fetch it. (We shall have occasion to refer hereafter to the Richmond, when we come to speak of the early Marine of York Harbour.)

Passing on our way eastward we came immediately, on the north side, to one of the principal hotels of York, a long, white, two-storey wooden building. It was called the Mansion House—an appropriate name for an inn, when we understand "Mansion" in its proper, but somewhat forgotten sense, as indicating a temporary abode, a place which a man occupies and then relinquishes to a successor. The landlord here for a considerable time was Mr. De Forest, an American who, in some way or other, had been deprived of his ears. The defect, however, was hardly perceptible, so nicely managed was the hair. On the ridge of the Mansion House roof was to be seen for a number of years a large and beautiful model of a completely-equipped sailing vessel.

We then arrived at the north-west angle of King and Princes streets, where a second public well (we have already commemorated the first,) was sunk, and provided with a pump in 1824—for all which the sum of £36 17s. 6d. was paid to John James on the 19th of August in that year. In the advertisements and contracts connected with this now obliterated public convenience, Princes Street is correctly printed and written as it here meets the eye, and not "Princess Street," as the recent corruption is.

Let not the record of our early water-works be disdained. Those of the metropolis of the Empire were once on a humble scale. Thus Master John Stow, in his Survey of London, Anno 1598, recordeth that "at the meeting of the corners of the Old Jurie, Milke Street, Lad Lane, Aldermanburie, there was of old time a fair well with two buckets; of late years," he somewhat pathetically adds, "converted to a pump."

Just across eastward from the pump was one of the first buildings put up on King Street: it was erected by Mr. Smith, who was the first to take up a building lot, after the laying-out of the town-plot.

On the opposite side, a few steps further on, was Jordan's—the far-famed "York Hotel"—at a certain period, the hotel par excellence of the place, than which no better could be found at the time in all Upper Canada. The whole edifice has now utterly disappeared. Its foundations giving way, it for a while seemed to be sinking into the earth, and then it partially threatened to topple over into the street. It was of antique style when compared with the Mansion House. It was only a storey-and-a-half high. Along its roof was a row of dormer windows. (Specimens of this style of hotel may still be seen in the country-towns of Lower Canada.)

When looking in later times at the doorways and windows of the older buildings intended for public and domestic purposes, as also at the dimensions of rooms and the proximity of the ceilings to the floors, we might be led for a moment to imagine that the generation of settlers passed away must have been of smaller bulk and stature than their descendants. But points especially studied in the construction of early Canadian houses, in both Provinces, were warmth and comfort in the long winters. Sanitary principles were not much thought of, and happily did not require to be much thought of, when most persons passed more of their time in the pure outer air than they do now.

Jordan's York Hotel answered every purpose very well. Members of Parliament and other visitors considered themselves in luxurious quarters when housed there. Probably in no instance have the public dinners or fashionable assemblies of a later era gone off with more eclat, or given more satisfaction to the persons concerned in them, than did those which from time to time, in every season, took place in what would now be considered the very diminutive ball-room and dining-hall of Jordan's.

In the ball-room here, before the completion of the brick building which replaced the Legislative Halls destroyed by the Americans in 1813, the Parliament of Upper Canada sat for one session.

In the rear of Jordan's, detached from the rest of the buildings, there long stood a solid circular structure of brick, of considerable height and diameter, dome-shaped without and vaulted within, somewhat resembling the furnace into which Robert, the huntsman, is being thrust, in Retzsch's illustration of Fridolin. This was the public oven of Paul Marian, a native Frenchman who had a bakery here before the surrounding premises were converted into a hotel by Mr. Jordan. In the Gazette of May 19, 1804, Paul Marian informs his friends and the public "that he will supply them with bread at their dwellings, at the rate of nine loaves for a dollar, on paying ready money."

About the same period, another Frenchman, François Belcour, is exercising the same craft in York. In Gazettes of 1803, he announces that he is prepared "to supply the ladies and gentlemen who may be pleased to favor him with their custom, with bread, cakes, buns, etc. And that for the convenience of small families, he will make his bread of different sizes, viz., loaves of two, three, and four pounds' weight, and will deliver the same at the houses, if required." He adds that "families who may wish to have beef, etc., baked, will please send it to the bake-house." In 1804, he offers to bake "at the rate of pound for pound; that is to say he will return one pound of Bread for every pound of Flour which may be sent to him for the purpose of being baked into bread."

After the abandonment of Jordan's as a hotel, Paul Marian's oven, repaired and somewhat extended, again did good service. In it was baked a goodly proportion of the supplies of bread furnished in 1838-9, to the troops, and incorporated militia at Toronto, by Mr. Jackes and Mr. Reynolds.

As the sidewalks of King Street were apt to partake, in bad weather, of the impassableness of the streets generally at such a time, an early effort was made to have some of them paved. Some yards of foot-path, accordingly, about Jordan's, and here and there elsewhere, were covered with flat flagstones from the lake-beach, of very irregular shapes and of no great size: the effect produced was that of a very coarse, and soon a very uneven mosaic.

At Quebec, in the neighborhood of the Court House, there is retained some pavement of the kind now described: and in the early lithograph of Court House Square, at York, a long stretch of sidewalk is given in the foreground, seamed over curiously, like the surface of an old Cyclopean or Pelasgic wall.

On April the 26th, 1823, it was ordered by the magistrates at Quarter Sessions that "£100 from the Town and Police Fund, together with one-fourth of the Statute Labour within the Town, be appropriated to flagging the sidewalks of King Street, commencing from the corner of Church Street and proceeding east to the limits of the Town, and that both sides of the street do proceed at the same time." One hundred pounds would not go very far in such an undertaking. We do not think the sidewalks of the primitive King Street were ever paved throughout their whole length with stone.

After Jordan's came Dr. Widmer's surgery, associated with many a pain and ache in the minds of the early people of York, and scene of the performance upon their persons of many a delicate, and daring, and successful remedial experiment. Nearly opposite was property appertaining to Dr. Stoyell, an immigrant, non-practising medical man from the United States, with Republican proclivities as it used to be thought, who, previous to his purchasing here, conducted, as has been already implied, an inn at Mrs. Lumsden's corner. (The house on the other side of Ontario Street, westward, was Hayes' Boarding House, noticeable simply as being in session-time, like Jordan's, the temporary abode of many Members of Parliament.)

After Dr. Widmer's, towards the termination of King Street, on the south side, was Mr. Small's, originally one of the usual low-looking domiciles of the country, with central portion and two gable wings, somewhat after the fashion of many an old country manor-house in England.

The material of Mr. Small's dwelling was hewn timber. It was one of the earliest domestic erections in York. When re-constructed at a subsequent period, Mr. Charles Small preserved, in the enlarged and elevated building, now known as Berkeley House, the shape and even a portion of the inner substance of the original structure.

We have before us a curious plan (undated but old) of the piece of ground originally occupied and enclosed by Mr. Small, as a yard and garden round his primitive homestead: occupied and enclosed, as it would seem, before any building lots were set off by authority on the Government reserve or common here. The plan referred to is entitled "A sketch showing the land occupied by John Small, Esq., upon the Reserve appropriated for the Government House at York by His Excellency Lt. Gov. Simcoe." An irregular oblong, coloured red, is bounded on the north side by King Street, and is lettered within—"Mr. Small's Improvements." Round the irregular piece thus shewn, lines are drawn enclosing additional space, and bringing the whole into the shape of a parallelogram: the parts outside the irregularly shaped red portion, are colored yellow: and on the yellow, the memorandum appears—"This added would make an Acre." The block thus brought into shapely form is about one-half of the piece of ground that at present appertains to Berkeley House.

The plan before us also incidentally shows where the Town of York was supposed to terminate:—an inscription—"Front Line of the Town"—runs along the following route: up what is now the lane through Dr. Widmer's property: and then, at a right angle eastward along what is now the north boundary of King Street opposite the block which it was necessary to get into shape round Mr. Small's first "Improvements." King Street proper, in this plan, terminates at "Ontario Street:" from the eastern limit of Ontario Street, the continuation of the highway is marked "Road to Quebec,"—with an arrow shewing the direction in which the traveller must keep his horse's head, if he would reach that ancient city.—The arrow at the end of the inscription just given points slightly upwards, indicating the fact that the said "Road to Quebec" trends slightly to the north after leaving Mr. Small's clearing.

XVI.

From Berkeley Street to the Bridge and Across It.

We now propose to pass rapidly down "the road to Quebec" as far as the Bridge. First we cross, in the hollow, Goodwin's creek, the stream which enters the Bay by the cut-stone Jail. Lieutenant Givins (afterwards Colonel Givins), on the occasion of his first visit to Toronto in 1793, forced his way in a canoe with a friend up several of the meanderings of this stream, under the impression that he was exploring the Don. He had heard that a river leading to the North-West entered the Bay of Toronto, somewhere near its head; and he mistook the lesser for the greater stream: thus on a small scale performing the exploit accomplished by several of the explorers of the North American coast, who, under the firm persuasion that a water highway to Japan and China existed somewhere across this continent, lighted upon Baffin's Bay, Davis Strait, the Hudson River, and the St. Lawrence itself, in the course of their investigations.

On the knoll to the right, after crossing Goodwin's creek, was Isaac Pilkington's lowly abode, a little group of white buildings in a grove of pines and acacias.

Parliament Street, which enters near here from the north, is a memorial of the olden time, when, as we have seen, the Parliament Buildings of Upper Canada were situated in this neighbourhood. In an early section of these Recollections we observed that what is now called Berkeley Street was originally Parliament Street, a name which, like that borne by a well-known thoroughfare in Westminster, for a similar reason, indicated the fact that it led down to the Houses of Parliament.

The road that at present bears the name of Parliament Street shews the direction of the track through the primitive woods opened by Governor Simcoe to his summer house on the Don, called Castle-Frank, of which fully, in its place hereafter.

Looking up Parliament Street we are reminded that a few yards westward from where Duke Street enters it, lived at an early period Mr. Richard Coates, an estimable and ingenious man, whose name is associated in our memory with the early dawn of the fine arts in York. Mr. Coates, in a self-taught way, executed, not unsuccessfully, portraits in oil of some of our ancient worthies. Among things of a general or historical character, he painted also for David Willson, the founder of the "Children of Peace," the symbolical decorations of the interior of the Temple at Sharon. He cultivated music likewise, vocal and instrumental; he built an organ of some pretensions, in his own house, on which he performed; he built another for David Willson at Sharon. Mr. Coates constructed, besides, in the yard of his house, an elegantly-finished little pleasure yacht, of about nine tons burden.

This passing reference to infant Art in York recalls again the name of Mr. John Craig, who has before been mentioned in our account of the interior of one of the many successive St. Jameses. Although Mr. Craig did not himself profess to go beyond his sphere as a decorative and heraldic painter, the spirit that animated him really tended to foster in the community a taste for art in a wider sense.

Mr. Charles Daly, also, as a skilful teacher of drawing in water-colours and introducer of superior specimens, did much to encourage art at an early date. In 1834 we find Mr. Daly promoting an exhibition of Paintings by the "York Artists and Amateur Association," and acting as "Honorary Secretary," when the Exhibition for the year took place. Mr. James Hamilton, a teller in the bank, produced, too, some noticeable landscapes in oil.

As an auxiliary in the cause, and one regardful of the wants of artists at an early period, we name, likewise, Mr. Alexander Hamilton; who, in addition to supplying materials in the form of pigments and prepared colours, contributed to the tasteful setting off of the productions of pencil and brush, by furnishing them with frames artistically carved and gilt.

Out of the small beginnings and rudiments of Art at York, one artist of a genuine stamp was, in the lapse of a few years, developed—Mr. Paul Kane; who, after studying in the schools of Europe, returned to Canada and made the illustration of Indian character and life his specialty. By talent exhibited in this class of pictorial delineation, he acquired a distinguished reputation throughout the North American continent; and by his volume of beautifully illustrated travels, published in London, and entitled "Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America," he obtained for himself a recognized place in the literature of British Art.

In the hollow, a short distance westward of Mr. Coates's, was one of the first buildings of any size ever erected in these parts wholly of stone. It was put up by Mr. Hutchinson. It was a large square family house of three storeys. It still exists, but its material is hidden under a coating of stucco. Another building, wholly of stone, was Mr. Hunter's house, on the west side of Church Street. A portion of Hugill's Brewery likewise exhibited walls of the same solid, English-looking substance. We now resume our route.

We immediately approach another road entering from the north, which again draws us aside. This opening led up to the only Roman Catholic church in York, an edifice of red-brick, substantially built. Mr. Ewart was the contractor. The material of the north and south walls was worked into a kind of tesselated pattern, which was considered something very extraordinary. The spire was originally surmounted by a large and spirited effigy of the bird that admonished St. Peter, and not by a cross. It was not a flat, moveable weathercock, but a fixed, solid figure, covered with tin.

In this building officiated for some time an ecclesiastic named O'Grady. Mingling with a crowd, in the over-curious spirit of boyhood, we here, at funerals and on other occasions, first witnessed the ceremonial forms observed by Roman Catholics in their worship; and once we remember being startled at receiving, by design or accident, from an overcharged aspergillum in the hands of a zealous ministrant of some grade passing down the aisle, a copious splash of holy water in the eye.

Functionaries of this denomination are generally remarkable for their quiet discharge of duty and for their apparent submissiveness to authority. They sometimes pass and repass for years before the indifferent gaze of multitudes holding another creed, without exciting any curiosity even as to their personal names. But Mr. O'Grady was an exception to the general run of his order. He acquired a distinctive reputation among outsiders. He was understood to be an unruly presbyter; and through his instrumentality, letters of his bishop, evidently never intended to meet the public eye, got into general circulation. He was required to give an account of himself, subsequently, at the feet of the "Supreme Pontiff."

Power Street, the name now applied to the road which led up to the Roman Catholic church, preserves the name of the Bishop of this communion, who sacrificed his life in attending to the sick emigrants in 1847.

The road to the south, a few steps further on, led to the wind-mill built by Mr. Worts, senior, in 1832. In the possession of Messrs. Gooderham & Worts are three interesting pictures, in oil, which from time to time have been exhibited. They are intended to illustrate the gradual progress in extent and importance of the mills and manufactures at the site of the wind-mill. The first shows the original structure—a circular tower of red brick, with the usual sweeps attached to a hemispherical revolving top; in the distance town and harbour are seen. The second shows the wind-mill dismantled, but surrounded by extensive buildings of brick and wood, sheltering now elaborate machinery driven by steam power. The third represents a third stage in the march of enterprise and prosperity. In this picture gigantic structures of massive, dark-coloured stone tower up before the eye, vying in colossal proportions and ponderous strength with the works of the castle-builders of the feudal times. Accompanying these interesting landscape views, all of them by Forbes, a local artist of note, a group of life-size portraits in oil, has occasionally been seen at Art Exhibitions in Toronto—Mr. Gooderham, senior, and his Seven Sons—all of them well-developed, sensible-looking, substantial men, manifestly capable of undertaking and executing whatever practical work the exigencies of a young and vigorous community may require to be done.

Whenever we have chanced to obtain a glimpse of this striking group (especially the miniature photographic reproduction of it on one card), a picture of Tancred of Hauteville and his Twelve Sons, "all of them brave and fair," once familiar as an illustration appended to that hero's story, has always recurred to us; and we have thought how thankfully should we regard the grounds on which the modern Colonial patriarch comforts himself in view of a numerous family springing up around him, as contrasted with the reasons on account of which the enterprising Chieftain of old congratulated himself on the same spectacle. The latter beheld in his ring of stalwart sons so many warriors; so much good solid stuff to be freely offered at the shrine of his own glory, or the glory of his feudal lord, whenever the occasion should arise. The former, in the young men and maidens, peopling his house, sees so many additional hands adapted to aid in a bloodless conquest of a huge continent; so much more power evolved, and all of it in due time sure to be wanted, exactly suited to assist in pushing forward one stage further the civilizing, humanizing, beautifying, processes already, in a variety of directions, initiated.

"Peace hath her victories, No less renowned than war;"

and it is to the victories of peace chiefly that the colonial father expects his children to contribute.

When the families of Mr. Gooderham and Mr. Worts crossed the Atlantic, on the occasion of their emigration from England, the party, all in one vessel, comprised, as we are informed, so many as fifty-four persons more or less connected by blood or marriage.

We have been told by Mr. James Beaty that when out duck shooting, now nearly forty years since, he was surprised by falling in with Mr. Worts, senior, rambling apparently without purpose in the bush at the mouth of the Little Don: all the surrounding locality was then in a state of nature, and frequented only by the sportsman or trapper. On entering into conversation with Mr. Worts, Mr. Beaty found that he was there prospecting for an object; that, in fact, somewhere near the spot where they were standing, he thought of putting up a wind-mill! The project at the time seemed sufficiently Quixotic. But posterity beholds the large practical outcome of the idea then brooding in Mr. Worts's brain. In their day of small things the pioneers of new settlements may take courage from this instance of progress in one generation, from the rough to the most advanced condition. For a century to come, there will be bits of this continent as unpromising, at the first glance, as the mouth of the Little Don, forty years ago, yet as capable of being reclaimed by the energy and ingenuity of man, and being put to divinely-intended and legitimate uses.—Returning now from the wind-mill, once more to the "road to Quebec," in common language, the Kingston road, we passed, at the corner, the abode of one of the many early settlers in these parts who bore German names—the tenement of Peter Ernst, or Ernest as the appellation afterwards became.

From these Collections and Recollections matters of comparatively so recent a date as 1849 have for the most part been excluded. We make an exception in passing the Church which gives name to Trinity Street, for the sake of recording an inscription on one of its interior walls. It reads as follows:—"To the Memory of the Reverend William Honywood Ripley, B.A., of University College, Oxford, First Incumbent of this Church, son of the Rev. Thomas Hyde Ripley, Rector of Tockenham, and Vicar of Wootton Bassett in the County of Wilts, England. After devoting himself during the six years of his ministry, freely, without money and without price, to the advancement of the spiritual and temporal welfare of this congregation and neighbourhood, and to the great increase amongst them of the knowledge of Christ and His Church, he fell asleep in Jesus on Monday the 22nd of October, 1849, aged 34 years. He filled at the same time the office of Honorary Secretary to the Church Society of the Diocese of Toronto, and was Second Classical Master of Upper Canada College. This Tablet is erected by the Parishioners of this Church as a tribute of heartfelt respect and affection. Remember them that have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the Word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation."

Canadian society in all its strata has been more or less leavened from England. One of the modes by which the process has been carried on is revealed in the inscription just given. In 1849, while this quarter of Toronto was being taken up and built over, the influence of the clergyman commemorated was singularly marked within it. Mr. Ripley, in his boyhood, had been trained under Dr. Arnold, at Rugby; and his father had been at an early period, a private tutor to the Earl of Durham who came out to Canada in 1838 as High Commissioner. As to the material fabric of Trinity Church—its erection was chiefly due to the exertions of Mr. Alexander Dixon, an alderman of Toronto.

The brick School-house attached to Trinity Church bears the inscription: "Erected by Enoch Turner, 1848." Mr. Turner was a benevolent Englishman who prospered in this immediate locality as a brewer, and died in 1866. Besides handsome bequests to near relations, Mr. Turner left by will, to Trinity College, Toronto, £2,000; to Trinity Church, £500; to St. Paul's £250; to St. Peter's £250.

Just opposite on the left was where Angell lived, the architect of the abortive bridges over the mouths of the Don. We obtain from the York Observer of December 11, 1820, some earlier information in regard to Mr. Angell. It is in the form of a "Card" thus headed: "York Land Price Current Office, King Street." It then proceeds—"In consequence of the Increase of the population of the Town of York, and many applications for family accommodation upon the arrival of strangers desirous of becoming settlers, the Subscriber intends to add to the practice of his Office the business of a House Surveyor and Architect, to lay out Building Estate, draw Ground plans, Sections and Elevations, to order, and upon the most approved European and English customs. Also to make estimates and provide contracts with proper securities to prevent impostures, for the performance of the same. E. Angell. N.B.—Land proprietors having estate to dispose of, and persons requiring any branch of the above profession to be done, will meet with the most respectful attention on application by letter, or at this office. York, Oct. 2, [1820]."

The expression, "York Land Price Current Office," above used is explained by the fact that Mr. Angell commenced at this early date the publication of a monthly "Land Price Current List of Estates on Sale in Upper Canada, to be circulated in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales."

Near Mr. Angell, on the same side, lived also Mr. Cummins, the manager of the Upper Canada Gazette printing office; and, at a later period, Mr. Watson, another well-known master-printer of York, who lost his life during the great fire of 1849, in endeavouring to save a favourite press from destruction, in the third storey of a building at the corner of King and Nelson streets, a position occupied subsequently by the Caxton-press of Mr. Hill.

On some of the fences along here, we remember seeing in 1827-8, an inscription written up in chalk or white paint, memorable to ourselves personally, as being the occasion of our first taking serious notice of one of the political questions that were locally stirring the people of Upper Canada. The words inscribed were—No Aliens! Like the Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, which we ourselves also subsequently saw painted on the walls of Paris; these words were intended at once to express and to rouse public feeling; only in the present instance, as we suppose now, the inscription emanated from the oligarchical rather than the popular side. The spirit of it probably was "Down with Aliens,"—and not "Away with the odious distinction of Aliens!"

A dispute had arisen between the Upper and the Lower House as to the legal terms in which full civil rights should be conferred on a considerable portion of the inhabitants of the country. After the acknowledgment of independence in 1783, emigrants from the United States to the British Provinces came in no longer as British subjects, but as foreigners. Many such emigrants had acquired property and exercised the franchise without taking upon themselves, formally, the obligations of British subjects. After the war of 1812, the law in regard to this matter began to be distinctly remembered. The desire then was to check an undue immigration from the southern side of the great lakes; but the effect of the revival of the law was to throw doubt on the land titles of many inhabitants of long standing; doubt on their claim to vote and to fill any civil office.

The consent of the Crown was freely given to legislate on the subject: and in 1825-6 the Parliament resolved to settle the question. But a dispute arose between the Lower and Upper House. The Legislative Council sent down a Bill which was so amended in terms by the House of Assembly that the former body declared it then to be "at variance with the laws and established policy of Great Britain, as well as of the United States; and therefore if passed into a law by this Legislature, would afford no relief to many of those persons who were born in the United States, and who have come into and settled in this Province." The Upper House party set down as disloyal all that expressed themselves satisfied with the Lower House amendments. It was from the Upper House party, we think, that the cry of "No Aliens!" had proceeded.

The Alien measure had been precipitated by the cases of Barnabas Bidwell and of his son Marshall, of whom the former, after being elected, and taking his seat as member for Lennox and Addington, had been expelled the House, on the ground of his being an alien; and the latter had met with difficulties at the outset of his political career, from the same objection against him. In the case of the former, however, his alien character was not the only thing to his disadvantage.

It was in connection with the expulsion of Barnabas Bidwell that Dr. Strachan gave to a member of the Lower House, when hesitating as to the legality of such a step, the remarkable piece of advice, "Turn him out, turn him out! Never mind the law!"—a dictum that passed into an adage locally, quoted usually in the Aberdeen dialect.

Barnabas Bidwell is thus commemorated in Mackenzie's Almanac for 1834: "July 27, 1833: Barnabas Bidwell, Esq., Kingston, died, aged 69 years and 11 months. He was a sincere friend of the rights of the people; possessed of extraordinary powers of mind and memory, and spent many years of his life in doing all the good he could to his fellow-creatures, and promoting the interests of society."

Irritating political questions have now, for the most part, been disposed of in Canada. We have entered into the rest, in this respect, secured for us by our predecessors. The very fences which, some forty years ago, were muttering "No Aliens!" we saw, during the time of a late general election, exhibiting in conspicuous painted characters, the following exhortation: "To the Electors of the Dominion—Put in Powell's Pump"—a humorous advertisement, of course, of a particular contrivance for raising water from the depths. We think it a sign of general peace and content, when the populace are expected to enjoy a little jest of this sort.

A small compact house, with a pleasant flower garden in front, on the left, a little way on, was occupied for a while by Mr. Joshua Beard, at the time Deputy Sheriff, but afterwards well known as owner of extensive iron works in the town.

We then came opposite to the abode, on the same side, of Mr. Charles Fothergill, some time King's Printer for Upper Canada. He was a man of wide views and great intelligence, fond of science, and an experienced naturalist. Several folio volumes of closely written manuscript, on the birds and animals generally of this continent, by him, must exist somewhere at this moment. They were transmitted to friends in England, as we have understood.

We remember seeing in a work by Bewick a horned owl of this country, beautifully figured, which, as stated in the context, had been drawn from a stuffed specimen supplied by Mr. Fothergill. He himself was a skilful delineator of the living creatures that so much interested him.

In 1832 Mr. Fothergill sat in Parliament as member for Northumberland, and for expressing some independent opinions in that capacity, he was deprived of the office of King's Printer. He originated the law which established Agricultural Societies in Upper Canada.

In 1836, he appears to have been visited in Pickering by Dr. Thomas Rolph, when making notes for his "Statistical Account of Upper Canada." "The Township of Pickering," Dr. Rolph says, "is well settled and contains some fine land, and well watered. Mr. Fothergill," he continues, "has an extensive and most valuable museum of natural curiosities at his residence in this township, which he has collected with great industry and the most refined taste. He is a person of superior acquirements, and ardently devoted to the pursuit of natural philosophy." P. 189.

It was Mr. Fothergill's misfortune to have lived too early in Upper Canada. Many plans of his in the interests of literature and science came to nothing for the want of a sufficient body of seconders. In conjunction with Dr. Dunlop and Dr. Rees, it was the intention of Mr. Fothergill to establish at York a Museum of Natural and Civil History, with a Botanical and Zoological Garden attached; and a grant of land on the Government Reserve between the Garrison and Farr's Brewery was actually secured as a site for the buildings and grounds of the proposed institution.

A prospectus now before us sets forth in detail a very comprehensive scheme for this Museum or Lyceum, which embraced also a picture gallery, "for subjects connected with Science and Portraits of individuals," and did not omit "Indian antiquities, arms, dresses, utensils, and whatever might illustrate and make permanent all that we can know of the Aborigines of this great Continent, a people who are rapidly passing away and becoming as though they had never been."

For several years Mr. Fothergill published "The York Almanac and Royal Calendar," which gradually became a volume of between four and five hundred duodecimo pages, filled with practical and official information on the subject of Canada and the other British American Colonies. This work is still often resorted to for information.

Hanging in his study we remember noticing a large engraved map of "Cabotia." It was a delineation of the British Possessions in North America—the present Dominion of Canada in fact. It had been his purpose in 1823 to publish a "Canadian Annual Register;" but this he never accomplished. While printing the Upper Canada Gazette, he edited in conjunction with that periodical and on the same sheet, the "Weekly Register," bearing the motto, "Our endeavour will be to stamp the very body of the time—its form and pressure: we shall extenuate nothing, nor shall we set down aught in malice." From this publication may be gathered much of the current history of the period. In it are given many curious scientific excerpts from his Common Place Book. At a later period, he published, at Toronto, a weekly paper in quarto shape, named the "Palladium."

Among the non-official advertisements in the Upper Canada Gazette, in the year 1823, we observe one signed "Charles Fothergill," offering a reward "even to the full value of the volumes," for the recovery of missing portions of several English standard works which had belonged formerly, the advertisement stated, to the "Toronto Library," broken up "by the Americans at the taking of York." It was suggested that probably the missing books were still scattered about, up and down, in the town. It is odd to see the name of "Toronto" cropping out in 1823, in connection with a library. (In a much earlier York paper we notice the "Toronto Coffee House" advertised.)

Mr. Fothergill belonged to the distinguished Quaker family of that name in Yorkshire. A rather good idea of his character of countenance may be derived from the portrait of Dr. Arnold, prefixed to Stanley's Memoir. An oil painting of him exists in the possession of some of his descendants.

We observe in Leigh Hunt's London Journal, i. 172, a reference to "Fothergill's Essay on the Philosophy, Study and Use of Natural History;" and we have been assured that it is our Canadian Fothergill who was its author. We give a pathetic extract from a specimen of the production, in the work just referred to: "Never shall I forget," says the essayist, "the remembrance of a little incident which many will deem trifling and unimportant, but which has been peculiarly interesting to my heart, as giving origin to sentiments and rules of action which have since been very dear to me."

"Besides a singular elegance of form and beauty of plumage," continues the enthusiastic naturalist, "the eye of the common lapwing is peculiarly soft and expressive; it is large, black, and full of lustre, rolling, as it seems to do, in liquid gems of dew. I had shot a bird of this beautiful species; but, on taking it up, I found it was not dead. I had wounded its breast; and some big drops of blood stained the pure whiteness of its feathers. As I held the hapless bird in my hand, hundreds of its companions hovered round my head, uttering continued shrieks of distress, and, by their plaintive cries, appeared to bemoan the fate of one to whom they were connected by ties of the most tender and interesting nature; whilst the poor wounded bird continually moaned, with a kind of inward wailing note, expressive of the keenest anguish; and, ever and anon, it raised its drooping head, and turning towards the wound in its breast, touched it with its bill, and then looked up in my face, with an expression that I have no wish to forget, for it had power to touch my heart whilst yet a boy, when a thousand dry precepts in the academical closet would have been of no avail."

The length of this extract will be pardoned for the sake of its deterrent drift in respect to the wanton maiming and massacre of our feathered fellow-creatures by the firearms of sportsmen and missiles of thoughtless children.

Eastward from the house where we have been pausing, the road took a slight sweep to the south and then came back to its former course towards the Don bridge, descending in the meantime into the valley of a creek or watercourse, and ascending again from it on the other side. Hereabout, to the left, standing on a picturesque knoll and surrounded by the natural woods of the region, was a good sized two-storey dwelling; this was the abode of Mr. David MacNab, sergeant-at-arms to the House of Assembly, as his father had been before him. With him resided several accomplished, kind-hearted sisters, all of handsome and even stately presence; one of them the belle of the day in society at York.

Here were the quarters of the Chief MacNab, whenever he came up to York from his Canadian home on the Ottawa. It was not alone when present at church that this remarkable gentleman attracted the public gaze; but also, when surrounded or followed by a group of his fair kinsfolk of York, he marched with dignified steps along through the whole length of King Street, and down or up the Kingston road to and from the MacNab homestead here in the woods near the Don.

In his visits to the capital, the Chief always wore a modified highland costume, which well set off his stalwart, upright form: the blue bonnet and feather, and richly embossed dirk, always rendered him conspicuous, as well as the tartan of brilliant hues depending from his shoulder after obliquely swathing his capacious chest; a bright scarlet vest with massive silver buttons, and dress coat always jauntily thrown back, added to the picturesqueness of the figure.

It was always evident at a glance that the Chief set a high value on himself.—"May the MacNab of MacNabs have the pleasure of taking wine with Lady Sarah Maitland?" suddenly heard above the buzz of conversation, pronounced in a very deep and measured tone, by his manly voice, made mute for a time, on one occasion, the dinner-table at Government House. So the gossip ran. Another story of the same class, but less likely, we should think, to be true, was, that seating himself, without uncovering, in the Court-room one day, a messenger was sent to him by the Chief Justice, Sir William Campbell, on the Bench, requiring the removal of his cap; when the answer returned, as he instantly rose and left the building, was, that "the MacNab of MacNabs doffs his bonnet to no man!"

At his home on the Chats the Emigrant Laird did his best to transplant the traditions and customs of by-gone days in the Highlands, but he found practical Canada an unfriendly soil for romance and sentiment. Bouchette, in his British Dominions, i. 82, thus refers to the Canadian abode of the Chief and to the settlement formed by the clan MacNab. "High up [the Ottawa]," he says, "on the bold and abrupt shore of the broad and picturesque Lake of the Chats, the Highland Chief MacNab has selected a romantic residence, Kinnell Lodge, which he has succeeded, through the most unshaken perseverance, in rendering exceedingly comfortable. His unexampled exertions in forming and fostering the settlement of the township, of which he may be considered the founder and the leader, have not been attended with all the success that was desirable, or which he anticipated."

Bouchette then appends a note wherein we can see how readily his own demonstrative Gallic nature sympathized with the kindred Celtic spirit of the Highlander. "The characteristic hospitality that distinguished our reception by the gallant Chief," he says, "when, in 1828, we were returning down the Ottawa, after having explored its rapids and lakes, as far up as Grand Calumet, we cannot pass over in silence. To voyageurs in the remote wilds of Canada," he continues, "necessarily strangers for the time to the sweets of civilization, the unexpected comforts of a well-furnished board, and the cordiality of a Highland welcome, are blessings that fall upon the soul like dew upon the flower. 'The sun was just resigning to the moon the empire of the skies,' when we took our leave of the noble chieftain," he adds, "to descend the formidable rapids of the Chats. As we glided from the foot of the bold bank, the gay plaid and cap of the noble Gaël were seen waving on the proud eminence, and the shrill notes of the piper filled the air with their wild cadences. They died away as we approached the head of the rapids. Our caps were flourished, and the flags (for our canoe was gaily decorated with them) waved in adieu, and we entered the vortex of the swift and whirling stream."

In 1836, Rolph, in his "Statistical Account of Upper Canada," p. 146, also speaks of the site of Kinnell Lodge as "greatly resembling in its bold, sombre and majestic aspect, the wildest and most romantic scenery" of Scotland. "This distinguished Chieftain," the writer then informs us, "has received permission to raise a militia corps of 800 Highlanders, a class of British subjects always distinguished for their devoted and chivalrous attachment to the laws and institutions of their noble progenitors, and who would prove a rampart of living bodies in defence of British supremacy whenever and wherever assailed."

The reference in Dean Ramsay's interesting "Reminiscences of Scottish life and Character," to "the last Laird of MacNab," is perhaps to the father of the gentleman familiar to us here in York, and who filled so large a space in the recollections of visitors to the Upper Ottawa. "The last Laird of MacNab before the clan finally broke up and emigrated to Canada was," says the Dean in the work just named, "a well-known character in the country; and, being poor, used to ride about on a most wretched horse, which gave occasion to many jibes at his expense. The Laird," this writer continues, "was in the constant habit of riding up from the country to attend the Musselburgh races [near Edinburgh]." A young wit, by way of playing him off on the race course, asked him in a contemptuous tone, "Is that the same horse you had last year, Laird?"—"Na," said the Laird, brandishing his whip in the interrogator's face in so emphatic a manner as to preclude further questioning, "Na! but it's the same whup!" (p. 216, 9th ed.)

We do not doubt but that the MacNabs have ever been a spirited race. Their representatives here have always been such; and like their kinsmen in the old home, too, they have had, during their brief history in Canada, their share of the hereditary vicissitudes. We owe to a Sheriff's advertisement in the Upper Canada Gazette or American Oracle of the 14th of April, 1798, published at Niagara, some biographical particulars and a minute description of the person of the Mr. MacNab who was afterwards, as we have already stated, Usher of the Black Rod to the House of Assembly and father of his successor, Mr. David MacNab, in the same post; father also of the Allan MacNab, whose history forms part of that of Upper Canada.

In 1798, imprisonment for debt was the rigorously enforced law of the land. The prominent MacNab of that date had, it would appear, become obnoxious to the law on the score of indebtedness: but finding the restraint imposed irksome, he had relieved himself of it without asking leave. The hue and cry for his re-capture proceeded as follows: "Two hundred dollars reward! Home District, Upper Canada, Newark, April 2, 1798. Broke the gaol of this District on the night of the 1st instant, [the 1st of April, be it observed,] Allan MacNab, a confined debtor. He is a reduced lieutenant of horse," proceeds the Sheriff, "on the half-pay list of the late corps of Queen's Rangers; aged 38 years or thereabouts; five feet three inches high; fair complexion; light hair; red beard; much marked with the small-pox; the middle finger of one of his hands remarkable for an overgrown nail; round shouldered; stoops a little in walking; and although a native of the Highlands of Scotland, affects much in speaking the Irish dialect. Whoever will apprehend, &c., &c., shall receive the above reward, with all reasonable expenses."

The escape of the prisoner on the first of April was probably felt by the Sheriff to be a practical joke played off on himself personally. We think we detect personal spleen in the terms of the advertisement: in the minuteness of the description of Mr. MacNab's physique, which never claimed to be that of an Adonis; in the biographical particulars, which, however interesting they chance to prove to later generations, were somewhat out of place on such an occasion: as also in a postscript calling on "the printers within His Majesty's Governments in America, and those of the United States to give circulation in their respective papers to the above advertisement," &c.

It was a limited exchequer that created embarrassment in the early history—and, for that matter, in much of the later history as well—of Mr. MacNab's distinguished son, afterwards the baronet Sir Allan; and no one could relate with more graphic and humorous effect his troubles from this source, than he was occasionally in the habit of doing.

When observing his well-known handsome form and ever-benignant countenance, about the streets of York, we lads at school were wont, we remember, generally to conjecture that his ramblings were limited to certain bounds. He himself used to dwell with an amount of complacency on the skill acquired in carpentry during these intervals of involuntary leisure, and on the practical results to himself from that skill, not only in the way of pastime, but in the form of hard cash for personal necessities. Many were the panelled doors and Venetian shutters in York which, by his account, were the work of his hands.

Once he was on the point of becoming a professional actor. Giving assistance now and then as an anonymous performer to Mr. Archbold, a respectable Manager here, he evinced such marked talent on the boards, that he was seriously advised to adopt the stage as his avocation and employment. The Theatre of Canadian public affairs, however, was to be the real scene of his achievements. Particulars are here unnecessary. Successively sailor and soldier (and in both capacities engaged in perilous service); a lawyer, a legislator in both Houses; Speaker twice in the Popular Assembly; once Prime Minister; knighted for gallantry, and appointed an Aide-de-camp to the Queen; dignified with a baronetcy; by the marriage of a daughter with the son of a nobleman, made the possible progenitor of English peers—the career of Allan MacNab cannot fail to arrest the attention of the future investigator of Canadian history.

With our local traditions in relation to the grandiose chieftain above described, one or two stories are in circulation, in which his young kinsman Allan amusingly figures. Alive to pleasantry—as so many of our early worthies in these parts were—he undertook, it is said, for a small wager, to prove the absolute nudity of the knees, &c., of his feudal lord when at a ball in full costume: (the allegation, mischievously made, had been that the Chief was protected from the weather by invisible drawers.) The mode of demonstration adopted was a sudden cry from the ingenuous youth addressed to the Chief, to the effect that he observed a spider, or some such object running up his leg!—a cry instantly followed by a smart slap with the hand, with the presumed intention of checking the onward course of the noxious thing. The loud crack occasioned by the blow left no room for doubt as to the fact of nudity; but the dignified Laird was somewhat disconcerted by the over zeal of his young retainer.

Again, at Kingston, the ever-conscious Chief having written himself down in the visitors' book at the hotel as The MacNab, his juvenile relative, coming in immediately after and seeing the curt inscription, instantly entered his protest against the monopoly apparently implied, by writing himself down, just underneath, in conspicuous characters, as The Other MacNab—the genius of his coming fortunes doubtless inspiring the merry deed.—He held for a time a commission in the 68th, and accompanied that regiment to York in 1827. Riding along King Street one day soon after his arrival in the town, he observed Mr. Washburn, the lawyer, taking a furtive survey of him through his eyeglass. The proceeding is at once reciprocated by the conversion of a stirrup into an imaginary lens of large diameter, lifted by the strap and waggishly applied to the eye. Mr. Washburn had, we believe, pressed matters against the young officer rather sharply in the courts, a year or two previously. A few years later, when member for Wentworth, he contrived, while conversing with the Speaker, Mr. McLean, in the refreshment-room of the Parliament House, to slip into one of that gentleman's coat pockets the leg-bone of a turkey. After the lapse of a few minutes, Mr. MacNab, as chairman of a committee of the whole House, is solemnly seated at the Table, and Mr. Speaker, in his capacity as a member, is being interrogated by him on some point connected with the special business of the committee. At this particular moment, it happens that Mr. Speaker, feeling for his handkerchief, discovers in his pocket the extraordinary foreign object which had been lodged there. Guessing in an instant the author of the trick, he extricates the bone and quick as thought, shies it at the head of the occupant of the Chair. The House is, of course, amazed; and Mr. MacNab, in the gravest manner, directs the Clerk to make a note of the act.—We have understood that the house occupied by Mr. Fothergill (where we paused a short time since) was originally built by Allan MacNab, junior, but never dwelt in by him.

We now arrived at the Don bridge. The valley of the Don, at the place where the Kingston Road crosses it, was spanned in 1824 by a long wooden viaduct raised about twenty-five feet above the marsh below. This structure consisted of a series of ten trestles, or frames of hewn timber supporting a roadway of plank, which had lasted since 1809. A similar structure spanned the Humber and its marshes on the west side of York. Both of these bridges about the year 1824 had become very much decayed; and occasionally both were rendered impassable at the same time, by the falling in of worn-out and broken planks. The York papers would then make themselves merry on the well-defended condition of the town in a military point of view, approach to it from the east and west being effectually barred.

Prior to the erection of the bridge on the Kingston Road, the Don was crossed near the same spot by means of a scow, worked by the assistance of a rope stretched across the stream. In 1810, we observe that the Humber was also crossed by means of a ferry. In that year the inhabitants of Etobicoke complained to the magistrates in session at York of the excessive toll demanded there; and it was agreed that for the future the following should be the charges:—For each foot passenger, 2½d.; for every hog, 1d.; for every sheep, the same; for horned cattle, 2½d. each, for every horse and rider, 5d.; for every carriage drawn by two horses, 1s. 3d. (which included the driver); for every carriage with one horse, 1s. It is presumed that the same tolls were exacted at the ferry over the Don, while in operation.

In 1824 not only was the Don bridge in bad repair, but, as we learn from a petition addressed by the magistrates to Sir Peregrine Maitland in that year, the bridge over the Rouge in Pickering, also, is said to be, "from its decayed state, almost impassable, and if not remedied," the document goes on to state, "the communication between this town (York) and the eastern parts of the Province, as well as with Lower Canada by land, will be entirely obstructed."

At length the present earthwork across the marsh at the Don was thrown up, and the river itself spanned by a long wooden tube, put together on a suspension principle, roofed over and closed in on the sides, with the exception of oblong apertures for light. It resembled in some degree the bridges to be seen over the Reuss at Lucerne and elsewhere in Switzerland, though not decorated with paintings in the interior, as they are. Stone piers built on piles sustained it at either end. All was done under the superintendence of a United States contractor, named Lewis. It was at him that the italics in Mr. Angell's advertisement glanced. The inuendo was that, for engineering purposes, there was no necessity for calling in the aid of outsiders.

From a kind of small Friar-Bacon's study, occupied in former years by ourselves, situated on a bold point some distance northwards, up the valley, we remember watching the pile-driver at work in preparing the foundation of the two stone piers of the Don bridge: from where we sat at our books we could see the heavy mallet descend; and then, after a considerable interval, we would hear the sharp stroke on the end of the piece of timber which was being driven down. From the same elevated position also, previously, we used to see the teams crossing the high frame-work over the marsh on their way to and from Town, and hear the distant clatter of the horses' feet on the loosely-laid planks.

The tubular structure which succeeded the trestle-work bridge did not retain its position very long. The pier at its western extremity was undermined by the water during a spring freshet, and gave way. The bridge, of course, fell down into the swirling tide below, and was carried bodily away, looking like a second Ark as it floated along towards the mouth of the river, where at length it stranded and became a wreck.

On the breaking up of the ice every spring the Don, as is well known, becomes a mighty rushing river, stretching across from hill to hill. Ordinarily, it occupies but a small portion of its proper valley, meandering along, like an English tide-stream when the tide is out. The bridge carried away on this occasion was notable so long as it stood, for retaining visible marks of an attempt to set fire to it during the troubles of 1837.

The next appliance for crossing the river was another tubular frame of timber, longer than the former one; but it was never provided with a roof, and never closed in at the sides. Up to the time that it began to show signs of decay, and to require cribs to be built underneath it in the middle of the stream, it had an unfinished, disreputable look. It acquired a tragic interest in 1859, from being the scene of the murder, by drowning, of a young Irishman named Hogan, a barrister, and, at the same time, a member of the Parliament of Canada.

When crossing the high trestlework which preceded the present earth-bank, the traveller, on looking down into the marsh below, on the south side, could see the remains of a still earlier structure, a causeway formed of unhewn logs laid side by side in the usual manner, but decayed, and for the most part submerged in water, resembling, as seen from above, some of the lately-discovered substructions in the lakes of Switzerland. This was probably the first road by which wheeled vehicles ever crossed the valley of the Don here. On the protruding ends of some of the logs of this causeway would be always seen basking, on a warm summer's day, many fresh-water turtles; amongst which, as also amongst the black snakes, which were likewise always to be seen coiled up in numbers here, and among the shoals of sunfish in the surrounding pools, a great commotion would take place when the jar was felt of a waggon passing over on the framework above.

The rest of the marsh, with the exception of the space occupied by the ancient corduroy causeway, was one thicket of wild willow, alder, and other aquatic shrubbery, among which was conspicuous the spiræa, known among boys as "seven-bark" or "nine-bark" and prized by them for the beautiful hue of its rind, which, when rubbed, becomes a bright scarlet.

Here also the blue iris grew plentifully, and reeds, frequented by the marsh hen; and the bulrush, with its long cat-tails, sheathed in chestnut-coloured felt, and pointing upwards like toy sky-rockets ready to be shot off. (These cat-tails, when dry and stripped, expand into large, white, downy spheres of fluff, and actually are as inflammable as gunpowder, going off with a mighty flash at the least touch of fire.)

The view from the old trestlework bridge, both up and down the stream, was very picturesque, especially when the forest, which clothed the banks of the ravine on the right and left, wore the tints of autumn. Northward, while many fine elms would be seen towering up from the land on a level with the river, the bold hills above them and beyond were covered with lofty pines. Southward, in the distance, was a great stretch of marsh, with the blue lake along the horizon. In the summer this marsh was one vast jungle of tall flags and reeds, where would be found the conical huts of the muskrat, and where would be heard at certain seasons the peculiar gulp of the bittern; in winter, when crisp and dry, here was material for a magnificent pyrotechnical display, which usually, once a year, came off, affording at night to the people of the town a spectacle not to be contemned.

Through a portion of this marsh on the eastern side of the river, Mr. Justice Boulton, at a very early period, cut, at a great expense, an open channel in front of some property of his: it was expected, we believe, that the matted vegetation on the outer side of this cutting would float away and leave clear water, when thus disengaged; but no such result ensued: the channel, however, has continued open, and is known as the "Boulton ditch." It forms a communication for skiffs between the Don and Ashbridge's Bay.

At the west end of the bridge, just across what is now the gore between Queen Street and King Street, there used to be the remains of a military breastwork thrown up in the war of 1812. At the east end of the bridge, on the south side of the road, there still stands a lowly edifice of hewn logs, erected before the close of the last century, by the writer's father, who was the first owner and occupant of the land on both sides of the Kingston road at this point. The roadway down to the original crossing-place over the river in the days of the Ferry, and the time of the first corduroy bridge, swerving as it did considerably to the south from the direct line of the Kingston road, must have been in fact a trespass on his lot on the south side of the road: and we find that so noteworthy an object was the solitary house, just above the bridge, in 1799, that the bridge itself, in popular parlance, was designated by its owner's name. Thus in the Upper Canada Gazette for March 9, 1799, we read that at a Town Meeting Benjamin Morley was appointed overseer of highways and fence-viewer for the section of road "from Scadding's bridge to Scarborough." In 1800 Mr. Ashbridge is appointed to the same office, and the section of highway placed under his charge is on this occasion named "the Bay Road from Scadding's bridge to Scarborough."

This Mr. Ashbridge is the early settler from whom Ashbridge's Bay was so called. His farm lay along the lower portion of that sheet of water. Next to him, westward, was the property of Mr. Hastings, whose Christian name was Warren. Years ago, when first beginning to read Burke, we remember wondering why the name of "the great proconsul" of Hindustan looked so familiar to the eye: when we recollected that in our childhood we used frequently to see here along the old Kingston road the name Warren Hastings appended in conspicuous characters, to placards posted up, advertising a "Lost Cow," or some other homely animal, gone astray.—Adjoining Mr. Hasting's farm, still moving west, was that of Mr. Mills, with whose name in our mind is associated the name of "Hannah Mills," an unmarried member of his household, who was the Sister of Charity of the neighbourhood, ever ready in times of sickness and bereavement to render, for days and nights together, kindly, sympathetic and consolatory aid.

We transcribe the full list of the appointments at the Town Meeting of 1799, for the sake of the old locally familiar names therein embodied; and also as showing the curious and almost incredible fact that in the language of the people, York at that early period, 1799, was beginning to be entitled "the City of York!"

"Persons elected at the Town Meeting held at the City of York on the 4th day of March, 1799, pursuant to an Act of Parliament of the Province, entitled an Act to provide for the nomination and appointment of Parish and Town Officers within this Province. Clerk of the Town and Township,—Mr. Edward Hayward. Assessors,—(including also the Townships of Markham and Vaughan) Mr. George Playter and Mr. Thomas Stoyles. Collector,—Mr. Archibald Cameron. Overseers of the Highways and Roads, and Fence-viewers,—Benjamin Morley, from Scadding's Bridge to Scarborough; James Playter, from the Bay Road to the Mills; Abraham Devans, circle of the Humber; Paul Wilcot, from Big-Creek to No. 25, inclusive, on Yonge Street, and half Big-Creek Bridge; Daniel Dehart, from Big-Creek to No. 1 inclusive, on Yonge Street, and half Big-Creek Bridge. Mr. McDougal and Mr. Clarke for the district of the city of York. Pound Keepers: Circle of the Don, Parshall Terry, junr.; Circle of the Humber, Benjamin Davis; Circle of Yonge Street, No. 1 to 25, James Everson; Circle of the City, etc., James Nash. Townwardens, Mr. Archibald Thompson and Mr. Samuel Heron. Other officers, elected pursuant to the 12th clause of the said Act: Pathmasters and Fence-viewers, Yonge Street, in Markham and Vaughan, Mr. Stilwell Wilson, lots 26 to 40, Yonge Street; Mr. John H. Hudrux, 41 to 51, Yonge Street, John Lyons, lots 26 to 35. John Stulz, Pathmaster and Fence-viewer in the German Settlement of Markham. David Thompson, do. for Scarborough."

It is then added:—"N. B.—Conformably to the resolutions of the inhabitants, no hogs to run at large above three months old, and lawful fences to be five feet and a half high. Nicholas Klingenbrumer, constable, presiding." Furthermore, the information is given that "the following are Constables appointed by the Justices: John Rock, Daniel Tiers and John Matchefosky, for the city, etc. Levi Devans for the District of the Humber, Thomas Hill from No. 1 to 25, Yonge Street; Balser Munshaw, for Vaughan and first Concession of Markham; —— Squantz for the German settlement of Markham. By order of the Magistrates: D. W. Smith." Also notice is given that "Such of the above officers as have not yet taken the oath, are warned hereby to do so without loss of time. The constables are to take notice that although for their own ease they are selected from particular districts, they are liable to serve process generally in the county."

When, in 1799, staid inhabitants were found seriously dignifying the group of buildings then to be seen on the borders of the bay, with the magnificent appellation of the "City of York," it is no wonder that at a later period indignation is frequently expressed at the ignominious epithet of "Little," which persons in the United States were fond of prefixing to the name of the place. Thus for example, in the Weekly Register so late as June, 1822, we have the editor speaking thus in a notice to a correspondent: "Our friends on the banks of the Ohio, 45 miles below Pittsburg, will perceive," the editor remarks, "that notwithstanding he has made us pay postage [and postage in those days was heavy], we have not been unmindful of his request. We shall always be ready at the call of charity when not misapplied; and we hope the family in question will be successful in their object.—There is one hint, however," the editor goes on to say, "we wish to give Mr. W. Patton, P. M.; which is, although there may be many "Little" Yorks in the United States, we know of no place called "Little York" in Canada; and beg that he will bear this little circumstance in his recollection when he again addresses us."

Gourlay also, as we have seen, when he wished to speak cuttingly of the authorities at York, used the same epithet. In gubernatorial proclamations, the phrase modestly employed is—"Our Town of York."

A short distance east from the bridge a road turned northward, known as the "Mill road." This communication was open in 1799. It led originally to the Mills of Parshall Terry, of whose accidental drowning in the Don there is a notice in the Gazette of July 23, 1808. In 1800, Parshall Terry is "Overseer of Ways from the Bay Road to the Mills." In 1802 the language is "from the Bay Road to the Don Mills," and in that year, Mr. John Playter is elected to the office held in the preceding year by Parshall Terry. (In regard to Mr. John Playter:—The solitary house which overlooked the original Don Bridge and Ferry was occupied by him during the absence of its builder and owner in England; and here, Mr. Emanuel Playter, his eldest son, was born.)

In 1821, and down to 1849, the Mill road was regarded chiefly as an approach to the multifarious works, flour-mills, saw-mills, fulling-mills, carding-mills, paper-mills and breweries, founded near the site of Parshall Terry's Mills, by the Helliwells, a vigorous and substantial Yorkshire family, whose heads first settled and commenced operations on the brink of Niagara Falls, on the Canadian side, in 1818, but then in 1821 transferred themselves to the upper valley of the Don, where that river becomes a shallow, rapid stream, and where the surroundings are, on a small scale, quite Alpine in character—a secluded spot at the time, in the rudest state of nature, a favourite haunt of wolves, bears and deer; a spot presenting difficulties peculiarly formidable for the new settler to grapple with, from the loftiness and steepness of the hills and the kind of timber growing thereabout, massive pines for the most part. Associated with the Helliwells in their various enterprises, and allied to them by copartnerships and intermarriage, were the Skinners and Eastwoods, all shrewd and persevering folk of the Midland and North-country English stock.—It was Mr. Eastwood who gave the name of Todmorden to the village overlooking the mills. Todmorden, partly in Yorkshire, and partly in Lancashire, was the old home of the Helliwells.

Farther up the river, on the hills to the right, were the Sinclairs, very early settlers from New England; and beyond, descending again into the vale, the Taylors and Leas, substantial and enterprising emigrants from England.

Hereabout were the "Forks of the Don," where the west branch of that stream, seen at York Mills, enters. The hills in this neighbourhood are lofty and precipitous, and the pines that clothed them were of a remarkably fine growth. The tedious circuit which teams were obliged to make in order to get into the town from these regions by the Don bridge has since been, to some extent, obviated by the erection of two additional bridges at points higher up the stream, north of the Kingston road.

XVII.

The Valley of the Don.

I.—From the Bridge on the Kingston Road to Tyler's.

Retracing our steps; placing ourselves again on the bridge, and, turning northwards, we see on the right, near by, a field or rough space, which has undergone excavation, looking as though the brick-maker or potter had been at work on it: and we may observe that large quantity of the displaced material has been spread out over a portion of the marshy tract enclosed here by a bend of the river westward. What we see is a relic of an effort made long ago, by Mr. Washburn, a barrister of York, to whom reference has been made before, to bring this piece of land into cultivation. In its natural state the property was all but useless, from the steepness of the hill-side on the one hand, and from the ever wet condition of the central portion of the flat below on the other. By grading down the hill and filling in the marsh, and establishing a gentle slope from the margin of the stream to the level of the top of the bank on the right, it was easy to see that a large piece of solid land in an eligible position might be secured. The undertaking, however, was abandoned before the work was finished, the expense probably being found heavy, and the prospect of a return for the outlay remote.

At a later period Mr. O'Neill, with greater success and completeness, cut down the steep ridges of the bank at Don Mount, a short distance up, and filled in the marsh below. These experiments show how the valley of the Don, along the eastern outskirts of the town, will ultimately be turned to account, when the necessities of the population demand the outlay. At present such improvements are discouraged by the length of time required to cover large surfaces of new clay with vegetable mould. But in future years it will be for mills and factories, and not for suburban and villa purposes, that the parts referred to will be held valuable.

These marshes along the sides of the Don, from the point where its current ceases to be perceptible, appear to be remains of the river as it was at an epoch long ago. The rim or levee that now, on the right and left, confines and defines the meanderings of the stream in the midst of the marshes, has been formed by the alluvial matter deposited in the annual overflowings. The bed of the stream has probably in the same manner been by degrees slightly raised. The solid tow-path, as it were, thus created on each side of the river-channel, affords at present a great convenience to the angler and fowler. It forms, moreover, as shown by the experiments above alluded to, a capital breastwork, towards which the engineer may advance, when cutting down the adjoining hills, and disposing of their material on the drowned land below.

Once more imagining ourselves on the bridge, and looking obliquely to the north-west, we may still discern close by some remains of the short, shallow, winding ravine, by which in winter the sleighs used to ascend from the level of the river, and regain, through a grove of pines and hemlocks, the high road into the town. As soon as the steady cold set in, every year, the long reaches and grand sweeps of the river Don became peculiarly interesting. Firmly frozen over everywhere, and coated with a good depth of snow, bordered on each side by a high shrubbery of wild willow, alder, wych-hazel, dog-wood, tree-cranberry and other specimens of the lesser brushwood of the forest, plentifully overspread and interwoven in numerous places with the vine of wild grape, the whole had the appearance of a fine, clear, level English coach-road or highway, bounded throughout its winding course by a luxuriant hedge, seen as such English roads and their surroundings were wont to be, all snow-clad, at Christmas-tide, from the top of the fast mail to Exeter, for example, in the old coaching days.

Down the river, thus conveniently paved over, every day came a cavalcade of strong sleighs, heavily laden, some with cordwood, some with sawn lumber, some with hay, a whole stack of which at once, sometimes, would seem to be on the move.

After a light fall of snow in the night, the surface of the frozen stream would be marked all over with foot-prints innumerable of animals, small and great, that had been early out a-foraging: tracks of field-mice, minks and martens, of land-rats, water-rats and muskrats; of the wild-cat sometimes, and of the fox; and sometimes of the wolf. Up this valley we have heard at night the howling of the wolf; and in the snow of the meadows that skirt the stream, we have seen the blood-stained spots where sheep had been worried and killed by that ravenous animal.

In one or two places where the bends of the river touched the inner high bank, and where diggings had abortively been made with a view to the erection of a factory of some kind, beautiful frozen gushes of water from springs in the hill-side were every winter to be seen, looking, at a distance, like small motionless Niagaras. At one sheltered spot, we remember, where a tannery was begun but never finished, solid ice was sometimes to be found far on in the summer.

In the spring and summer, a pull up the Don, while yet its banks were in their primeval state was something to be enjoyed. After passing certain potasheries and distilleries that at an early period were erected a short distance northward of the bridge, the meadow land at the base of the hills began to widen out; and numerous elm trees, very lofty, with gracefully-drooping branches, made their appearance, with other very handsome trees, as the lime or basswood, and the sycamore or button-wood.—At a very early period, we have been assured that brigades of North-west Company boats, en route to Lake Huron, used to make their way up the Don as far as the "Forks," by one of which they then passed westward towards the track now known as Yonge-street: they there were taken ashore and carried on trucks to the Holland river. The help gained by utilizing this piece of water-way must have been slight, when the difficulties to be overcome high up the stream were taken into account. We have conversed with an early inhabitant who, at a more recent period, had seen the North-west Company's boats drawn on trucks by oxen up the line of modern Yonge-street, but, in his day, starting, mounted in this manner, from the edge of the bay. In both cases they were shifted across from the Lake into the harbour at the "Carrying-place"—the narrow neck or isthmus a little to the west of the mouth of the Don proper, where the lake has now made a passage.

We add one more of the spectacles which, in the olden time, gave animation to the scene before us. Along the winding stream, where in winter the sleighs were to be seen coming down, every summer at night would be observed a succession of moving lights, each repeated in the dark water below. These were the iron cressets, filled with unctuous pine knots all ablaze, suspended from short poles at the bows of the fishermen's skiffs, out in quest of salmon and such other large fish as might be deemed worth a thrust of the long-handled, sharply-barbed trident used in such operations. Before the establishment of mills and factories, many hundreds of salmon were annually taken in the Don, as in all the other streams emptying into Lake Ontario. We have ourselves been out on a night-fishing excursion on the Don, when in the course of an hour some twenty heavy salmon were speared; and we have a distinct recollection of the conspicuous appearance of the great fish, as seen by the aid of the blazing "jack" at the bow, nozzling about at the bottom of the stream.

2.—From Tyler's to the Big Bend.

Not far from the spot where, at present, the Don-street bridge crosses the river, on the west side and to the north, lived for a long time a hermit-squatter, named Joseph Tyler, an old New Jersey man, of picturesque aspect. With his rather fine, sharp, shrewd features, set off by an abundance of white hair and beard, he was the counterpart of an Italian artist's stock-model. The mystery attendant on his choice of a life of complete solitude, his careful reserve, his perfect self-reliance in regard to domestic matters, and, at the same time, the evident wisdom of his contrivances and ways, and the propriety and sagacity of his few words, all helped to render him a good specimen in actual life of a secular anchorite. He had been in fact a soldier in the United States army, in the war of Independence, and was in the receipt of a pension from the other side of the lakes. He was familiar, he alleged, with the personal appearance of Washington.

His abode on the Don was an excavation in the side of the steep hill, a little way above the level of the river-bank. The flue of his winter fire-place was a tubular channel, bored up through the clay of the hill-side. His sleeping-place or berth was exactly like one of the receptacles for human remains in the Roman catacombs, an oblong recess, likewise carved in the dry material of the hill. To the south of his cave he cultivated a large garden, and raised among other things, the white sweet edible Indian corn, a novelty here at the time; and very excellent tobacco. He moreover manufactured pitch and tar, in a little kiln or pit dug for the purpose close by his house.

He built for himself a magnificent canoe, locally famous. It consisted of two large pine logs, each about forty feet long, well shaped and deftly hollowed out, fastened together by cross dove-tail pieces let in at regular distances along the interior of its bottom. While in process of construction in the pine woods through which the "Mill road" passes, on the high bank eastward of the river, it was a wonderment to all the inquisitive youth of the neighbourhood, and was accordingly often visited and inspected by them.

In this craft he used to pole himself down the windings of the stream, all the way round into the bay, and on to the landing-place at the foot of Caroline-street, bringing with him the produce of his garden, and neat stacks of pine knots, ready split for the fishermen's lightjacks. He would also on occasion undertake the office of ferryman. On being hailed for the purpose, he would put across the river persons anxious to make a short cut into the town from the eastward. Just opposite his den there was for a time a rude causeway over the marsh.

At the season of the year when the roads through the woods were impracticable, Tyler's famous canoe was employed by the Messrs. Helliwell for conveying into town, from a point high up the stream, the beer manufactured at their Breweries on the Don. We are informed by Mr. William Helliwell, of the Highland Creek, that twenty-two barrels at a time could be placed in it, in two rows of eleven each, laid lengthwise side by side, still leaving room for Tyler and an assistant to navigate the boat.

The large piece of meadow land on the east side of the river, above Tyler's abode, enclosed by a curve which the stream makes towards the west, has a certain interest attached to it from the fact that therein was reproduced, for the first time in these parts, that peculiarly pleasant English scene, a hop-garden. Under the care of Mr. James Case, familiar with the hop in Sussex, this graceful and useful plant was here for several seasons to be seen passing through the successive stages of its scientific cultivation; in early spring sprouting from the surface of the rich black vegetable mould; then trained gradually over, and at length clothing richly the poles or groups of poles set at regular distances throughout the enclosure; overtopping these supports; by and by loading them heavily with a plentiful crop of swaying clusters; and then finally, when in a sufficiently mature state, prostrated, props and all, upon the ground, and stripped of their fragrant burden, the real object of all the pains taken.—From this field many valuable pockets of hops were gathered; and the quality of the plant was pronounced to be good. Mr. Case afterwards engaged extensively in the same occupation in the neighbourhood of Newmarket.

About the dry, sandy table-land that overlooked the river on each side in this neighbourhood, the burrows of the fox, often with little families within, were plentifully to be met with. The marmot too, popularly known as the woodchuck, was to be seen on sunny days sitting up upon its haunches at holes in the hill-side. We could at this moment point out the ancient home of a particular animal of this species, whose ways we used to note with some curiosity.—Here were to be found racoons also; but these, like the numerous squirrels, black, red, flying and striped, were visible only towards the decline of summer, when the maize and the nuts began to ripen. At that period also, bears, he-bears and she-bears, accompanied by their cubs, were not unfamiliar objects, wherever the blackberry and raspberry grew. In the forest, moreover, hereabout, a rustle in the underbrush, and something white seen dancing up and down in the distance like the plume of a mounted knight, might at any moment indicate that a group of deer had caught sight of one of the dreaded human race, and, with tails uplifted, had bounded incontinently away.

Pines of a great height and thickness crowded the tops of these hills. The paths of hurricanes could be traced over extensive tracts by the fallen trunks of trees of this species, their huge bulks lying one over the other in a titanic confusion worthy of a sketch by Doré in illustration of Dante; their heads all in one direction, their upturned roots, vast mats of woody ramifications and earth, presented sometimes a perpendicular wall of a great height. Occasionally one of these upright masses, originating in the habit of the pine to send out a wide-spread but shallow rootage, would unexpectedly fall back into its original place, when, in the clearing of the land, the bole of the tree to which it appertained came to be gashed through. In this case it would sometimes happen that a considerable portion of the trunk would appear again in a perpendicular position. As its top would of course show that human hands had been at work there, the question would be propounded to the new comer as to how the axe could have reached to such a height. The suppositions usually encouraged in him were, either that the snow must have been wonderfully deep when that particular tree was felled, or else that some one of the very early settlers must have been a man of exceptional stature.

Among the lofty pines, here and there, one more exposed than the rest would be seen, with a piece of the thickness of a strong fence-rail stripped out of its side, from its extreme apex to its very root, spirally, like the groove of a rifle-bore. It in this manner showed that at some moment it had been the swift conductor down into the earth of the contents of a passing electric cloud. One tree of the pine species, we remember, that had been severed in the midst by lightning, so suddenly, that the upper half had descended with perfect perpendicularity and such force that it planted itself upright in the earth by the side of the trunk from which it had been smitten.

Nor may we omit from our remembered phenomena of the pine forests hereabout, the bee-trees. Now and then a huge pine would fall, or be intentionally cut down, which would exhibit in cavernous recesses at a great distance from what had been its root end, the accumulated combs of, it might be, a half century; those of them that were of recent construction, filled with honey.

A solitary survivor of the forest of towering pines which, at the period to which we are adverting, covered the hills on both sides of the Don was long to be seen towards the northern limit of the Moss Park property. In the columns of a local paper this particular tree was thus gracefully commemorated:—

Oh! tell to me, thou old pine tree, Oh! tell to me thy tale, For long hast thou the thunder braved, And long withstood the gale; The last of all thy hardy race, Thy tale now tell to me, For sure I am, it must be strange, Thou lonely forest tree. Yes, strange it is, this bending trunk, So withered now and grey, Stood once among the forest trees Which long have passed away: They fell in strength and beauty, Nor have they left a trace, Save my old trunk and withered limbs To show their former place. Countless and lofty once we stood; Beneath our ample shade His forest home of boughs and bark The hardy red man made. Child of the forest, here he roamed, Nor spoke nor thought of fear, As he trapped the beaver in his dam, And chased the bounding deer. No gallant ship with spreading sail Then ploughed those waters blue, Nor craft had old Ontario then, But the Indians' birch canoe; No path was through the forest, Save that the red man trod; Here, by your home, was his dwelling place, And the temple of his God. Now where the busy city stands, Hard by that graceful spire, The proud Ojibeway smoked his pipe Beside his camping fire. And there, where those marts of commerce are Extending east and west, Amid the rushes in the marsh The wild fowl had its nest. But the pale face came, our ranks were thinn'd, And the loftiest were brought low, And the forest faded far and wide, Beneath his sturdy blow; And the steamer on the quiet lake, Then ploughed its way of foam, And the red man fled from the scene of strife To find a wilder home.
And many who in childhood's days Around my trunk have played, Are resting like the Indian now Beneath the cedar's shade; And I, like one bereft of friends, With winter whitened o'er, But wait the hour that I must fall, As others fell before. And still what changes wait thee, When at no distant day, The ships of far off nations, Shall anchor in your bay; When one vast chain of railroad, Stretching from shore to shore, Shall bear the wealth of India, And land it at your door.

A short distance above the hop ground of which we have spoken, the Don passed immediately underneath a high sandy bluff. Where, after a long reach in its downward course, it first impinged against the steep cliff, it was very deep. Here was the only point in its route, so far as we recall, where the epithet was applicable which Milton gives to its English namesake, when he speaks of—

"Utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulphy Don."

This very noticeable portion of the river was known as the "Big Bend." (We may observe here that in retaining its English name, the Don has lost the appellation assigned to it by the French, if they ever distinguished it by a name. The Grand River, on the contrary, has retained its French name, notwithstanding its English official designation, which was the Ouse. The Rouge, too, has kept its French name. It was the Nen. The Indians styled this, or a neighbouring stream, Katabokokonk, "The River of Easy Entrance." The Thames, however, has wholly dropped its French title, LaTranche. We may subjoin that the Humber was anciently called by some, St John's River, from a trader named St. John; and by some, as we have already learnt, Toronto River. In Lahontan's map it is marked Tanaouaté. No interpretation is given.—Augustus Jones, the early surveyor of whom we shall have occasion frequently to speak, notes in one of his letters that the Indian name for the Don was Wonscoteonach, "Back burnt grounds;" that is, the river coming down from the back burnt country, meaning probably the so-called Poplar Plains to the north, liable to be swept by casual fires in the woods. The term is simply descriptive, and not, in the modern sense, a proper name.)

Towards the summit of the high bluff just mentioned, the holes made by the sand-martins were numerous. Hereabout we have met with the snapping turtle. This creature has not the power of withdrawing itself wholly within a shell. A part of its protection consists in the loud threatening snap of its strong horny jaws, armed in front with a beak-like hook bent downwards. What the creature lays hold of, it will not let go. Let it grasp the end of a stout stick, and the sportsman may sling it over his shoulder, and so carry it home with him. When allowed to reach its natural term of life, it probably attains a very great age. We remember a specimen captured near the spot at which we are pausing, which, from its vast size, and the rough, lichen-covered condition of its shell, must have been extremely old. We also once found near here a numerous deposit of this animal's eggs; all white and spherical, of the diameter of about an inch, and covered with a tough parchment-like skin.

The ordinary lesser tortoises of the marsh were of course plentiful along the Don: their young frequently to be met with creeping about, were curious and ever-interesting little objects. Snakes too there were about here, of several kinds: one, often very large and dangerous-looking, the copper-head, of a greenish brown colour, and covered with oblong and rather loose scales. The striped garter-snake of all sizes, was very common. Though reported to be harmless, it always indulged, when interfered with, in the menacing action and savage attempts to strike, of the most venomous of its genus.—Then there was the beautiful grass-green snake; and in large numbers, the black water-snake. In the rank herbage along the river's edge, the terrified piping of a pursued frog was often heard.

It recurs to us, as we write, that once, on the banks of the Humber, we saw a bird actually in the grasp of a large garter-snake—just held by the foot. As the little creature fluttered violently in the air, the head of the reptile was swayed rapidly to and fro. All the small birds in the vicinity had gathered together in a state of noisy excitement; and many spirited dashes were make by several of them at the common foe. No great injury having been as yet inflicted, we were enabled to effect a happy rescue.

From the high sandy cliff, to which our attention has been drawn, it was possible to look down into the waters of the river; and on a sunny day, it afforded no small amusement to watch the habits, not only of the creatures just named, but of the fish also, visible below in the stream; the simple sunfish, for example, swimming about in shoals (or schools, as the term used to be); and the pike, crafty as a fox, lurking in solitude, ready to dart on his unwary prey with the swiftness and precision of an arrow shot from the bow.

3.—From the Big Bend to Castle Frank Brook.

Above the "Big Bend," on the west side, was "Rock Point." At the water's edge hereabout was a slight outcrop of shaly rock, where crayfish were numerous, and black bass. The adjoining marshy land was covered with a dense thicket, in which wild gooseberry bushes and wild black-currant bushes were noticeable. The flats along here were a favourite haunt of woodcock at the proper season of the year: the peculiar succession of little twitters uttered by them when descending from their flight, and the very different deep-toned note, the signal of their having alighted, were both very familiar sounds in the dusk of the evening.

A little further on was "the Island." The channel between it and the "mainland" on the north side, was completely choked up with logs and large branches, brought down by the freshets. It was itself surrounded by a high fringe or hedge of the usual brush that lined the river-side all along, matted together and clambered over, almost everywhere by the wild grape-vine. In the waters at its northern end, wild rice grew plentifully, and the beautiful sweet-scented white water-lily or lotus.

This minute bit of insulated land possessed, to the boyish fancy, great capabilities. Within its convenient circuit, what phantasies and dreams might not be realized? A Juan Fernandez, a Barataria, a New Atlantis.—At the present moment we find that what was once our charmed isle has now become terra firma, wholly amalgamated with the mainland. Silt has hidden from view the tangled lodgments of the floods. A carpet of pleasant herbage has overspread the silt. The border-strip of shrubbery and grape-vine, which so delightfully walled it round, has been improved, root and branch, out of being.

Near the Island, on the left side, a rivulet, of which more immediately, pouring down through a deep, narrow ravine, entered the Don. On the right, just at this point, the objectionable marshes began to disappear, and the whole bottom of the vale was early converted into handsome meadows. Scattered about were grand elm and butternut, fine basswood and buttonwood trees, with small groves of the Canadian willow, which pleasantly resembles, in habit, the olive tree of the south of Europe. Along the flats, remains of Indian encampments were often met with; tusks of bears and other animals; with fragments of coarse pottery, streaked or furrowed rudely over, for ornament. And all along the valley, calcareous masses, richly impregnated with iron, were found, detached, from time to time, as was supposed, from certain places in the hill-sides.

At the long-ago epoch when the land went up, the waters came down with a concentrated rush from several directions into the valley just here, from some accidental cause, carving out in their course, in the enormous deposit of the drift, a number of deep and rapidly descending channels, converging all upon this point. The drainage of a large extent of acreage to the eastward, also at that period, found here for a time its way into the Don, as may be seen by a neighbouring gorge, and the deep and wide, but now dry water-course leading to it, known, where the "Mill road" crosses it, as the "Big Hollow."

Bare and desolate, at that remote era, must have been the appearance of these earth-banks and ridges and flats, as also those in the vicinity of all our rivers: for many a long year they must have resembled the surroundings of some great tidal river, to which the sea, after ebbing, had failed to return.

One result of the ancient down-rush of waters, just about here, was that on both sides of the river there were to be observed several striking specimens of that long, thin, narrow kind of hill which is popularly known as a "hog's back." One on the east side afforded, along its ridge, a convenient ascent from the meadows to the table-land above, where fine views up and down the vale were obtainable, somewhat Swiss in character, including in the distance the lake, to the south. Overhanging the pathway, about half-way up, a group of white-birch trees is remembered by the token that, on their stems, a number of young men and maidens of the neighbourhood had, in sentimental mood, after the manner of the Corydons and Amaryllises of classic times, incised their names.

The west side of the river, as well as the east, of which we have been more especially speaking, presented here also a collection of convergent "hog's backs" and deeply channelled water-courses. One of the latter still conducted down a living stream to the Don. This was the rivulet already noticed as entering just above the Island. It bore the graceful name of "Castle Frank Brook."

4.—Castle Frank.

Castle Frank was a rustic château or summer-house, built by Governor Simcoe in the midst of the woods, on the brow of a steep and lofty bank, which overlooks the vale of the Don, a short distance to the north of where we have been lingering. The construction of this edifice was a mere divertissement while engaged in the grand work of planting in a field literally and entirely new, the institutions of civilization.

All the way from the site of the town of York to the front of this building, a narrow carriage-road and convenient bridle-path had been cut out by the soldiers, and carefully graded. Remains of this ancient engineering achievement are still to be traced along the base of the hill below the Necropolis and elsewhere. The brook—Castle Frank Brook—a little way from where it enters the Don, was spanned by a wooden bridge. Advantage being taken of a narrow ridge, that opportunely had its commencing point close by on the north side, the roadway here began the ascent of the adjoining height. It then ran slantingly up the hill-side, along a cutting which is still to be seen. The table-land at the summit was finally gained by utilizing another narrow ridge. It then proceeded along the level at the top for some distance through a forest of lofty pines, until the château itself was reached.

The cleared space where the building stood was not many yards across. On each side of it, the ground precipitously descended, on the one hand to the Don, on the other to the bottom of the ravine where flowed the brook. Notwithstanding the elevation of the position, the view was circumscribed, hill-side and table-land being alike covered with trees of the finest growth.

Castle Frank itself was an edifice of considerable dimensions, of an oblong shape; its walls were composed of a number of rather small, carefully hewn logs, of short lengths. The whole wore the hue which unpainted timber, exposed to the weather, speedily assumes. At the gable end, in the direction of the roadway from the nascent capital, was the principal entrance, over which a rather imposing portico was formed by the projection of the whole roof, supported by four upright columns, reaching the whole height of the building, and consisting of the stems of four good-sized, well-matched pines, with their deeply-chapped, corrugated bark unremoved. The doors and shutters to the windows were all of double thickness, made of stout plank, running up and down on one side, and crosswise on the other, and thickly studded over with the heads of stout nails. From the middle of the building rose a solitary, massive chimney-stack.

We can picture to ourselves the cavalcade that was wont, from time to time, to be seen in the summers and autumns of 1794-'5-'6, wending its way leisurely to the romantically situated château of Castle Frank, along the reaches and windings, the descents and ascents of the forest road, expressly cut out through the primitive woods as a means of access to it.

First, mounted on a willing and well-favoured horse, as we will suppose, there would be General Simcoe himself—a soldierly personage, in the full vigour of life, advanced but little beyond his fortieth year, of thoughtful and stern, yet benevolent aspect—as shewn by the medallion in marble on his monument in the cathedral at Exeter—revolving ever in his mind schemes for the development and defence of the new Society which he was engaged in founding; a man "just, active, enlightened, brave, frank," as the French Duke de Liancourt described him in 1795; "possessing the confidence of the country, of the troops, and of all those who were joined with him in the administration of public affairs." "No hillock catches his eye," the same observant writer remarks, "without exciting in his mind the idea of a fort which might be constructed on the spot, associating with the construction of this fort the plan of operations for a campaign; especially of that which should lead him to Philadelphia, i. e., to recover, by force of arms, to the allegiance of England, the Colonies recently revolted."

By the side of the soldier and statesman Governor, also on horseback, would be his gifted consort, small in person, "handsome and amiable," as the French Duke again speaks, "fulfilling," as he continues to say, "all the duties of the mother and wife with the most scrupulous exactness; carrying the latter so far," DeLiancourt observes, "as to be of great assistance to her husband by her talent for drawing, the practice of which, in relation to maps and plans, enabled her to be extremely useful to the Governor," while her skill and facility and taste in a wider application of that talent were attested, the French traveller might have added, by numerous sketch-books and portfolios of views of Canadian scenery in its primitive condition, taken by her hand, to be treasured up carefully and reverently by her immediate descendants, but unfortunately not accessible generally to Canadian students.

This memorable lady—memorable for her eminent Christian goodness, as well as for her artistic skill and taste, and superior intellectual endowments—survived to the late period of 1850. Her maiden name is preserved among us by the designation borne by two of our townships, East and West "Gwillim"-bury. Her father, at the time one of the aides-de-camp to General Wolfe, was killed at the taking of Quebec.

Conspicuous in the group would likewise be a young daughter and son, the latter about five years of age and bearing the name of Francis. The château of which we have just given an account was theoretically the private property of this child, and took its name from him, although the appellation, by accident as we suppose, is identical, in sound at all events, with that of a certain "Castel-franc" near Rochelle, which figures in the history of the Huguenots.

The Iroquois at Niagara had given the Governor a title, expressive of hospitality—Deyonynhokrawen, "One whose door is always open." They had, moreover, in Council declared his son a chief, and had named him Tioga; or Deyoken, "Between the Two Objects;" and to humour them in return, as Liancourt informs us, the child was occasionally attired in Indian costume. For most men it is well that the future is veiled from them. It happened eventually that a warrior's fate befell the young chieftain Tioga. The little spirited lad who had been seen at one time moving about before the assembled Iroquois at Niagara, under a certain restraint probably, from the unwonted garb of embroidered deerskin, in which, on such occasions, he would be arrayed; and at another time clambering up and down the steep hill-sides at Castle Frank, with the restless energy of a free English boy, was at last, after the lapse of some seventeen years, seen a mangled corpse, one in that ghastly pile of "English dead," which, in 1812, closed up the breach at Badajoz.

Riding with the Governor, out to his rustic lodge, would be seen also his attached secretary, Major Littlehales, and one or other of his faithful aides-de-camp, Lieutenant Talbot or Lieutenant Givins; with men in attendance in the dark green undress of the famous Queen's Rangers, with a sumpter pony or two, bearing packages and baskets filled with a day's provender for the whole party. A few dogs also, a black Newfoundland, a pointer, a setter, white and tan, hieing buoyantly about on the right and left, would give animation to the cavalcade as it passed sedately on its way—

"Through the green-glooming twilight of the grove."

It will be of interest to add here, the inscription on General Simcoe's monument in Exeter Cathedral:—"Sacred to the memory of John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant-General in the army, and Colonel of the 22nd Regiment of Foot, who died on the 25th day of October, 1806, aged 54. In whose life and character the virtues of the hero, the patriot and the Christian were so eminently conspicuous, that it may justly be said, he served his king and his country with a zeal exceeded only by his piety towards God." Above this inscription is a medallion portrait. On the right and left are figures of an Indian and a soldier of the Queen's Rangers. The remains of the General are not deposited in Exeter Cathedral, but under a mortuary chapel on the estate of his family elsewhere.

Our cavalcade to Castle Frank, as sketched above, was once challenged on the supposed ground that in 1794 there were no horses in Western Canada.—Horses were no doubt at that date scarce in the region named; but some were procurable for the use of the Governor and his suite. In a "Journal to Detroit from Niagara, in 1793, by Major Littlehales," printed for the first time in the Canadian Literary Magazine, for May, 1833, we have it mentioned that, on the return of an exploring party, they were met at the end of the plains, near the Salt Lake Creek, by Indians, "bringing horses for the Governor and his suite." The French habitans about Sandwich and Detroit were in possession of horses in 1793, as well as their fellow countrymen in Lower Canada.

After the departure of General Simcoe from Canada, Castle Frank was occasionally made the scene of an excursion or pic-nic by President Russell and his family; and a ball was now and then given there, for which the appliances as well as the guests were conveyed in boats up the Don. At one time it was temporarily occupied by Captain John Denison, of whom hereafter. About the year 1829, the building, shut up and tenantless at the time, was destroyed by fire, the mischievous handiwork of persons engaged in salmon-fishing in the Don. A depression in the dry sand just beyond the fence which bounds the Cemetery of St. James, northward, shews to this day the exact site of Castle Frank. The quantity of iron that was gathered out from this depression after the fire, was, as we remember, something extraordinary, all the window shutters and doors having been, as we have said, made of double planks, fastened together with an immense number of stout nails, whose heads thickly studded the surface of each in regular order.

The immediate surroundings of the spot where Castle Frank stood, fortunately continue almost in their original natural state. Although the site of the building itself is outside the bounds of the Cemetery of St. James, a large portion of the lot which at first formed the domain of the château, now forms a part of that spacious and picturesque enclosure. The deep glen on the west, immediately below where the house was built, and through which flows (and by the listener may be pleasantly heard to flow) the brook that bears its name, is to this day a scene of rare sylvan beauty. The pedestrian from the town, by a half-hour's easy walk, can here place himself in the midst of a forest solitude; and from what he sees he can form an idea of the whole surrounding region, as it was when York was first laid out. Here he can find in abundance, to this day, specimens, gigantic and minute, of the vegetation of the ancient woods. Here at the proper seasons he can still hear the blue jay; the flute notes of the solitary wood-thrush, and at night, specially when the moon is shining bright, the whip-poor-will, hurriedly and in a high key, syllabling forth its own name.

5.—On to the Ford and the Mills.

We now resume our ramble up the valley of the Don. Northward of the gorge, where Castle Frank Brook entered, and where so many other deep-cut ravines converge upon the present channel of the stream, the scenery becomes really good.

We pass along through natural meadows, bordered on both sides by fine hills, which recede by a succession of slight plateaux, the uppermost of them clothed with lofty pines and oaks: on the slope nearest to "the flats" on the east, grew, along with the choke-cherry and may-flower, numbers of the wild apple or crab, beautiful objects when in full bloom. Hereabout also was to be found the prickly ash, a rather uncommon and graceful shrub. (The long-continued precipitous bank on the west side of the Don completely covered with forest, with, at last, the roof of the rustic château appearing above, must have recalled, in some slight degree, the Sharpham woods and Sharpham to the mind of anyone who had ever chanced to sail up the Dart so far as that most beautiful spot.)

Immediately beyond the Castle Frank woods, where now is the property known as Drumsnab, came the estate of Captain George Playter, and directly across on the opposite side of the river, that of his son Captain John Playter, both immigrants from Pennsylvania. When the town of York was in the occupancy of the Americans in 1813, many of the archives of the young province of Upper Canada were conveyed for safe keeping to the houses of these gentlemen. But boats, with men and officers from the invading force, found their way up the windings of the Don; and such papers and documents as could be found were carried away.

Just below Drumsnab, on the west side of the stream, and set down, as it were, in the midst of the valley, was, and is, a singular isolated mound of the shape of a glass shade over a French clock, known in the neighbourhood as the "Sugar Loaf." It was completely clothed over with moderate sized trees. When the whole valley of the Don was filled with a brimming river reaching to the summit of its now secondary banks, the top of the "Sugar Loaf," which is nearly on a level with the summit of the adjacent hills, must have appeared above the face of the water as an island speck.

This picturesque and curious mound is noticed by Sir James Alexander, in the account which he gives of the neighbourhood of Toronto in his "L'Acadie, or Seven Years' Explorations in British America":—"The most picturesque spot near Toronto," says Sir James, "and within four miles of it, is Drumsnab, the residence of Mr. Cayley. The mansion is roomy and of one storey, with a broad verandah. It is seated among fields and woods, on the edge of a slope; at the bottom winds a river; opposite is a most singular conical hill, like an immense Indian tumulus for the dead; in the distance, through a vista cut judiciously through the forest, are seen the dark blue waters of Lake Ontario. The walls of the principal room are covered with scenes from Faust, drawn in fresco, with a bold and masterly hand, by the proprietor."—(Vol. 1. p. 230.)

In the shadow thrown eastward by the "Sugar Loaf," there was a "Ford" in the Don, a favourite bathing-place for boys, with a clean gravelly bottom, and a current somewhat swift. That Ford was just in the line of an allowance for a concession road; which from the precipitous character of the hills on both sides, has been of late years closed by Act of Parliament, on the ground of its supposed impracticability for ever,—a proceeding to be regretted; as the highway which would traverse the Don valley at the Ford would be a continuation of Bloor street in a right line; and would form a convenient means of communication between Chester and Yorkville.

In the meadow on the left, just above the Ford, a little meandering brook, abounding in trout, entered the Don. Hereabouts also was, for a long while, a rustic bridge over the main river, formed by trees felled across the stream.

Proceeding on our way we now in a short time approached the great colony of the Helliwells, which has already been described. The mills and manufactories established here by that enterprising family constituted quite a conspicuous village. A visit to this cluster of buildings, in 1827, is described by Mr. W. L. Mackenzie, in his "Sketches of Canada," published in London, by Effingham Wilson, in 1833. At page 270 of that work, the writer says: "About three miles out of town, in the bottom of a deep ravine, watered by the river Don, and bounded also by beautiful and verdant flats, are situated the York Paper Mills, distillery and grist-mill of Messrs. Eastwood & Co.; also Mr. Shepard's axe-grinding machinery; and Messrs. Helliwell's large and extensive Brewery. I went out to view these improvements a few days ago, and returned much gratified with witnessing the paper-manufacture in active operation—as also the bold and pleasant scenery on the banks of the Don. The river might be made navigable with small expense up to the brewery; and if the surrounding lands were laid out in five-acre lots all the way to town, they would sell to great advantage."

XVIII.

Queen Street, from the Don Bridge to Caroline Street.

We return once more to the Don Bridge; and from that point commence a journey westward along the thoroughfare now known as Queen Street, but which at the period at present occupying our attention, was non-existent. The region through which we at first pass was long known as the Park. It was a portion of Government property not divided into lots and sold, until recent times.

Originally a great space extending from the first Parliament houses, bounded southward and eastward by the water of the Bay and Don, and northward by the Castle Frank lot, was set apart as a "Reserve for Government Buildings," to be, it may be, according to the idea of the day, a small domain of woods and forest in connection with them; or else to be converted in the course of time into a source of ways and means for their erection and maintenance. The latter appears to have been the view taken of this property in 1811. We have seen a plan of that date, signed "T. Ridout, S. G.," shewing this reserve divided into a number of moderate sized lots, each marked with "the estimated yearly rent, in dollars, as reported by the Deputy Surveyor [Samuel S. Wilmot]." The survey is therein stated to have been made "by order of His Excellency Francis Gore, Esq., Lieutenant-Governor."

The number of the lots is eighty-three. None of them bear a larger amount than twenty dollars. Some of them consisting of minute bits of marsh, were expected to yield not more than one dollar. The revenue from the whole if realised would have been eleven hundred and thirty-three dollars. In this plan, what is now Queen street is duly laid down, in direct continuation of the Kingston Road westward, without regard to the engineering difficulties presented by ravines; but it is entitled in large letters, "Dundas Street." On its north side lie forty-six, and on its south, thirty-seven of the small lots into which the whole reserve is divided The scheme was never carried into effect.

The Park, as we remember it, was a tract of land in a state of nature, densely covered, towards the north, with massive pines; and towards the south, with a thick secondary growth of the same forest tree. Through these woods ran a devious and rather obscure track, originating in the bridle-road cut out, before the close of the preceding century, to Castle Frank; one branch led off from it to the Playter-estate, passing down and up two very steep and difficult precipices; and another, trending to the west and north, conducted the wayfarer to a point on Yonge Street about where Yorkville is now to be seen.

To the youthful imagination, the Park, thus clothed with veritable forest—

The nodding horror of whose shady brows Awed the forlorn and wandering passenger—

and traversed by irregular, ill-defined and very solitary paths, leading to widely-separated localities, seemed a vast and rather mysterious region, the place which immediately flashed on the mind, whenever in poem or fairy tale, a wild or wold or wilderness was named. As time rolled on, too, it actually became the haunt and hiding-place of lawless characters.

After passing, on our left, the burial-plot attached to the first Roman Catholic Church of York, and arriving where Parliament Street, at the present day, intersects, we reached the limit, in that direction, of the "Reserve for Government Buildings." Stretching from the point indicated, there was on the right side of the way, a range of "park lots," extending some two miles to the west, all bounded on the south by what at the present time is Queen Street, but which, from being the great thoroughfare along the front of this very range, was long known as "Lot Street." (In the plan above spoken of, it is marked, as already stated, "Dundas Street," it being a section of the great military way, bearing that name, projected by the first Governor of Upper Canada to traverse the whole province from west to east, as we shall have occasion hereafter to narrate.)

In the early plan of this part of York, the names of the first locatees of the range of park-lots are given. On the first or easternmost lot we read that of John Small. On the next, that of J. White.

In this collocation of names there is something touching, when we recall an event in which the first owners of these two contiguous lots were tragically concerned. Friends, and associates in the Public Service, the one as Clerk of the Crown, the other as Attorney-General for Upper Canada, from 1792-1800, their dream, doubtless, was to pass the evening of their days in pleasant suburban villas placed here side by side in the outskirts of the young capital. But there arose between them a difficulty, trivial enough probably at the beginning, but which, according to the barbaric conventionality of the hour, could only be finally settled by a "meeting," as the phrase was, in the field, where chance was to decide between them, for life or death, as between two armies—two armies reduced to the absurdity of each consisting of one man. The encounter took place in a pleasant grove at the back of the Parliament Building, immediately to the east of it, between what is now King Street and the water's edge. Mr. White was mortally wounded and soon expired. At his own request his remains were deposited in his garden on the park-lot, beneath a summer-house to which he had been accustomed to retire for purposes of study.

The Oracle of Saturday, January 4, 1800, records the duel in the following words:—"Yesterday morning a duel was fought back of the Government Buildings by John White, Esq., his Majesty's Attorney-General, and John Small, Esq., Clerk of the Executive Council, wherein the former received a wound above the right hip, which it is feared will prove mortal." In the issue of the following Saturday, January 11th, the announcement appears:—"It is with much regret that we express to the public, the death of John White, Esq." It is added: "His remains were on Tuesday evening interred in a small octagon building, erected on the rear of his Park lot." "The procession," the Oracle observes, "was solemn and pensive; and shewed that though death, 'all eloquent,' had seized upon him as his victim, yet it could not take from the public mind the lively sense of his virtues. Vivit post funera virtus."

The Constellation at Niagara, of the date January 11th, 1800, also records the event, and enjoying a greater liberty of expression than the Government organ at York, indulges in some just and sensible remarks on the irrational practice of duelling in general, and on the sadness of the special case which had just occurred. We give the Constellation article:

"Died at York, on the 3rd instant, John White, Esq., Attorney-General of this Province. His death was occasioned by a wound he received in a duel fought the day before with John Small, Esq., Clerk of the Executive Council, by whom he was challenged. We have not been able to obtain the particulars of the cause of the dispute; but be the origin what it may, we have to lament the toleration and prevalency of a custom falsely deemed honourable, or the criterion of true courage, innocency or guilt, a custom to gratify the passion of revenge in a single person, to the privation of the country and a family, of an ornament of society, and support: an outrage on humanity that is too often procured by the meanly malicious, who have preferment in office or friendship in view, without merit to gain it, and stupidly lacquey from family to family, or from person to person, some wonderful suspicion, the suggestions of a soft head and evil heart; and it is truly unfortunate for Society that the evil they bring on others should pass by their heads to light on those the world could illy spare. We are unwilling to attribute to either the Attorney-General or Mr. Small any improprieties of their own, or to say on whom the blame lies; but of this we feel assured, that an explanation might easily have been brought about by persons near to them, and a valuable life preserved to us. The loss is great; as a professional gentleman, the Attorney-General was eminent, as a friend, sincere; and in whatever relation he stood was highly esteemed; an honest and upright man, a friend to the poor; and dies universally lamented and we here cannot refuse to mention, at the particular request of some who have experienced his goodness, that he has refused taking fees, and discharged suits at law, by recommending to the parties, and assisting them with friendly advice, to an amicable adjustment of their differences: and this is the man whom we have lost!"

For his share in the duel Mr. Small was, on the 20th January, 1800, indicted and tried before Judge Allcock and a jury, of which Mr. Wm. Jarvis was the foreman. The verdict rendered was "Not Guilty." The seconds were—Mr. Sheriff Macdonell for Mr. Small, and the Baron DeHoen for Mr. White.

(In 1871, as some labourers were digging out sand, for building purposes, they came upon the grave of Attorney-General White. The remains were carefully removed under the inspection of Mr. Clarke Gamble, and deposited in St. James' Cemetery.)

Mr. White's park-lot became afterwards the property of Mr. Samuel Ridout, sometime Sheriff of the County, of whom we have had occasion to speak already. A portion of it was subsequently owned and built on by Mr. Edward McMahon, an Irish gentleman, long well known and greatly respected as Chief Clerk in the Attorney General's office. Mr. McMahon's name was, for a time, preserved in that of a street which here enters Queen Street from the North.

Sherborne Street, which at present divides the White park-lot from Moss Park commemorates happily the name of the old Dorsetshire home of the main stem of the Canadian Ridouts. The original stock of this family still flourishes in the very ancient and most interesting town of Sherborne, famous as having been in the Saxon days the see of a bishop; and possessing still a spacious and beautiful minster, familiarly known to architects as a fine study.

Like some other English names, transplanted to the American continent, that of this Dorsetshire family has assumed here a pronunciation slightly different from that given to it by its ancient owners. What in Canada is Ri-dout, at Sherborne and its neighbourhood, is Rid-out.

On the park-lot which constituted the Moss-Park Estate, the name of D. W. Smith appears in the original plan. Mr. D. W. Smith was acting Surveyor-General in 1794. He was the author of "A Short Topographical Description of His Majesty's Province of Upper Canada in North America, to which is annexed a Provincial Gazetteer:"—a work of considerable antiquarian interest now, preserving as it does, the early names, native, French and English, of many places now known by different appellations. A second edition was published in London in 1813, and was designed to accompany the new map published in that year by W. Faden, Geographer to the King and Prince Regent. The original work was compiled at the desire of Governor Simcoe, to illustrate an earlier map of Upper Canada.

We have spoken already in our progress through Front Street, of the subsequent possessor of Mr. Smith's lot, Col. Allan. The residence at Moss Park was built by him in comparatively recent times. The homestead previously had been, as we have already seen, at the foot of Frederick Street, on the south-east corner. To the articles of capitulation on the 27th April, 1813, surrendering the town of York to Dearborn and Chauncey, the commanders of the United States force, the name of Col. Allan, at the time Major Allan, is appended, following that of Lieut.-Col. Chewett.

Besides the many capacities in which Col. Allan did good service to the community, as detailed during our survey of Front Street, he was also, in 1801, Returning Officer on the occasion of a public election. In the Oracle of the 20th of June, 1801, we have an advertisement signed by him as Returning Officer for the "County of Durham, the East Riding of the County of York, and the County of Simcoe"—which territories conjointly are to elect one member. Mr. Allan announces that he will be in attendance "on Thursday, the 2nd day of July next, at 10 o'clock in the forenoon, at the Hustings under the Colonnade of the Government Buildings in the Town of York—and proceed to the election of one Knight to represent the said county, riding and county in the House of Assembly, whereof all freeholders of the said county, riding and county, are to take notice and attend accordingly."

The writ, issuing from "His Excellency, Peter Hunter, Esq.," directs the returning officer "to cause one Knight, girt with a sword, the most fit and discreet, to be freely and indifferently chosen to represent the aforesaid county, riding and county, in Assembly, by those who shall be present on the day of election."

Two candidates presented themselves, Mr. A. Macdonell and Mr. J. Small. Mr. Macdonell was duly elected, "there appearing for him," we are briefly informed in a subsequent number of the Oracle, "112 unquestionable votes; and for J. Small, Esq. 32: majority, 80."

In 1804 there was another election, when the candidates were Mr. A. Macdonell again, Mr. D. W. Smith, of whom above, and Mr. Weekes. The address of the last-named gentleman is in the Oracle of May 24th. It is addressed to the Free and Independent Electors of the East Riding of York. He says: "I stand unconnected with any party, unsupported by any influence, and unambitious of any patronage, other than the suffrages of those who consider the impartial enjoyment of their rights, and the free exercise of their privileges as objects not only worthy of the vigilance of the legislator, but also essential to their political security and to their local prosperity. The opportunity of addressing myself to men who may be inclined to think with freedom, and to act with independency, is to me truly desirable; and the receiving of the countenance and support of those characters, must ever bear in my mind impressions more than gratifying."

"It will not accord with my sentiments," the address proceeds to say, "to express myself in the usual terms of zeal and fidelity of an election candidate; inasmuch as that the principle of previous assurances has frequently, in the exercise of the functions of a representative, have been either forgotten or occasionally abandoned; but I hope it will not be considered vaunting in me to assert that that zeal and the fidelity which have manifested themselves in the discharge of my duty to my clients, will not be abated in supporting a more important trust—the cause of the public!"

In the Oracle of April 7th is an address put forth by friends on the part of Mr. D. W. Smith, who is at the moment absent. It is "to the free and independent electors of the County of Durham, the East Riding of the County of York, and the County of Simcoe." It runs as follows: "The friends of the Hon. D. W. Smith beg leave to offer that gentleman to represent you in the ensuing Parliament. His honour, integrity and ability, and the essential services which, in different capacities, he hath rendered to the Province, are so well known and felt that his friends consider the mentioning of his name only to be the most powerful solicitation which they can use on the present occasion, to obtain for him your favour and suffrage." To this address the following paragraph is added on May the 5th: "The friends of Mr. Smith consider it as their duty further to intimate, that from late accounts received from him in England, it was his determination to set out from that country so as to arrive here early in the summer of this present year."

On the 2nd of May Mr. Macdonell's address came out. He speaks like a practised orator, accustomed to the outside as well as the interior of the House. He delivers himself in the following vigorous style:—

"To the Worthy Inhabitants of the East Riding of the County of York, and Counties of Durham and Simcoe: Friends and Fellow Subjects. In addressing you by appellations unusual, I believe, on similar occasions, no affectation of singularity has dictated the innovation: my terms flow from a more dignified principle, a purer source of ideas, from a sentiment of liberal and extensive affection, which embraces and contemplates not only such of you as by law are qualified to vote, but also such as a contracted and short-sighted policy has restrained from the immediate enjoyment of that privilege. Your interests, inseparably the same, and alike dear and interesting to me, have always been equally my care; and your good-will shall indiscriminately be gratifying, whether accompanied with the ability of advancing my present pursuit, or confined to the wishes of my succeeding in it.

"The anxious anticipation of events, which has engaged so many persons unto such early struggles to supplant me, forces me also to anticipate the dissolution of parliament, in declaring my disposition to continue (if supported by my friends at the next general election) in that situation which I have now the honour of filling in parliament; a situation, which the majority of suffrages which placed me in it, justifies the honest pride of supposing, was not obtained without merit, and inspires the natural confidence of presuming, will not be lost without a fault.

"I stoop with reluctance, gentlemen, to animadvert upon some puny fabrications calculated to mislead your judgment, and alienate your favour. It has been said that I am canvassing for a seat elsewhere. No! gentlemen: the satisfaction, the pride, of representing that division of this Province, which, comprehending the capital, is consequently the political head, is to me, too captivating an object of political ambition to suffer the view of it to be intercepted in my imagination for a moment, by the prospect of any inferior representation. Be assured, therefore, gentlemen, that I shall not forsake my present post, until you or life shall have forsaken me.

"Another calumny of a darker hue has been fabricated. I have been represented as inimical to the provincial statute which restrains many worthy persons migrating into this Province from voting at elections, under a residence of seven years. A more insidious, a more bare-faced falsehood, never issued from the lips of malice; for during every session of my sitting in parliament, I have been the warmest, and loudest advocate for repealing that statute and for rendering taxation and representation reciprocal.

"I shall notice a third expedient, in attempting which, detraction (by resorting to an imposture so gross as to carry its own refutation upon the very face of it) has effectually avowed its own impotency:—It has been whispered that I have endeavoured to increase the general rate of assessments within the Home District. Wretched misrepresentation! I should have been my own enemy indeed, if I had lent myself to such a measure. On the contrary; my maxim has been, and shall ever continue to be, that so much of the public burden as possible should be shifted from the shoulders of the industrious farmers and mechanics, upon those of the more opulent classes of the community; persons with large salaries and lucrative employments: the shallow artifice of these exploded lies suggests this natural reflection, that slander could find no real foundation to build upon, when reduced to the necessity of rearing its fabrics upon visions.

"To conclude, gentlemen, I have no interests separate from yours, no country but that which we inhabit in common. In all situations, under all circumstances, I have been the friend of the people and the votary of their rights. I have never changed with the times, nor shifted sides with the occasion; and you may therefore reasonably confide that I shall always be, gentlemen, your most devoted and most attached servant, A. Macdonell, York, 2nd May, 1804."

An attempt had also been made to induce Mr. R. Henderson to become a candidate at this election. He explained the reason why he declined to come forward, in the following card:—"The subscriber thinks it a duty incumbent on him thus publicly to notify his friends who wished him to stand as a candidate at the ensuing election for York and its adjacent counties; that he declines standing, having special business that causes his absence at the time of the election. He hopes that his friends will be pleased to accept of his grateful acknowledgments for the honour they wished to confer on him. But as there are several candidates who solicit the suffrages of the Public, they cannot be at a loss. He leaves you, gentlemen, to the freedom of your own will. He has only to observe that were he present on the day of election, he would give his vote to the Honourable David William Smith. I am, Gentlemen, your obedient and obliged servant, R. Henderson, York, 26th May, 1804."

Mr. Henderson's occupation was afterwards that of a local army contractor, &c., as may be gathered from an advertisement which is to be observed in the Oracle of September 6, 1806:—"Notice. The subscriber having got the contract for supplying His Majesty's troops at the garrison with fresh beef, takes the liberty of informing the public that he has engaged a person to superintend the butchering business, and that good fresh beef may be had three times a week. Fresh pork and mutton will be always ready on a day's notice; poultry, &c. Those gentlemen who may be pleased to become customers, may rely on being well served, and regularly supplied. If constant customers, &c., a note of the weight will be sent along with the article. Families becoming constant customers, will please to send a book by their servant, to have it entered, to prevent any mistakes. The business will commence on Monday, the 1st of September next. R. Henderson, York, Aug. 28, 1806."

The grazing ground of Mr. Henderson's fat cattle was extensive. In the same paper we have a notice bearing his signature, announcing that "the subscriber has a considerable number of fat cattle running at large between the town and the Humber. They are all branded on the horns with R. H." The notice continues: "If any of said cattle should be offered for sale to butchers or others, it is hoped no one will purchase them, as they may suppose them to be stolen. A number of fat cattle is still wanted, for which cash will be paid."

The result of the election at York in 1804 is announced in the Oracle of June 16. As was probably to be expected, Mr. Macdonell was the man returned. Thus runs the paragraph: "On Monday last the 11th instant, the election of a Knight to represent the counties of Durham and Simcoe and the East Riding of the County of York, took place at the Government Buildings in this town. At the close of the poll, Angus Macdonell was declared to be duly elected to represent the said counties and riding. We have not yet been able to collect any further returns," the Editor adds, "but as soon as practicable they will be laid before the public."

On the 4th of the following August, accordingly, the following complete list was given of members returned at the election of 1804. Alexander Macdonell and W. B. Wilkinson, Esqrs., Glengarry and Prescott. Robert Isaac D. Grey, Esq., Stormont and Russell. John Chrysler, Dundas. Samuel Sherwood, Esq., Grenville. Peter Howard, Esq., Leeds. Allan McLean, Esq., Frontenac. Thomas Dorland, Esq., Lennox and Addington. Ebenezer Washburn, Esq., Prince Edward. David McGregor Rogers, Esq., Hastings and Northumberland. Angus Macdonell, Esq., Durham, Simcoe and East Riding of York. Solomon Hill and Robert Nelles, Esqrs., West Riding of York, First Lincoln, and Haldimand. Isaac Swayzey and Ralph Clench, Esqs., 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ridings of Lincoln. Benaiah Mallory, Esq., Norfolk, Oxford and Middlesex. John McGregor, Esq., Kent. Matthew Elliott and David Cowan, Esqrs., Essex.

The Mr. Weekes who, as we have seen, was an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in parliament in 1804 was nevertheless a member of the House in 1806, representing the constituencies to which he had previously offered himself. In 1806 he was killed in a duel with Mr. Dickson at Niagara, another victim to the peculiar social code of the day, which obliged gentlemen on certain occasions of difference to fire pistols at each other. In the Oracle of the 11th of October, 1806, we read the announcement: "Died on Friday, the 10th instant, at night, in consequence of a wound received that morning in a duel, William Weekes, Esq., Barrister-at-law, and a Member of the House of Assembly for the counties of York, Durham and Simcoe." In the next issue of the paper, dated October 25, 1806, we have a second record of the event in the following terms, with a eulogy on Mr. Weekes' character: "It is with sentiments of the deepest regret that we announce to the public the death of William Weekes, Esq., Barrister-at-law in this Province; not only from the melancholy circumstances attendant on his untimely death, but also from a view of the many virtues this Province is deprived of by that death. In him the orphan has lost a father, the widow a friend, the injured a protector, society a pleasing and safe companion, and the Bar one of its ablest advocates. Mr. Weekes was honest without the show of ostentation. Wealth and splendour held no lure for him; nor could any pecuniary motives induce him to swerve in the smallest degree from that which he conceived to be strictly honourable. His last moments were marked with that fortitude which was the characteristic of his life, convinced of the purity of which, he met death with pleasure.

"His funeral was delayed longer than could have been wished, a form of law being necessary previous to that ceremony. He was interred on Tuesday, the fourteenth. His funeral," it is added, "was attended by a respectable assemblage of people, from the house of John MacKay, Esq., in the following order:—mourners, John MacKay, Esq.; three Members of the House of Assembly, of which he was a member: viz., Ralph Clench, J. Swayzey, Robert Nelles; Dr. West, Surgeon of the American Garrison, Dr. Thomas, 41st Regt., Dr. Muirhead, Niagara; the Gentlemen of the Bar; the Magistrates of the place; and a numerous concourse of people from town and country."

This duel, as we have been informed, was fought on the United States side of the river, near the French Fort.

Mr. Weekes, we believe, was an unmarried man. He was fond of solitary rambles in the woods in search of game. Once he was so long missing that foul play was suspected; and some human remains having been found under a heap of logs on the property of Peter Ernest, Peter Ernest was arrested; and just as the evidence was all going strongly against him, Mr. Weekes appeared on the scene alive and well.

One more of these inhuman and unchristian encounters, with fatal result, memorable in the early annals of York, we shall have occasion to speak of hereafter when, in our intended progress up Yonge Street, we pass the spot where the tragedy was enacted.

Mr. Weekes was greatly regretted by his constituents. "Overwhelmed with grief," they say in their address dated the 20th September, 1806, to the gentleman whom they desire to succeed him, "at the unexpected death of our late able and upright Representative; we, freeholders of these Counties of York, Durham and Simcoe, feel that we have neglected our interests in the season of sorrow. Now awake, it is to you we turn; notwithstanding the great portion of consolation which we draw from the dawning of our impartial and energetic administration. (The allusion is to Gov. Gore.)

"Fully persuaded that the great object of your heart is the advancement of public prosperity, the observance of the laws, and the practice of religion and morality, we hasten with assurances of our warmest support, to invite you from your retreat to represent us in Parliament. Permit us, however, to impress upon you, that as subjects of a generous and beloved King; as a part of that great nation which has for so long a time stood the bulwark of Europe, and is now the solitary and inaccessible asylum of liberty; as the children of Englishmen, guarded, protected and restrained by English laws; in fine, as members of their community, as fathers and sons, we are induced to place this confidence in your virtue, from the firm hope that, equally insensible to the impulse of popular feeling and the impulse of power, you will pursue what is right. This has been the body of your decisions; may it be the spirit of your counsels! (Signed by fifty-two persons, residing in the Town and Township of York.)" The names not given.

These words were addressed to Mr. Justice Thorpe. His reply was couched in the following terms: "Gentlemen: With pleasure I accede to your desire. If you make me your representative I will faithfully discharge my duty. Your confidence is not misplaced. May the first moment of dereliction be the last of my existence. Your late worthy representative I lament from my heart. In private he was a warm friend; at the Bar an able advocate, and in Parliament a firm patriot. It is but just to draw consolation from our Governor, when the first act of his administration granted to those in the U. E. list and their children, what your late most valuable member so strenuously laboured to obtain. Surely from this we have every reason to expect that the liberal interests of our beloved sovereign, whose chief glory is to reign triumphantly enthroned on the hearts of a free people, will be fulfilled, honouring those who give and those who receive, enriching the Province and strengthening the Empire. Let us cherish this hope in the blossom; may it not be blasted in the ripening." A postscript is subjoined: "P. S. If influence, threat, coercion or oppression should be attempted to be exercised over any individual, for the purpose of controlling the freedom of election, let me be informed.—R. T."

In 1806 Judges were not ineligible to the Upper Canadian Parliament. Mr. Justice Thorpe and Governor Gore did not agree. He was consequently removed from office. Some years later, when both gentlemen were living in England as private persons, Mr. Thorpe brought an action for libel against Mr. Gore, and obtained a favourable verdict.

We now proceed on our prescribed course. So late as 1833, Walton, in his "York Commercial Directory, Street Guide, and Register," when naming the residents on Lot Street, as he still designates Queen Street, makes a note on arriving at two park lots to the westward of the spot where we have been pausing, to the effect, that "here this street is intercepted by the grounds of Capt. McGill, S. P. Jarvis, Esq., and Hon. W. Allan; past here it is open to the Roman Catholic Church, and intended to be carried through to the Don Bridge."

The process of levelling up, now become so common in Toronto, has effectually disposed of the difficulty temporarily presented by the ravine or ancient water-course, yet partially to be seen either in front of or upon the park lots occupied by the old inhabitants just named; and Queen Street, at the present hour, is an uninterrupted thoroughfare in a right line, and almost on a level the whole way, from the Don in the east to the Lunatic Asylum in the west, and beyond, on to the gracefully curving margin of Humber Bay.—(The unfrequented and rather tortuous Britain Street is a relic of the deviation occasioned by the ravine, although the actual route followed in making the detour of old was Duchess Street.)

XIX.

Queen Street—Digression at Caroline Street—History of the Early Press.

A little to the south of Britain Street, between it and Duchess Street, near the spot where Caroline Street, slightly diverging from the right line, passes northward to Queen Street, there stood in the early day a long, low wooden structure, memorable to ourselves, as being, in our school-boy days, the Government Printing Office. Here the Upper Canada Gazette was issued, by "R. C. Horne, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty."

We shall have occasion hereafter to notice among our early inhabitants some curious instances of change of profession. In the present case, His Majesty's Printer was in reality an Army Surgeon, once attached to the Glengary Light Infantry. And again, afterwards, the same gentleman was for many years the Chief Teller in the Bank of Upper Canada. An incident in the troubles of 1837 was "the burning of Dr. Horne's house," by a party of the malcontents who were making a show of assault upon the town. The site of this building, a conspicuous square two-storey frame family residence, was close to the toll-bar on Yonge Street, in what is now Yorkville. On that occasion, we are informed, Dr. Horne "berated the Lieutenant-Governor for treating with avowed rebels, and insisted that they were not in sufficient force to give any ground of alarm."

The Upper Canada Gazette was the first newspaper published in Upper Canada. Its first number appeared at Newark or Niagara, on Thursday, the 18th of April, 1793. As it was apparently expected to combine with a record of the acts of the new government some account of events happening on the continent at large, it was made to bear the double title of Upper Canada Gazette, or American Oracle. Louis Roy was its first printer, a skilled artizan engaged probably from Lower Canada, where printing had been introduced about thirty years previously, soon after the English occupation of the country.

Louis Roy's name appears on the face of No. 1, Vol. I. The type is of the shape used in contemporaneous printing, and the execution is very good. The size of the sheet, which retained the folio form, was 15 by 9½ inches. The quality of the paper was rather coarse, but stout and durable.

The address to the public in the first number is as follows:—"The Editor of this paper respectfully informs the public that the flattering prospect which he has of an extensive sale for his new undertaking has enabled him to augment the size originally proposed from a Demy Quarto to a Folio.

"The encouragement he has met will call forth every exertion he is master of, so as to render the paper useful, entertaining and instructive. He will be very happy in being favoured with such communications as may contribute to the information of the public, from those who shall be disposed to assist him, and in particular shall be highly flattered in becoming the vehicle of intelligence in this growing Province of whatever may tend to its internal benefit and common advantage. In order to preserve the veracity of his paper, which will be the first object of his attention, it will be requisite that all transactions of a domestic nature, such as deaths, marriages, &c., be communicated under real signatures.

"The price of this Gazette will be three dollars per annum. All advertisements inserted in it, and not exceeding twelve lines, will pay 4s. Quebec currency; and for every additional line a proportionable price. Orders for letter-press printing will be executed with neatness, despatch and attention, and on the most reasonable terms."

An advertisement in the first number informs the public that a Brewery is about to be established under the sanction of the Lieutenant-Governor. "Notice is hereby given, that there will be a Brewery erected here this summer under the sanction of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, and encouraged by some of the principal gentlemen of this place; and whosoever will sow barley and cultivate their land so that it will produce grain of a good quality, they may be certain of a market in the fall at one dollar a bushel on delivery. W. Huet, Niagara, 18th April, 1793."

The number dated Niagara, May 2, 1793, "hath" the following advertisement:—"Sampson Jutes begs leave to inform all persons who propose to build houses, &c., in the course of this summer, that he hath laths, planks and scantlings of all kinds to sell on reasonable terms. Any person may be supplied with any of the above articles on the shortest notice. Applications to be made to him at his mill near Mr. Peter Secord's."

In the Number for May 30, 1793, we have ten guineas reward offered for the recovery of a Government grindstone:—"Ten Guineas Reward is offered to any person that will make discovery and prosecute to conviction, the Thief or Thieves that have stolen a Grindstone from the King's Wharf at Navy Hall, between the 30th of April and the 6th instant. John McGill, Com. of Stores, &c., &c., for the Province of Upper Canada. Queenstown, 16th May, 1793."

The Anniversary of the King's Birth-day was celebrated at Niagara in 1793, in the following manner:—"Niagara, June 6. On Tuesday last, being the Anniversary of His Majesty's birthday, His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor had a Levee at Navy Hall. At one o'clock the troops in garrison and at Queenston fired three volleys; the field-pieces above Navy Hall, under the direction of the Royal Artillery, and the guns of the Garrison, fired a Royal Salute. His Majesty's schooner, the Onondago, at anchor in the river, likewise fired a Royal Salute. In the evening His Excellency gave a Ball and elegant Supper at the Council Chamber, which was most numerously attended."

In the second volume (1794) of the Gazette and Oracle, Louis Roy's name disappears. G. Tiffany becomes the printer. In 1798 it has assumed the Quarto form, and is dated "West Niagara," a name Newark was beginning to acquire.

No Gazette is issued April 29th, 1798. An apology for the omission constitutes the whole of the editorial of the Number for May 5. It says: "The Printer having been called to York last week upon business, is humbly tendered to his readers as an apology for the Gazette's not appearing."

In 1799, the Gazette being about to be removed across permanently to York, the new capital, whither also all the government offices were departing, Messrs. S. and G. Tiffany decide on starting a newspaper on their own account for Niagara. It is called the "Canada Constellation," and its terms are four dollars per annum. It is announced to appear weekly "opposite the Lion tavern." The date of the first number is July 20. In the introductory address to the public, the Messrs. Tiffany make use of the following rather involved language:—"It is a truth long acknowledged that no men hold situations more influential of the minds and conduct of men than do printers: political printers are sucked from, nursed and directed by the press: and when they are just, the community is in unity and prosperity; but when vicious, every evil ensues; and it is lamentable that many printers, either vile remiss in, or ignorant of, their duty, produce the latter or no effect; and to which of these classes we belong, time will unfold."

The public means of maintaining a regular correspondence with the outer world being insufficient, the enterprising spirit of the Messrs. Tiffany led them to think of establishing a postal system of their own. In the Constellation for August 23, we have the announcement: "The printers of the Constellation are desirous of establishing a post on the road from their office to Ancaster and the Grand River, as well as another to Fort Erie; and for this purpose they propose to hire men to perform the routes as soon as the subscriptions will allow of the expense. In order to establish the business, the printers on their part will subscribe generously, and to put the design into execution, but little remains for the people to do."

We can detect in the Constellation a natural local feeling against the upstart town of York, which had now drawn away almost every thing from the old Newark. Thus in the number for November the 14th, 1799, a communication from York, signed Amicus, is admitted, written plainly by one who was no great lover of the place. It affords a glimpse of the state of its thoroughfares, and of the habits of some of its inhabitants. Amicus proposes a "Stump Act" for York; i. e., a compulsory eradication of the stumps in the streets: so that "the people of York in the space of a few months may" as he speaks. "relapse into intoxication with impunity; and stagger home at any hour of the night without encountering the dreadful apprehension of broken necks."

The same animus gives colour to remarks on some legal verbiage recently employed at York. Under the heading "Interesting Discovery" we read: "It has been lately found at York that in England laws are made; and that a law made in England is the law of England, and is enforced by another law; that many laws are made in Lower Canada and follow up, that is, follow after, or in other words are made since, other laws; and that these laws may be repealed. It is seldom," continues the writer in the Constellation, "that so few as one discovery slips into existence at one birth. Genius is sterile, and justly said to be like a breeding cat, as is verified in York, where by some unaccountable fortuity of events all genius centres; at the same time with the above, its twin kitten came forth, that an atheist does not believe as a Christian."

In another number we have some chaffing about the use of the word capital. In an address on the arrival of Governor Hunter, the expression, "We, the inhabitants of the Capital," had occurred. "This fretted my pate," the critic pretends to complain. "What can this be? Surely it is some great place in a great country was my conclusion; but where the capital is, was a little beyond my geographical acquaintance. I had recourse to the books" he continues: "all the gazettes and magazines from the year One I carefully turned over, and not one case among all the addresses they contained afforded me any instruction: 'We, the inhabitants of the cities of London and Westminster, of Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, &c.,' only proved to me that neither of these is the Capital. But as these are only little towns in young countries, and cannot be so forward as to take upon themselves the pompous title of capital, it must be in America." He then professes to have consulted the Encyclopædia Eboretica, or, "A Vindication in support of the great Utility of New Words," lately printed in Upper Canada, and to have discovered therein that the Capital in question "was, in plain English, York." He concludes, therefore, that whenever in future the expression "We, the inhabitants of the Capital" is met with, it is to be translated into the vernacular tongue, "We, the inhabitants of York, assembled at McDougall's, &c."

There is mention made above of a Stump Act. We have been assured that such a regulation was, at an early day, in force at York, as a deterrent from drunkenness. Capt. Peeke, who burnt lime at Duffin's Creek, and shipped it to York in his own vessel, before the close of the last century, was occasionally inconvenienced by the working of the Stump Act. His men whom he had brought up with him to assist in navigating his boat would be found, just when especially wanted by himself, laboriously engaged in the extraction of a great pine-root in one or other of the public thoroughfares of the town, under sentence of the magistrate, for having been found, on the preceding day, intoxicated in the streets.

The Constellation newspaper does not appear to have succeeded. Early in 1801 a new paper comes out, entitled the Herald. In it, it is announced that the Constellation, "after existing one year, expired some months since of starvation, its publishers departing too much from its constitution (advance pay)." The printer is now Silvester Tiffany, the senior proprietor of the Constellation. It is very well printed with good type; but on blue wrapping paper. In little more than two years, viz., on the 4th June, 1802, it announced that the publication of the Herald is suspended; that it will appear only "on particular occasions;" but Mr. Tiffany hopes it "will by and by receive a revival." Other early papers published at the town of Niagara were the Gleaner, by Mr. Heron; the Reporter; the Spectator. The Mail was established so late as 1845. Its publication ceased in 1870, when its editor, Mr. Kirby, was appointed to the collectorship of the Port of Niagara. Down to 1870 Mr. Tiffany's "imposing stone," used in the printing of the Constellation, did duty in the office of the Mail.

In 1800, the Upper Canada Gazette or American Oracle is issued at York, weekly, from the office of William Waters and T. G. Simons. In the number for Saturday, May the 17th, in that year, we read that on the Thursday evening previous, "His Excellency Peter Hunter, Esq., Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Province, arrived in our harbour on board the Toronto; and on Friday morning, about nine o'clock, landed at the Garrison, where he is at present to reside."

We are thus enabled to add two items to the table of dates usually given, shewing the introduction of Printing at different points on this Continent: viz., the dates 1793 and 1800 for Niagara and York respectively. The table will now stand as follows:—

1639, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Stephen Day and Samuel Green; 1674, Boston, John Foster; 1684, Philadelphia, Wm. Bradford; 1693, New York, Wm. Bradford (removed from Philadelphia); 1730, Charleston, Eleazer Phillips; 1730, Bridgetown, Barbadoes, David Harry and Samuel Keimer; 1751, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bartholomew Green, jun., and John Bushell; 1764, Quebec, Wm. Brown and Thos. H. Gilmore; 1771, Albany, Alex. and Jas. Robertson; 1775, Montreal, Chas. Berger and Fleury Mesplet; 1784, St. George's, Bermuda, J. Stockdale; 1793, Newark (Niagara), Louis Roy; 1795, Cincinnati, S. Freeman; 1800, York (Toronto), Wm. Waters and T. G. Simons.

As at York and Niagara, the first printers in most of the places named were publishers of newspapers.

It may be added that a press was in operation in the City of Mexico in 1569; and in the City of Lima in 1621. The original of all the many Colonial Government Gazettes was the famous royal or exclusively court news sheet, published first at Oxford, in November, 1665, entitled the Oxford Gazette, and in the following year, at London, and entitled then and ever afterwards to this day, the London Gazette.

In 1801, J. Bennett succeeds Messrs. Waters and Simons, and becomes the printer and publisher of the Gazette or Oracle. In that year the printing-office is removed to "the house of Mr. A. Cameron, King Street," and it is added, "subscriptions will be received there and at the Toronto Coffee House, York." From March 21st in this year, and onward for six weeks, the paper appears printed on blue sheets of the kind of material that used formerly to be seen on the outsides of pamphlets and magazines and Government "Blue-books." The stock of white paper has plainly run out, and no fresh supply can be had before the opening of the navigation. The Herald, at Niagara, of the same period, appeared, as we have already noticed, in the like guise.

On Saturday, December 20th, 1801, is this statement, the whole of the editorial matter: "It is much to be lamented that communication between Niagara and this town is so irregular and unfrequent: opportunities now do not often occur of receiving the American papers from our correspondents; and thereby prevents us for the present from laying before our readers the state of politics in Europe." In the number for June 13th, the editorial "leader" reads as follows:—"The Oracle, York, Saturday, June 13th. Last Monday was a day of universal rejoicing in this town, occasioned by the arrival of the news of the splendid victory gained by Lord Nelson over the Danes in Copenhagen Roads on the 2nd of April last: in the morning the great guns at the Garrison were fired: at night there was a general illumination, and bonfires blazed in almost every direction." The writer indulges in no further comments.

It would have been gratifying to posterity had the printers of the Gazette and Oracle endeavoured to furnish a connected record of "the short and simple annals" of their own immediate neighbourhood. But these unfortunately were deemed undeserving of much notice. We have announcements of meetings, and projects, and subscriptions for particular purposes, unfollowed by any account of what was subsequently said, done and effected; and when a local incident is mentioned, the detail is generally very meagre.

An advertisement in the number for the 27th August, 1801, reminds us that in the early history of Canada it was imagined that a great source of wealth to the inhabitants of the country in all future time would be the ginseng that was found growing naturally in the swamps. The market for ginseng was principally China, where it was worth its weight in silver. The word is said to be Chinese for "all-heal." In 1801 we find that Mr. Jacob Herchmer, of York, was speculating in ginseng. In his advertisement in the Gazette and Oracle he "begs leave to inform the inhabitants of York and its vicinity that he will purchase any quantity of ginseng between this and the first of November next, and that he will give two shillings, New York currency, per pound well dried, and one shilling for green."

At one period, it will be remembered, the cultivation of hemp was expected to be the mainstay of the country's prosperity. In the Upper Canada Almanac for 1804, among the public officers we have set down as "Commissioners appointed for the distribution of Hemp Seed (gratis) to the Farmers of the Provinces, the Hon. John McGill, the Hon. David W. Smith, and Thomas Scott, Esquires."

The whole of the editorial matter of the Gazette and Oracle on the 2nd of January, 1802, is the following: "The Oracle, York, Saturday, January 2, 1802. The Printer presents his congratulary compliments to his customers on the New Year." Note that the dignified title of Editor was yet but sparingly assumed. That term is used once by Tiffany at Newark, in the second volume. After the death of Governor Hunter, in September, 1805, J. Bennett writes himself down "Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty." Previously the colophon of the publication had been: "York, printed by John Bennett, by the authority of His Excellency Peter Hunter, Esq., Lieut.-Governor."

Happening to have at hand a bill of Bennett's against the Government we give it here. The modern reader will be able to form from this specimen an idea of the extent of the Government requirements in 1805 in regard to printing and the cost thereof. We give also the various attestations appended to the account:—

York, Upper Canada, 24th June, 1805.

The Government of Upper Canada,

To John Bennett, Government Printer.

Jan. 11. 300 copies Still Licenses, ½ sheet foolscap, pica type 0 16 6

March 30. Printing 20 copies of an Act for altering the time of issuing Licenses for keeping of a House of Public Entertainment, ¼ sheet demy, pica type 0 3 4

April 5. Inserting a Notice to persons taking out Shop, Still or Tavern Licenses, 6 weeks in the Gazette, equal to 4½ advertisements 1 16 0

April 16. 1,000 copies of Proclamation, warning persons that possess and occupy Lands in this Province, without due titles having been obtained for such Lands, forthwith to quit and remove from the same, ½ sheet demy, double pica type 4 18 4

April 22. 100 copies of an Act to afford relief to persons entitled to claim Land in this Province as heirs or devisees of the nominees of the Crown, one sheet demy, pica type 3 6 3

Printing Marginal notes to do 0 5 0

May 14. Printing 1,500 copies of the Acts of the First Session of the Fourth Parliament, three sheets demy, pica type 45 0 0

Printing Marginal notes to do., at 5s. per sheet 0 15 0

Folding, Stitching and Covering in Blue Paper, at 1d. 6 5 0

Halifax currency £63 5 9

Amounting to sixty-three pounds five shillings and nine-pence Halifax currency. Errors excepted.

(Signed) John Bennett.

John Bennett, of the Town of York, in the Home District, maketh oath and saith, that the foregoing account amounting to sixty-three pounds five shillings and ninepence Halifax currency, is just and true in all its particulars to the best of his knowledge and belief.

(Signed) John Bennett.

Sworn before me at York, this 20th day of July, 1805.

(Signed) Wm. Dummer Powell, J.

Audited and approved in Council 6th August 1805.

(Signed) Peter Russell,

Presiding Councillor.

(Examined)

(Signed) John McGill,

Inspector Genl. P. P. Accts.

[A true copy.]

John McGill,

Inspector Gen. P. P. Accts.

Bennett published "The Upper Canada Almanac," containing with the matter usually found in such productions the Civil and Military Lists and the Duties, Imperial and Provincial. This work was admirably printed in fine Elzevir type, and in aspect, as well as arrangement, was an exact copy of the almanacs of the day published in London.

A rival Calendar continued to be issued at Niagara entitled "Tiffany's Upper Canada Almanac." This was a roughly-printed little tract, and contained popular matter in addition to the official lists. It gave in a separate and very conspicuous column in each month "the moon's place" on each day in respect to a distinct portion of the human body with prognostications accordingly. And in the "Advertisement to the reader" it was set forth, that "in the calculation of the weather the most unwearied pains have been taken; and the calculator prays, for his honour's sake, that he may have not failed in the least point; but as all calculation may sometimes fail in small matters," the writer continues, "no wonder is it that in this, the most important, should be at times erroneous. And when this shall unfortunately have been the case with the Upper Canada Almanac, let careful observers throw over the error the excess of that charity of which their generous souls are composed, and the all-importance of the subject requires; let them remember that the task, in all the variety and changes of climates and seasons, is arduous beyond that of reforming a vicious world, and not less than that of making a middle-sized new one."

In the number of the Oracle for September 28th, 1805, which is in mourning, we have the following notice of the character of Governor Hunter, who had deceased on the 23rd of the preceding August at Quebec:—"As an officer his character was high and unsullied; and at this present moment his death may be considered a great public loss. As Lieut.-Governor of Upper Canada, his loss will be severely felt; for by his unremitting attention and exertions he has, in the course of a very few years, brought that infant colony to an unparalleled state of prosperity." An account is then given of the procession at the funeral. The 49th and 6th Regiments were present; also Lieut.-Col. Brock, Commanding. At the grave one round was fired slowly and distinctly by eleven field pieces, followed by one round of small arms, by regiments; then a second round of artillery, followed in like manner by the small arms; and, lastly, a third round of artillery, and a third round of small arms. The mourners were, the Hon. Thomas Dunn, President of the Province (Lower Canada). Col. Bowes, Major Curry, Hon. Mr. Craigie, Col. Green, Major Robe, Capt. Gomm and Mr. William Green.

In 1813, during the war with the United States, Cameron is the printer of the official paper, which now for a time assumed the title of The York Gazette. Mr. John Cameron also published "The Upper Canada Almanac," from which we have already had occasion to quote, but it put in no claim to an official character. It did not contain the Civil Lists, but, as stated in the title page, "some Chinese sayings and Elegant Aphorisms." It bore as a motto the following lines:—

"Ye who would mend these wicked times And morals of the age, Come buy a book half full of rhymes, At three-pence York per page. It would be money well outlaid, So plenty money is; Paper for paper is fair trade: So said "Poor Richard Quiz."

Among the aphorisms given is this one: "Issuers of paper-change, are entitled to thanks from the public for the great accommodation such change affords. They might render the accommodation more extensive were they to emit a proportionate number of half-penny bills." At one place the query is put, "When will the beard be worn, and man allowed to appear with it in native dignity? And if so, how long before it will become fashionable to have it greased and powdered?" In the almanac for 1815, towards the end, the following paragraph appears:—"York supernatural prices current: Turnips 1 dollar per bushel; Potatoes, long, at 2 ditto; Salt 20 ditto; Butter per lb. 1 ditto; Indifferent bread 1 shilling N. Y. cy. per lb.; Conscience, a contraband article."

In Bennett's time the Government press was, as we have seen, set up in Mr. Cameron's house on King Street. But at the period of the war in 1812 Mr. Cameron's printing office was in a building which still exists, viz., the house on Bay Street associated with the name of Mr. Andrew Mercer. During the occupation of York by the United States force, the press was broken up and the type dispersed. Mr. Mercer once exhibited to ourselves a portion of the press which on that occasion was made useless. For a short period Mr. Mercer himself had charge of the publication of the York Gazette.

In 1817 Dr. Horne became the editor and publisher. On coming into his hands the paper resumed the name of Upper Canada Gazette, but the old secondary title of American Oracle was dropped. To the official portion of the paper there was, nevertheless, still appended abstracts of news from the United States and Europe, summaries of the proceedings in the Parliaments of Upper and Lower Canada, and much well-selected miscellaneous matter. The shape continued to be that of a small folio, and the terms were four dollars per annum in advance; and if sent by mail, four dollars and a half.

In 1821 Mr. Charles Fothergill (of whom we have already spoken) became the Editor and Publisher of the Gazette. Mr. Fothergill revived the practice of having a secondary title, which was now The Weekly Register; a singular choice, by the way, that being very nearly the name of Cobbett's celebrated democratic publication in London. After Mr. Fothergill came Mr. Robert Stanton, who changed the name of the private portion of the Gazette sheet, styling it "The U. E. Loyalist."

In 1820 Mr. John Carey had established the Observer at York. The Gazette of May 11, 1820, contains the announcement of his design; and he therein speaks of himself as "the person who gave the Debates" recently in another paper. To have the debates in Parliament reported with any fulness was then a novelty. The Observer was a folio of rustic, unkempt aspect, the paper and typography and matter being all somewhat inferior. It gave in its adherence to the government of the day, generally: at a later period it wavered. Mr. Carey was a tall, portly personage who, from his bearing and costume might readily have been mistaken for a non-conformist minister of local importance. The Observer existed down to about the year 1830. Between the Weekly Register and the Observer the usual journalistic feud sprung up, which so often renders rival village newspapers ridiculous. With the Register a favourite sobriquet for the Observer is "Mother C——y." Once a correspondent is permitted to style it "The Political Weathercock and Slang Gazetteer." Mr. Carey ended his days in Springfield on the River Credit, where he possessed property.

The Canadian Freeman, established in 1825 by Mr. Francis Collins was a sheet remarkable for the neatness of its arrangement and execution, and also for the talent exhibited in its editorials. The type was evidently new and carefully handled. Mr. Collins was his own principal compositor. He is said to have transferred to type many of his editorials without the intervention of pen and paper, composing directly from copy mentally furnished. Mr. Collins was a man of pronounced Celtic features, roughish in outline, and plentifully garnished with hair of a sandy or reddish hue.

Notwithstanding the colourless character of the motto at the head of its columns "Est natura hominum novitatis avida"—"Human nature is fond of news," the Freeman was a strong party paper. The hard measure dealt out to him in 1828 at the hands of the legal authorities, according to the prevailing spirit of the day, with the revenge that he was moved to take—and to take successfully—we shall not here detail. Mr. Collins died of cholera in the year 1834. We have understood that he was once employed in the office of the Gazette; and that when Dr. Horne resigned, he was an applicant for the position of Government Printer.

The Canadian Freeman joined for a time in the general opposition clamour against Dr. Strachan,—against the influence, real or supposed, exercised by him over successive lieutenant-governors. But on discovering the good-humoured way in which its fulminations were received by their object, the Freeman dropped its strictures. It happened that Mr. Collins had a brother in business in the town with whom Dr. Strachan had dealings. This brother on some occasion thought it becoming to make some faint apology for the Freeman's diatribes. "O don't let them trouble you," the Doctor replied, "they do not trouble me; but by the way, tell your brother," he laughingly continued, "I shall claim a share in the proceeds." This, when reported to the Editor, was considered a good joke, and the diatribes ceased; a proceeding that was tantamount to Peter Pindar's confession, when some one charged him with being too hard on the King: "I confess there exists a difference between the King and me," said Peter; "the King has been a good subject to me; and I have been a bad subject to his Majesty."—During Mr. Collins' imprisonment in 1828 for the application of the afterwards famous expression "native malignity" to the Attorney-General of the day, the Freeman still continued to appear weekly, the editorials, set up in type in the manner spoken of above, being supplied to the office from his room in the jail.

In the early stages of society in Upper Canada the Government authorities appear not only to have possessed but to have exercised the power of handling political writers pretty sharply. In the Kingston Chronicle of December 10th, 1820, we have recorded the sentence pronounced on Barnabas Ferguson, Editor of the Niagara Spectator, for "a libel on the Government." Mr. Ferguson was condemned to be imprisoned eighteen months; to stand in the pillory once during his confinement; to pay a fine of £50, and remain in prison till paid; and on his liberation to find security for seven years, himself in £500, and two sureties in £250 each. No comment is made by the Chronicle on the sentence, and the libel is not described.

The local government took its cue in this matter from its superiors of the day in the old country. What Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer says in his sketch of the life of Cobbett helps to explain the action of the early Upper Canada authorities in respect to the press. "Let us not forget," says the writer just named, "the blind and uncalculating intolerance with which the law struggled against opinion from 1809 to 1822. Writers during this period were transported, imprisoned, and fined, without limit or conscience; and just when government became more gentle to legitimate newspapers, it engaged in a new conflict with unstamped ones. No less than 500 venders of these were imprisoned within six years. The contest was one of life and death."

So early as 1807 there was an "opposition" paper—the Upper Canada Guardian. Willcocks, the editor, had been Sheriff of the Home District, and had lost his office for giving a vote contrary to the policy of the lieutenant-governor for the time being. He was returned as a member of parliament; and after having been imprisoned for breach of privilege, he was returned again, and continued to lead the reforming party. The name of Mr. Cameron, the publisher of the Gazette at York was, by some means, mixed up with that of Mr. Willcocks, in connection with the Upper Canada Guardian in 1807, and he found it expedient to publish in the Gazette of June 20, the following notice: "To the Public—Having seen the Prospectus of a paper generally circulated at Niagara, intended to be printed in Upper Canada, entitled the Upper Canada Guardian or Freeman's Journal, executed in the United States of America, without my knowledge or consent, wherein my name appears as being a party concerned; I therefore think it necessary to undeceive my friends and the inhabitants of Upper Canada, and to assure them that I have no connection with, nor is it my most distant wish or intention in any wise to be connected with the printing or publication of said paper. John Bennett."—When the war of 1812 broke out the Guardian came to an end; its editor at first loyally bore arms on the Canadian side, but at length deserted to the enemy, taking with him some of the Canadian Militia. He was afterwards killed at the siege of Fort Erie.

The newspaper which occupies the largest space in the early annals of the press at York is the Colonial Advocate. Issuing first at Queenston in May, 1824, it was removed in the following November to York. Its shape varied from time to time: now it was a folio: now a quarto. On all its pages the matter was densely packed; but printed in a very mixed manner: it abounded with sentences in italics, in small capitals, in large capitals; with names distinguished in like decided manner: with paragraphs made conspicuous by rows of index hands, and other typographical symbols at top, bottom and sides. It was editorial, not in any one particular column, but throughout; and the opinions delivered were expressed for the most part in the first person.

The Weekly Register fell foul of the Advocate at once. It appears that the new audacious nondescript periodical, though at the time it bore on its face the name of Queenston, was nevertheless for convenience sake printed at Lewiston on the New York side of the river. Hence it was denounced by the Weekly Register in language that now astonishes us, as a United States production; and as in the United States interest. "This paper of motley, unconnected, shake-bag periods" cried the Editor of the Weekly Register, "this unblushing, brazen-faced Advocate, affects to be a Queenston and Upper Canadian paper; whereas it is to all intents and purposes, and radically, a Lewiston and genu-wine Yankee paper. How can this man of truth, this pure and holy reformer and regenerator of the unhappy and prostrate Canada reconcile such barefaced and impudent deception?"

Nothing could more promote the success of the Colonial Advocate than a welcome like this. To account for the Register's extraordinary warmth, it is to be said that the Advocate in its first number had happened to quote a passage from an address of its Editor to the electors of the County of Durham, which seemed in some degree to compromise him as a servant of the Government. Mr. Fothergill had ventured to say "I know some of the deep and latent causes why this fine country has so long languished in a state of comparative stupor and inactivity, while our more enterprising neighbours are laughing us to scorn. All I desire is an opportunity of attempting the cure of some of the evils we labour under." This was interpreted in the Advocate to mean a censure upon the Executive. But the Register replied that these words simply expressed the belief that the evils complained of were remediable only by the action of the House of Assembly, on the well-known axiom "that all law is for the people, and from the people; and when efficient, must be remedied or rectified by the people; and that therefore Mr. Fothergill was desirous of assisting in the great work."

The end in fact was that the Editor of the Register, after his return to parliament for the County of Durham, did not long retain the post of King's Printer. After several independent votes in the House he was dismissed by Sir Peregrine Maitland in 1826, after which date the awkwardness of uniting with a Government Gazette a general newspaper whose editor, as a member of the House of Assembly, might claim the privilege of acting with His Majesty's opposition, came to an end. In 1826 we have Mr. Fothergill in his place in the House supporting a motion for remuneration to the publisher of the Advocate, on the ground that the wide and even gratuitous circulation of that paper throughout Canada and among members of the British House of Commons, "would help to draw attention in the proper quarter to the country."

Here is an account of McKenzie's method in the collection of matter for his various publications, the curious multifariousness of which matter used to astonish while it amused. The description is by Mr. Kent, editor of a religious journal, entitled The Church, published at Cobourg in 1838. Lord Clarendon's style has been exactly caught, it will be observed: "Possessed of a taste for general and discursive reading," says Mr. Kent, "he (McK.) made even his very pleasures contribute to the serious business of his life, and, year after year, accumulated a mass of materials, which he pressed into his service at some fitting opportunity. Whenever anything transpired that at all reflected on a political opponent, or whenever, in his reading, he met with a passage that favoured his views, he not only turned it to a present purpose, but laid it by, to bring it forward at some future period, long after it might have been supposed to be buried in oblivion."

The Editor of the Advocate, after his flight from Canada in 1837, published for a short time at New York a paper named McKenzie's Gazette, which afterwards was removed to Rochester: its term of existence there was also brief. In the number for June, 1839, we have the following intelligence contributed by a correspondent at Toronto: a certain animus in relation to the military in Canada, and in relation to the existing Banks of the country, is apparent. "Toronto, May 24th: The 93rd Regiment is still in quarters here. The men 660 strong, all Scotchmen, enlisted in the range of country from Aberdeen to Ayrshire: a highland regiment without highlanders: few or none of Englishmen or Irishmen among them. They are a fine-looking body of men: I never saw a finer. I wished to go into the garrison, but was not permitted to do so. Few of the townspeople have that privilege. —— has made the fullest enquiries, and tells me that a majority of the men would be glad to get away if they could: they would willingly leave the service and the country. He says they are well-informed, civil and well-behaved, and that for such time as England may be compelled to retain possession of the Canadas by military force, against the wishes of the settled population he would like to have this regiment remain in Toronto. —— tells me that a few soups have been kept at Queenston during the winter, because if they desert it is no matter: the regulars are all at Drummondville, near the Falls, and a couple of hundred blacks at Chippewa watching them. The Ferry below the Falls is guarded by old men whose term of service is nearly out, and who look for a pension. It is the same at Malden, and in Lower Canada. The regiments Lord Durham brought were fine fellows, the flower of the English army.

"The Banks here tax the people heavily, but they are so stupid they don't see it. All the specie goes into the Banks. I am told that the Upper Canada Bank had at one time £300,000 in England in Commissariat bills of Exchange: their notes in circulation are a million and a quarter of paper dollars, for all of which they draw interest from the people, although not obliged to keep six cents in their money-till to redeem them. All the troops were paid in the depreciated paper of these fraudulent bankrupt concerns, the directors of which deserve the Penitentiary: the contracts of the Commissariat are paid in the same paper as a 10 per cent. shave: and the troops up at Brantford were also paid in Bank notes which the Bank did not pretend to redeem; and it would have offended Sir George [Arthur], who has a share in such speculations (as he had when in VanDieman's Land), had any one asked the dollars. Sir Allan McNab, who has risen from poverty to be president de facto, solicitor, directors and company of the Gore Bank, ever since its creation, is said to be terribly embarrassed for want of money. He is not the alpha and omega of the Bank now. He has quarrelled with his brother villains. The money paid to Canada from England to uphold troops to coerce the people helps the Banks."

In the same number of the Gazette published at Rochester we have an extract from a production by Robert Gourlay himself, who in his old age paid a final visit of inspection to Canada. In allusion to a portion of Gourlay's famous work published in 1822, the extract is headed in McKenzie's Gazette "Robert Gourlay's 'Last Sketch' of Upper Canada." It is dated at Toronto, May 25th. Having just presented one gloomy view, we will venture to lower the reader's spirits a particle more, by giving another. Let allowance be made for the morbid mental condition of the writer: the contrast offered by the Canada of to-day will afterwards proportionably exhilarate.

"What did Upper Canada gain," Gourlay asks, "by my banishment; and what good is now to be seen in it? Cast an eye over the length and breadth of the land" he cries, "from Malden to Point Fortune, and from the Falls to Lake Simcoe: then say if a single public work is creditable, or a single institution as it should be. The Rideau Canal!—what is it but a monument of England's folly and waste; which can never return a farthing of interest; or for a single day stay the conquest of the province. The Welland Canal!—Has it not been from beginning till now a mere struggle of misery and mismanagement; and from now onward, promising to become a putrid ditch. The only railway, of ten miles; with half completed; and half which cannot be completed for want of funds! The macadamised roads, all in mud; only causing an increase of wear and tear. The province deeply in debt; confidence uprooted; and banks beleaguered!

"Schools and Colleges, what are they?—Few yet painted, though lectures on natural philosophy are now abundant. The Cobourg seminary outstaring all that is sanctimonious: so airy and lank that learning cannot take root in it. A college at Sandwich built before the war, but now a pig stye; and one at Toronto indicated only by an approach. The edifices of the Church!—how few worthy of the Divine presence—how many unfinished—how many fallen to decay. The Church itself, wholly militant: Episcopalians maintaining what can never be established; Presbyterians more sour than ever, contending for rights where they have none whatever: Methodists so disunited that they cannot even join in a respectable groan; and Catholic priests wandering about in poverty because their scattered and starving flocks yield not sufficient wool for the shears. One institution only have I seen praiseworthy and progressing—The Penitentiary; but that is a concentrated essence, seeing the whole province is one: and which of you, resident land-holders, having sense or regard for your family would remain in it a day, could you sell your property and be off?"

Some popular Almanacs of a remarkable character also emanated from McKenzie's press. Whilst in the United States he put forth the Caroline Almanac, a designation intended to keep alive the memory of the cutting out of the Caroline steamer from Fort Schlosser in 1837, and her precipitation over the Falls of Niagara, an act sought to be held up as a great outrage on the part of the Canadian authorities. In the Canadian Almanacs, published by him, intended for circulation especially among the country population, the object kept in view was the same as that so industriously aimed at by the Advocate itself, viz., the exposure of the shortcomings and vices of the government of the day. At the same time a large amount of practically useful matter and information was supplied.

The earlier almanac was entitled "Poor Richard, or the Yorkshire Almanac," and the compiler professed to be one "Patrick Swift, late of Belfast, in the Kingdom of Ireland, Esq., F.R.I., Grand-nephew of the celebrated Doctor Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, etc., etc., etc." This same personage was a contributor also of many pungent and humorous things in prose and verse in the columns of the Advocate itself. In 1834 the Almanac assumed the following title: "A new Almanac for the Canadian True Blues; with which is incorporated The Constitutional Reformer's Text Book, for the Millenial and Prophetic Year of the Grand General Election for Upper Canada, and total and everlasting Downfall of Toryism in the British Empire, 1834." It was still supposed to be edited by Patrick Swift, Esq., who is now dubbed M.P.P., and Professor of Astrology, York.

In the extract given above from what was styled Gourlay's "Last Sketch" of Upper Canada, the query and rejoinder, "Schools and Colleges, where are they? Few yet painted, though lectures on Natural Philosophy are now abundant"—will not be understood, without remark. The allusion is to an advertisement in the Upper Canada Gazette of Feb. 5, 1818, which Gourlay at the time of its appearance thought proper to animadvert upon and satirize in the Niagara Spectator. It ran as follows: "Natural Philosophy.—The subscriber intends to deliver a course of Popular Lectures on Natural Philosophy, to commence on Tuesday, the 17th inst., at 7 o'clock p.m., should a number of auditors come forward to form a class. Tickets of admission for the Course (price Two Guineas) may be had of William Allan, Esq., Dr. Horne, or at the School House. The surplus, if any, after defraying the current expenses, to be laid out in painting the District School. John Strachan, York, 3rd Feb., 1818."

As was to be expected, Dr. Strachan was a standing subject of invective in all the publications of Gourlay, as well as subsequently in all those of McKenzie. Collins, Editor of the Freeman, became, as we have seen, reticent in relation to him; but, more or less, a fusilade was maintained upon him in McKenzie's periodicals, as long as they issued.

In McKenzie's opposition to Dr. Strachan there was possibly a certain degree of national animus springing from the contemplation of a Scottish compatriot who, after rising to position in the young colony, was disposed, from temperament, to bear himself cavalierly towards all who did not agree with him in opinion. In addition, we have been told that at an early period in an interview between the two parties, Dr. Strachan once chanced to express himself with considerable heat to McKenzie, and proceeded to the length of showing him the door. The latter had called, as our information runs, to deprecate prejudice in regard to a brother-in-law of his, Mr. Baxter, who was a candidate for some post under the Educational Board, of which Dr. S. was chairman; when great offence was taken at the idea being for a moment entertained that a personal motive would in the slightest degree bias him when in the execution of public duty.

At a late period in the history of both the now memorable Scoto-Canadians, we happened ourselves to be present at a scene in the course of which the two were brought curiously face to face with each other, once more, for a few moments. It will be remembered that after the subsidence of the political troubles and the union of Upper and Lower Canada, McKenzie came back and was returned member of Parliament for Haldimand. While he was in the occupancy of this post, it came to pass that Dr. Strachan, now Bishop of Toronto, had occasion to present a petition to the united House on the subject of the Clergy Reserves. To give greater weight and solemnity to the act he decided to attend in person at the bar of the House, at the head of his clergy, all in canonicals. McKenzie seeing the procession approaching, hurried into the House and took his seat; and contrived at the moment the Bishop and his retinue reached the bar to have possession of the floor. Affecting to put a question to the Speaker, before the Order of the Day was proceeded with, he launched out with great volubility and in excited strain on the interruptions to which the House was exposed in its deliberations; he then quickly came round to an attack in particular on prelates and clergy for their meddling and turbulence, infesting, as he averred, the lobbies of the Legislature when they should be employed on higher matters, filling with tumultuous mobs the halls and passages of the House, thronging (with an indignant glance in that direction) the very space below the bar set apart for the accommodation of peaceably disposed spectators.

The House had only just assembled, and had not had time to settle down into perfect quiet: members were still dropping in, and it was a mystery to many, for a time, what could, at such an early stage of the day's proceedings, have excited the ire of the member for Haldimand. The courteous speaker, Mr. Sicotte, was plainly taken aback at the sudden outburst of patriotic fervour; and, not being as familiar with the Upper Canadian past as many old Upper Canadians present were, he could not enter into the pleasantry of the thing; for, after all, it was humourously and not maliciously intended; the orator in possession of the floor had his old antagonist at a momentary disadvantage, and he chose to compel him while standing there conspicuously at the bar to listen for a while to a stream of Colonial Advocate in the purest vein.

After speaking against time, with an immense show of heat for a considerable while—a thing at which he was an adept—the scene was brought to a close by a general hubbub of impatience at the outrageous irrelevancy of the harangue, arising throughout the House, and obliging the orator to take his seat. The petition of the Bishop was then in due form received, and he, with his numerous retinue of robed clergy, withdrew.

We now proceed with our memoranda of the early press. When Fothergill was deprived of his office of King's Printer in 1825, he published for a time a quarto paper of his own, entitled the Palladium, composed of scientific, literary and general matter. Mr. Robert Stanton, King's Printer after Fothergill, issued on his own account for a few years, a newspaper called The U. E. Loyalist, the name, as we have seen, borne by the portion of the Gazette devoted to general intelligence while Mr. Stanton was King's Printer. The U. E. Loyalist was a quarto sheet, well printed, with an engraved ornamental heading resembling that which surmounted the New York Albion. The Loyalist was conservative, as also was a local contemporary after 1831, the Courier, edited and printed by Mr. George Gurnett, subsequently Clerk of the Peace, and Police Magistrate for the City of Toronto. The Christian Guardian, a local religious paper which still survives, began in 1828. The Patriot appeared at York in 1833: it had previously been issued at Kingston; its whole title was "The Patriot and Farmer's Monitor," with the motto, "Common Sense," below. It was of the folio form, and its Editor, Mr. Thos. Dalton, was a writer of much force, liveliness and originality. The Loyalist, Courier and Patriot were antagonists politically of the Advocate while the latter flourished; but all three laboured under the disadvantage of fighting on the side whose star was everywhere on the decline.