^..^^ V o > A A '^^ C ^»*^'* ■^'^ COLUMBIA AND CANADA NOTES ON THE GREAT REPUBLIC AND THE NEW DOMINION A SUPPLEMENT TO "WESTWARD BY RAIL" BY Wr FRASER RAE SECOND EDITION NEW YORK (> . P . PUTNAM'S SONS 182 Fifth Avenue 1S79 t \m ^' /' f Dcbication. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM EDWARD FORSTER, M.P. Dear Sir, — While dedicating this work to you with your per- mission, I wish to express my conviction that few living statesmen are more cordially in sympathy than yourself, alike with the great colonies of the British Empire, and the great country which, un- happily, has ceased to form one of its grandest members. For many years I have been engaged in preparing a history of that splendid off-shoot from the parent state. Partly with a view to acquu'e special information regarding the early and local annals of the country, and partly that I might be an eye-witness of a note- worthy spectacle, I revisited the United States in the year when the centenary of their independence was celebrated, and when the event was commemorated by an International Exhibition. This work is chiefly a record of what impressed me the most during that visit. It also contains the conclusions at which I have arrived concerning the relation of the Dominion of Canada to its powerful neighbour across the St. Lawrence and the Motherland across the Atlantic. I have shadowed forth in the course of it a new and simple plan for effecting that closer connexion between the English-speaking people of the earth which, in a memorable speech to the members of the Union League Club of I^ew York, and as memorable an address to the members of the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, you avowed to be one of the strongest desires of your heart. Believe me to be, faithfully yours, W. FEASEK RAE. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Bkidging the Atlaktic . . .... 1 CHAPTER II. Feom the Thames to the Hudson .... 30 CHAPTER III. The Empire City 44 CHAPTER IV. The City of BnoTHEitLY Love ... . . 63 CHAPTER Y. The International Exhibition of 1876 ... 82 CHAPTER VI. Philadelphia during the Exhibition . . . 107 CHAPTER VII. The Press and the People op Philadelphia . . 127 CHAPTER VIII. The District op Columbia 141 CHAPTER IX. The Capital of the Union 147 CHAPTER X. The Capital of the Commonwealth of MAssACHisEiTb 10:.' Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. PAGE Saratoga and West Point 186 CHAPTER XII. Sauatooa Spkings 195 CHAPTER XIII. A Teip theough Canada 204 CHAPTER XIV. The Pkovtnce of Ontario 218 CHAPTER XV. Travellers and Bankers in North America . . 247 CHAPTER XVI. Impressions of Toronto . . . . . . 252 CHAPTER XVII. Toronto to Southampton ...... 260 CHAPTER XVIII. A Retrospect and a Comparison .... 265 1 HAVE Icarnod since the first chapter was in type that the feat recounted at page 21 of the Allan Steamer Peruvian has been surpassed by that of the White Star Steamer Britannic. The latter made the trip from the Mersey to the Hudson and back in 2^1 days and 7 hours iu September, and in 24 days and 3 hours iu November, 1876. I ought to have stated at page 27 that Mr. G. Ilauiilton Fletcher was joint founder and is joint manager of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, commonly called the White Star Line. At page 18, the British aud American Steam Navigation Company and the Great Western Company have been transposed ; the former were the owners of the President, and the latter of the Oreat Britain named at page 19. COLUMBIA AND CANADA. I. BEIDGTNG THE ATLANTIC. In 1776, it took ten days to go from Washington's camp before tlie town of Boston to the Hall in the city of Philadelphia where the Delegates from the thirteen United Colonies held their meetings; the same distance can be traversed now in as many hours. Less time is now required to cross the Atlantic than was expended a century ago in jour- neying between the capital of Massachusetts and the city of brotherly love. The shortest letter which our forefathers ever sent by post was written in a longer time than is now occupied in transmitting a message by telegraph between the continent of Europe and the continent of North America. Thus a peaceful revolution has been wrought which is without parallel or precedent. Had it been achieved at the middle of the eighteenth century, the revo- lution of 1776 might never have occurred, or might have been accomplished without deplorable shedding of blood. Certainly, the baleful slaughter at New Orleans, in 1814, would not have been a subject of unavaihng regret. On the 24th of December, 1814, a treaty of peace 2 COLUMBIA A?TD CANADA. was signed at Ghent between the United States and the United Kingdom; on the 11th of February, 1815, the welcome tidings were communicated to the United States Government. While the news was crossing the Atlantic, Sir Edward Pakenham, who had planned the capture of New Orleans, led his force to be shot down by the skilled marksmen whom General Jackson had massed behind impregnable entrenchments ; General Pakenham met his death at the head of the attacking column ; Major-General Gibbs, the second in command, fell also; Major- General Keane, the third in command, was disabled ; two thousand British soldiers, who had followed their chief with a stubbornness and fidelity meriting a better issue, were wounded or killed ; the loss on the other side was six men killed and seven men wounded. This butchery, which has been misnamed the Battle of New Orleans, first yielded General Jackson fame as a hero and afterwards secured for him the reward of election as President. The lives of many brave men would have been prolonged and the subsequent history of the United States might have taken another direction had it been possible in 1814 to flash a message of peace through an electric cable under the sea, or to forward a despatch over it in a swift Cunarder. Before the dispute between the American Colonies and the Home Government grew embittered and porten- tous, and when an amicable adjustment of diff'erences seemed possible, it was proposed to allay the ferment by according to the Colonists representation in the Parliament of Great Britain. Such a proposal, when made in 17G9, was ridiculed by Edmund Burke in his trenchant style. Reverting to it in his magnificent BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 3 but ineffectual speech on conciliation with America, he told the House of Commons, in 1775, that — " the last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies is hardij less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the natural con- stitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance, in weakening government. Seas roll and months pass between the order and the execution, and the want of a speedy explana- tion of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system." He said in another part of the same speech : " But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry ; and as long as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance will continue." Again : " You will doubtless imagine that I am on the point of pro- posing to you a scheme for a representation of the colonies in Parliament. Perhaps I might be inclined to entertain some such thought, but a great flood stops me in my course. Opposuit natura — I cannot remove the eternal barriers of the creation." The ocean has not yet been drained dry; the eternal barriers of the creation remain fixed and intact; but the swelling deep and other obstacles which appeared formidable and invincible to Burke, do not affect us with like sensations of impotence and dismay. Though not removed, they have been overcome or counteracted. The electric cable in the ocean's bed is as well fitted for binding together the inhabitants of the two worlds, as was Jupiter's golden chain in joining the upper and lower spheres in harmonious union. While the winds still blow B 2 4 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. as they list and the billows rage as of old, the steamship carries goods aud passengers across the ocean with such regularity that the time occupied can be calculated beforehand ; doing this, too, at a rate of speed far in excess of the highest at which Burke ever drove between London and Beacons- field. The great flood which stopped him in his course can now be crossed with ease and certainty. The natural force of water in vapour has been found to be a match for that of water in the wave. — Natara invicta naturd vlncitur. Six years before Burke lamented in the House of Commons that the Atlantic Ocean formed an insuperable barrier to rapid intei communication between the North American Continent and the British Isles, James AVatt had obtained a patent for an engine with a double acting cylinder, — an inven- tion which was the source of all the subsequent improvements which have rendered steam as obe- dient as the lamp of the magician was to Aladdin, and more useful to mankind than any power yet exercised by a necromancer. The discovery of Watt was not perfected till it was too late for Burke using it as an argument and for the statesmen of his day profiting by its results. Two citizens of the United States, James Rumsey and John Fitch, were among the earliest experi- menters in steam navigation. Foiled in an attempt to obtain a patent for his invention from the State of Pennsylvania, the former visited England, where he obtained one in 1788. His scheme is not the first which has succeeded better on paper than in practice. M. Brissot, who saw him in England in 1789, says that he had designed a steamboat which BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 5 would cross the Atlantic in fifteen days; Rumsey went to his grave with his dream unfulfilled. Fitch, though more fortunate for a time, was the victim of as great a disappointment. In 1786, he pro- pelled a vessel by means of steam power, against the current of the river Potomac, at the rate of five miles an hour. One of his steamboats plied for a time on the Delaware, where it was seen in the autumn of 1788 by M. Brissot, who doubted whether it would prove practically serviceable, as several men were constantly engaged in keeping the machinery in order. ^ A series of paddles actuated by an engine moved this boat through the water much in the same way that a canoe is impelled along by paddles worked by hand ; the average speed was seven miles an hour. The inventor succeeded in propelling a vessel by steam power, but he signally failed in getting general credit for his ingenuity, or support from capitalists. Dr. Thornton, who aided him to the extent of his means, was jeered at as a dupe. Sensible men considered Fitch to be an over-sanguine projector : shaking their heads when they saw or talked about him, they said, " Poor fellow ; what a pity he is crazy !" According to them, an indisputable proof of his insanity was that he should have said in writing, when requesting the loan of £50, wherewith to complete his second steamboat, " This, sir, whether I bring it to perfection or not, will be the mode for crossing the Atlantic in time for packets and armed vessels." ^ * " Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats-Unis," par J. P. Erissot, vol. i. pp. 338, 339, 340. ' See "History of Merchant Shipping," by W. S. Liutlsaj-, COLUMBIA AND CANADA, Fitcli is said to have built a yawl in 1796, which he moved through the water by means of a screw propeller. All his inventions brought him, however, but labour and sorrow. Oppressed by penury and spurned with contumely by those who might have immortalized themselves if they had opened their purses to him, he committed suicide in 1798. Forty-five years after Fitch had penned his pre- diction about crossing the Atlantic, Dr. Lardner delivered a lecture wherein, after admitting the possibility of a steamship making a trip from Valentia in Ireland, to St. Johns, in Newfound- land, he added, " As to the project, however, which was announced in the newspapers of making the voyage directly from New York to Liverpool, it was, he had no hesitation in saying, perfectly chi- merical, and they might as well talk of making a voyage from New York or Liverpool to the moon." Upwards of forty years have passed away since this dictum was uttered by a man of science, yet it still continues more correct to apply the term chimerical to voyages to the moon than to the trips of steamers between Liverpool and New York. Priority as to the invention of the steamboat has been the subject of much aimless controversy and many unfounded claims, the real point at issue being forgotten and left unanswered in the heat of discussion. Steam-engines, or fire-engines, as they were originally termed, were designed, manu- factured and employed long before Watt was born. vol. iv. p. 43. Several facts in tins chapter are taken from the fourth volume of Mr Lindsay's elaborate work. Those readers who desire further details will be amply repaid by turning to Mr. Lindsay's pregnant and pleasant pages. BKIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 7 Though tlie steam-engine of the present day is a very different machine from the best engine which left the factory of Boulton and Watt, yet the fame and service of Watt are not lessened by the sub- sequent advances beyond his best achievements. Not the first projector, but the man who first renders an invention workable, is the man who ought to be thanked and praised. Now it is unquestionable that Mr. Symington perfected the earliest engine which transformed the steamboat from a theory into a reality. Fitch had previously caused vessels to be propelled by steam power, but no steamer on his plan has entered the water since he left the world. Symington's engine, on the other hand, is the model which has been followed by all succeeding designers of marine engines. In November, 1788, a boat propelled by paddle wheels actuated by Symington's engine moved across Dalswinton Loch at the rate of five miles an hour. In March, 1802, a vessel named the Charlotte Dimdas, fitted with engines planned by him, towed two barges of seventy tons burden, the distance of nineteen and a half miles on the Forth and Clyde Canal, in six hours' time against a gale of wind. The Duke of Bridgewater, being pleased with the result, ordered eight vessels to be built and engined on the same model. Dying soon after, his successor rescinded the order. Deprived of this patron, Symington died a pauper. The same year that Fitch went to his last home a broken-hearted and unappreciated inventor, Robert Fulton, a native of Pennsylvania, succeeded in moving a boat through the water by means of a screw propeller, which was actuated by a steam- 8 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. engine. Trained as an engineer, Fulton aspired to become an artist : he proceeded to London, where he studied painting under West, living for a time by the scanty product of his pencil. Reverting to his original avocation, he went to France and proposed to the master of the French, who had resolved to become the conqueror of the English, a scheme for propelling the flotilla, collected at Boulogne for the invasion of England, across the channel by means of steam power. Returning to England in 1802, after this offer had been declined by Bonaparte, and when the second Armada was dispersed owing to the aban- donment of the enterprise for which it had been pompously assembled, Fulton visited Scotland, saw the Gharlotte Dundas steamer on the Clyde, took a trip in her along with Symington, her designer, and was permitted to make drawings of the vessel and her machinery ; thereafter, he went to Birmingham, where he ordered Messrs. Boulton and Watt to make a set of engines for him on the same model. Cross- ing the Atlantic, he built a vessel at New York in concert with Mr. Chancellor Livingstone, whose ac- quaintance he had made at Paris, some years pre- viously, when Mr. Livingstone was United States' Minister there. This vessel, which was named the Clermont, after Mr. Livingstone's country seat on the Hudson, was launched in 1807, and fitted with the steam machinery which had been manufac- tured at Birmingham and forwarded to the United States. To the surprise of the public of New York, the Clermont moved through the waters of the Hudson at the rate of five miles an hour, and did so despite the resistance of an adverse wind and a BEIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 9 strong current. Thus the journey between New York and the capital of the State could be performed by- means of this steamer with a regularity which no sail- ing craft could equal. A trip, which used to occupy a space of time varying from a fortnight to forty-eight hours, could be made, in 1807, within the space of a single complete day, and can now be made in less than ten hours. The masters of the sailing packets tried to get rid of a dangerous rival by running her down. This extreme and hazardous form of compe- tition was ended when an act of the Legislature of the State of New York made it punishable with fine and imprisonment. Not believing that he had invented anything in building and fitting up this steamboat, Fulton re- frained from applying for a patent ; but he success- fully petitioned the Legislature for an exclusive privilege to navigate the rivers of the State of New York with steam-vessels, during a term of years. A like concession had been made to Fitch in 1786 : Fulton, however, was unaware of this, and the Legis- lators seem to have forgotten it. Harassing and wasteful litigation was the only fruit of the privilege which had been conferred on him, the result being the withdrawal of the concession. He designed other vessels ; he invented the torpedo, which ap- pears destined to revolutionize naval warfare ; he was an honour to his country, and he died in 1815 a neglected, a heart-broken, and a ruined man. After death, his countrymen ascribed to him the sole merit of having invented the steamboat, a claim which he himself never thought of preferring. He performed an indisputable service of scarcely in- ferior value, the introduction of the steamboat into 10 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. the United States. This achievement deserved a more tangible reward than the exaggerated praise which excites controversy, combined with the hollowest of all mockeries, posthumous fame. Two years after the Clermont began to ply on the Hudson, the Accommodation steamer ran on the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec. The surface of three great rivers on the American continent, the Delaware, the Hudson, and the St. Lawrence, was furrowed by steam-vessels before the tenth year of the nineteenth century. Not till 1812 did the Comet, built by Henry Bell, ply on the Clyde. There, as on the Hudson, opposition ren- dered the speculation unremunerative. Henry Bell, like Symington, Fitch, and Fulton, died in poverty, the fate commonly reserved for the real benefactors of mankind. After a beginning in steam navigation had been made, the progress was rapid. In 1815, a steam- boat appeared on the Thames; the public rejoiced at the sight ; the watermen denounced the innova- tion as hurtful to their interests. In 1819, the first steamboat crossed the Atlantic. She was called the Savannah, and started from the city of that name on the 25tli of May, arriving at Liverpool on the 20th of June. Off the Land's End she was hailed by Lieutenant John Bowie, in command of a revenue cutter ; wishing to board her, he was puzzled to see her go along with bare poles at a greater speed than his own craft under a press of canvas, and he had to fire a gun in order to make her lie to. The Sacannah remained at Liverpool for a month, during which she was visited by sight-seers from all parts of the kingdom ; thence she proceeded to St. Peters- BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 11 burg, starting on her return voyage to the United States on the 10th of October, and reaching Savannah on the 30th of November. Soon after, she was shipwrecked on Long Island during a voyage from Savannah to New York. On the 18th of August, 1833, the Eoyal William, which had been built at Three Eivers, Canada, sailed from Quebec, arriving at Grravesend on the 11th of September. Her voyage would have occupied a shorter time, had she not been detained for three days at Nova Scotia. This was the second steamship which crossed the Atlantic. Both had started from the North American continent, the one from the State of Georgia, at the extreme south, the other from the Province of Lower Canada, at the extreme north. Not till 1838, nineteen years after the first of these two ventures, and five years after the second, did a steamer start from Great Britain for the continent of North America. On the 4th of April in that year, the steamer Sirius left London, and was followed three days afterwards by the Great Western from Bristol, both being bound for New York, which the former reached after a passage of seventeen and the latter of fifteen days. The return voyages were made in sixteen and four- teen days respectively. The Sirius never crossed the Atlantic again ; she afterwards plied between the Thames and the Neva, her place being taken by a second Boyal William, the Canadian one having been sold to the Portuguese Government, which left Liverpool on the 6th of July, 1838, making the voyage out in nineteen and home in four- teen and a half days. This Eoyal William was the first of the steamships which have brought 12 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. the dwellers on the Mersey and the Hudson into regular intercommunication. The autumn of I808 was an epoch in the history of transatlantic steam navigation. Determining to relinquish sending the mails across the Atlantic in ten-gun brigs, and to arrange for their conveyance in steamships, the Admiralty then invited tenders for the performance of the work. The partners in the Great Western Steam-shipping Company and owners of the Great Western and Great Liverpoul steamers, were confident of having proved their title to be employed ; however, to their surprise and mortification, a lower tender than theirs was sent in by Messrs. Cunard, Burns, and Maclver, and ac- cepted. The latter firm undertook to carry the mails between Liverpool and Halifax, twice each way every month; t^vice in every month between Halifax and Boston, when the navigation of the St. Lawrence was unimpeded by ice, and also between Pictou, Nova Scotia, and Quebec, in return for an annual subsidy of £60,000. When this contract was renewed at the end of a year, the subsidy was raised to £80,000. Not till 1848 did the contractors arrange to run steamers between Ijiverpool and New York. From June, 1840, to December, 18G8, the Cunard Company entered into thirteen postal contracts, the last, implying the payment of a sub- sidy, was terminated at the end of December, 1876. During the five years preceding the latter date the annual subsidy was £70,000, being less than half what had been paid at one period, and only £10,000 in excess of the first payment. Seldom, if ever, has the money of the nation been expended to better advantage. Mr. Samuel Cunard, who had contem- BEIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 13 plated such a service as far back as tlie year 1830, was a native of Nova Scotia. To his foresight, coupled with the shrewdness and business aptitude of his two Scottish partners, Mr. Burns and Mr. Maclver, is due the most successful and praise- worthy of modern shipping enterprises. Sir Hugh Allan, another colonist of Scottish birth, has ener- getically followed in the steps of his great fore- runner. The four steamers, built on the Clyde to begin the Cunard mail service, were superior in all respects to those which the company had under- taken to supply ; they were named the Britannia, the Acadia, the Caledonia, and the Golumhia. On the 4th of July, 1840, the Britannia left Liver- pool for Boston, calling at Halifax. She made the voyage out and home at a speed of eight-and-a- half knots an hour. Being frozen up in Boston harbour during the winter of 1844, the public- spirited merchants of that city caused a channel, seven miles long and 100 feet wide, to be cat in the ice at their own expense in order that the Britannia might reach the open sea.^ Sir Charles Lyell was a passenger in this vessel when he crossed the Atlantic in 1845. Encountering a hurricane, she weathered it in a way which excited general satisfaction. Among the passengers " were some experienced American sea captains, who had * Mr. Lindsaj'^, in his " History of Merchant Shipping," voL iv. p. 183, is in error in stating that this incident occurred during the first voyage of the Britannia. I am indebted to Mr. John Burns for being able to correct this mistake, and to supply other details of general interest about the renowned company of which he is the accomplislied head. 14 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. commanded vessels of their own round Cape Horn ; and, being now for the first time in a steamer at sea, were watching with professional interest the Britannia^s behaviour in the storm. They came to the conclusion that one of those vessels, well appointed, with a full crew, skilled officers, and good engineers, was safer than any sailing packet."* Charles Dickens made his first and memorable voyage to the United States in the Britannia. Between this Cunarder and one of recent build the contrast is marvellous. The Britannia was built of wood; the Bothnia is constructed of iron. The former was 1,139 tons burden; the latter is 4,535. The former was 207 feet in length, 34 feet 2 inches in breadth, and 22 feet 4 inches in depth ; the latter is 445 feet in length, 42 feet 6 inches in breadth, and 36 feet in depth. The former carried 225 tons of cargo ; the latter carries 3,000. The former had accommodation for 90 first-class passengers ; the latter can accommodate 340 in the saloon, and 800 in the steerage. The nominal horse power of the former was 425, that of the latter is 507 ; yet the Bothnia^ which is propelled by a screw, can steam at the rate of thirteen knots an hour, whereas the Britannia which was a paddle steamer, could not attain the speed of nine knots. More noteworthy still is the fact that the furnaces of the vessel, which is propelled through the water at the higher rate of speed, require less than half the quantity of fuel which was con- sumed in those of the slower ship. It is even more extraordinary that, from the year 1840, down to the present day, not a single passenger's life has been * " Travels in Nortli America," vol. i. ^. 2. BEIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 15 lost, and not a single letter lias gone astray on board a Cunard steamer, owing to the perils of tlie sea. By transporting upwards of 2,000,000 pas- sengers in safety across the stormy and dangerous Atlantic, the Cunard Company have performed the most marvellous feat in the annals of steam navi- gation. The immunity from preventible accidents enjoyed by this company is susceptible of easy explanation. All their vessels have been built on the most approved models, and of the very best materials. 'Not an inferior sheet of iron, inefficient bolt, or imperfect plank can be found in one of them from stem to stern. None is ever sent to sea with a known defect, even though the defect should be trivial in appearance, and might not hinder the vessel making the voyage in perfect safety, provided the weather was moderately good. It is the inflexible rule of the company to be prepared to face the worst at any moment, never trusting to chance, or hoping for good-luck. Thus, when the worst comes, it can be met without apprehension. Discipline is enforced with a stringency which is not surpassed, possibly is not equalled, on board a crack frigate. That fatal yet common form of false economy which consists in reducing the number of the crew to the minimum necessary for navigating the ship, is rightly eschewed by this company. An accident costs more than the wages of a few extra seamen ; the presence of the extra seamen may tend to avert a serious accident. The officers are all well acquainted with their duties, and are expected to perform them with uniform and unremitting precision. Zeal never goes unrewarded, nor is neglect ever pardoned. IG COLUMBIA AND CANADA. When an accident happens, skill and discipline tell. An accident which might have become a catastrophe was dealt with in the following manner on board the Britannia when she was under the command of Captain Harrison. The account is from the pen of Mr. J. T. Fields : — " A happier company never sailed upon an autumn sea. The story-tellers are busy with their yarns to audiences of delighted listeners. The ladies are lying about on couches or shawls, reading or singing; children are taking hands, and racing up and down the decks — when with a quick cry from the look-out, and a rush of oflficers and men, we are grinding on a ledge of rocks off Cape Race. One of those strong currents, always mysterious, and sometimes impossible to foresee, had set us into shore out of our course, and the ship was blindly beating on a dreary coast of sharp and craggy rocks. . . . Suddenly we heard a voice, up in the fog that surrounded us, ringing like a clarion above the roar of the waves, and the clashing sounds on shipboard, and it had in it an assuring, not a fearful sound. As the orders came distinctly and deliberately through the captain's trumpet to " shift the cargo," to " back her," and to " keep her steady," we felt somehow that the commander up there in the thick mist knew what he was about, and that through his skill and courage, by the blessing of Heaven, we shoidd all be rescued. The man who saved us, so far as human aid ever saved drowning mortals, was one fully competent to command a ship." Another story, which has not yet appeared in print, is even more instructive ; it was told to me by a gentleman who was a passenger on board the steamship Atlas from Boston to Liverpool. My BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 17 informant sailed for Liverpool in the winter months. The voyage was devoid of incident till the vessel reached mid-ocean, when one evening the monotony of the trip was unexpectedly varied. The weather was tempestuous, so that the first-class passengers, prefer- ring the warmth and shelter of the saloon at nightfall to the discomfort of the gloomy sky and spray- washed deck, were there engaged either in readmg, or in play- ing at cards, draughts, or chess. The captain, who had entered the saloon for a few minutes only, suddenly hurried on deck, after the boatswain appeared and w^hispered a few words in his ear. A passenger, whose sense of hearing was very acute, overheard the ominous phrase, " The ship is on fire, sir." He went on deck, being followed by others to whom he had communicated what was said. There they saw a thick column of dense smoke rising from the forward hatcli. One of them returned to the saloon and told the horrible news. Anxiety was manifested as to how soon the fire would be extinguished ; but there was little excitement, and no sign of panic, most of the players resuming their games, and the readers returning to their books. Confidence was evidently felt that everything which mortals could do to avert a dread calamity would be performed. In the steerage, on the contrary, there was ignorance without self-possession; women shrieked, men rushed about in aimless despair. The first-class passengers, who wished to make themselves useful, and offered to aid the crew, were asked to help in carrying the terror-stricken men, women, and children from the steerage, where they were in the way, to the poop, where they would give less trouble. These passengers refused to be comforted, or to be 18 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. quiet ; their groans and lamentations alone disturbed the apparent harmony of the hour. The crew and the officers were as cool and reticent as if nothing unusual had happened. The officer on duty walked the bridge, giving his entire attention to navigating the ship ; the men on the look-out were at their posts ; the engineers were in their places in the engine- room ; the stewards were at their usual work ; indeed, the business of the ship went on like clock- work, while a fire was raging in the hold, and all on board were in jeopardy. At the end of half an hour from the alarm being given, the boatswain said the ladies might be informed that the danger was nearly over; in truth, the fire had been thoroughly mastered, and all danger was at an end. It was ascertained that the cause of the fire was the ignition of- some combustibles which had been shipped against the rules of the company, and without the knowledge of the company's servants at Boston. The manner in which this accident was faced and foiled had the natural result of making every sensible passenger feel increased confidence in the discipline and direction which prevail on board a Cunarder. For some time after the Cunard Company had carried the mails between this country and the con- tinent of North America, the British and American Steam Navigation Company maintained a keen but futile rivalry with them. A parliamentary inquiry proved that no exception could justly be taken to the manner in which the Cunard Company executed what they had undertaken. With a view to outstrip all competitors, the Great Western Company had become the owners of the President, a steamer which was expected to surpass every rival. Launched BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 19 on the 7th of December, 1839, she made a few voyages between Great Britain and the United States ; she ought to have returned to this country in April, 1841, but was never heard of again. Determined not to be baffled, the company resolved upon making a still bolder bid for supremacy on the Atlantic by arranging for the construction of a vessel which should outvie any one afloat in novelty of design, in size and in speed. This was the Great Britain : she was constructed of iron, this was one novelty ; she was propelled by a screw, this was another ; her dimensions were then regarded as huge beyond comparison : she was 321 feet long, 51 feet broad, and 2,984 tons burden ; she was launched at Bristol on the 19th of July, 1843. After arriving in the Thames, she was visited by the Queen and Prince Albert, and thousands of eager sight-seers. In December, 1843, she started for the United States, but did not get farther on her voyage than Dundrum Bay, on the coast of Ireland, where she was stranded, and lay at the mercy of the wind and the waves for a whole winter. This unusual test, which caused no irreparable damage, demonstrated the solidity of her build. When floated off in the spring and re- fitted, she was employed as a passenger ship between this country and Australia, and continued for nearly a quarter of a century to be the favourite ship in that service. Her fame as a giant among vessels was not eclipsed till the Great Eastern was launched on the 31st of January, 1858. It was intended that she should be employed as a passenger ship in the Australian trade, but just as the Great Britain never made a voyage to the United States, so the Great Eastern never made a voyage to Australia. Though c 2 20 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. both disappointed the expectations of their designers, yet the Great Britain has done good service by bring- ing the continent of Australasia into closer union with the motherland, while the Great Eastern^ by her adaptability for laying telegraph cables in the Atlan- tic, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean, has made for herself a proud name among ships. The success of the English Steamship Companies provoked jealousy, and consequent rivalry on the part of companies in the United States. An attempt at international competition was made in 1847, when the merchants of New York established a line of steamships to run between that city and Bremen, Southampton being a port of call. The Washing- ton, the first steamer of the new line, left New York for Southampton the same day in June, 1847, that the Britannia started for Liverpool. The former was the more powerful vessel of the two. The New York Herald, with its wonted and exuberant patriotism, wrote to the effect that, if the Bri- tannia means to beat the Washington, she "will have to run by the deep mines and put in more coal." Without visiting these mysterious coaling stations, the Britannia won the race by two days. This failure to out-do the Cunard line did not hinder the United States Congress from encouraging another attempt of the same character. Mr. E. K. Collins, the owner of a swift line of sailing ships between New York and Liverpool, having offered to run a line of steamers between these two ports. Congress granted him a subsidy of £175,750 in con- sideration of four steamers being provided for the service. This was more than double the sum paid to the Cunard Company at the outset. The steamers BEIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 21 of the Collins line were well built, were comfortable to the verge of luxury, and they were the fastest that had ever traversed the ocean. Their speed was attained at a great cost. It was necessary to ex- pend upwards of £200,000 yearly, in order to shorten the trips across the Atlantic by a day and a half. From January, 1852, to November in that year inclusive, the Collins steamers transported 2,420 passengers from New York to Liverpool, and 1,886 from Liverpool to New York, whereas the Cunarders transported 1,186 the one way, and 1,783 the other. The citizens of the United States were naturally exultant, believing that they had at length succeeded, to employ the words of a Report to the Senate, in hindering the " Queen of the Ocean levying her imposts upon the industry and intelligence of all the nations that frequent the highway of the world." Commerce profited by the competition. Two years after the establishment of the Collins line, the rate of freight had fallen from £7 10s. a ton to £4. During a dense fog on the 1st of September, 1854, the Collins steamer Arctic came into collision with the French steamer Vesta, sixty miles to the south-east of Cape Race. The Arctic had on board 233 passengers, a crew numbering 135, and a valuable cargo. The Vesta had on board 147 passengers, and a crew numbering fifty. Think- ing that the Vesta was about to founder, several of the passengers and crew sought safety by getting on board the Arctic; a boat, containing thirteen persons who tried to do so, was swamped, and all in it were drowned. The Captain of the Vesta succeeded in bringing his ship, with the persons 22 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. who had remained on board, into St. Johns, New- foundland. The Arctic never touched land again; only fourteen passengers and thirty-one of her crew reached the shore alive. The wife, a son, and a daughter of Mr. Collins were among the missing. On the 3rd of January, 1856, the Collins steamer Pacific left Liverpool, with forty-one passengers and a crew numbering 141 ; she had the mails on board and a full cargo, valued at half a million sterling. She was never afterwards heard of. Though the Adriatic was built to replace one of the vessels that had been lost, yet in 1858 the Company gave up the struggle in despair. The annual loss was greater than the shareholders could sustain, and the subsidy had been withdrawn. The enterprise deserved a happier fate. When the line was projected, Mr. Senator Bayard said in Con- gress : " We must have speed, extraordinary speed, a speed with which the Collins steamers can over- take any vessel which they pursue, and escape from any vessel they wish to avoid ; they must be fit for the purpose of a cruiser, with armaments to attack your enemy — if that enemy were Great Britain — in her most vital part, her commerce." A nobler feeling than enmity to Great Britain might have inspired the advocates of this undertaking. The ocean is wide enough for the vessels of all nations. Great Britain, which has never yet feared or suc- cumbed to rivalry on that element, expressed no unseemly pleasure when the failure of the Collins Line left the Cunard Company without formidable competitors on the Atlantic. It was on the 17th of December, 1850, the year when Mr. Senator Bayard looked forward BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 23 with patriotic selfishness and complacency to the Collins steamers " sweeping the seas," that the iron screw steamer the City of Glasgow left Liver- pool for Philadelphia. She was the property of the Liverpool, New York and Philadelphia Steam- ship Company, of which Mr. William Inman was managing director, a company which now enjoys world-wide renown as the Inman Line. Mr. Inman had the foresight to perceive, when the majority of shipowners and shipbuilders held a contrary opinion, that iron was the best material wherewith to fashion Atlantic steamers, and that the screw was the best means for propelling them. Till the year 1857, the Inman steamers ran fortnightly between Liver- pool and Philadelphia; in that year they ran to New York also ; after the suspension of the Collins Line the Inman took its place, carrying the United States Mails. In 1860, this company despatched a steamer weekly ; in 1863, thrice a fortnight ; in 1866, twice weekly during the summer months. These vessels have maintained the reputation which they early gained for size, comfort, and speed. In one of them, the City of Faris, the Duke of Con- naught was carried from Cork to Halifax in six days and twenty-one hours. Two of them, the City of Chester and the City of Berlin, are among the finest and fastest steamers afloat. The latter is 520 feet in length, and has accommodation for 1,702 passengers, in addition to a crew of upwards of 100. Unlike the Cunard Company, however, the Inman Line cannot boast of freedom from fatal casualties. One of the saddest occurred in 1870, when the City of Boston left Halifax for Liverpool and disappeared. 24 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. In 1852, about the time that the Collins Line was founded in the United States and the Inman Line in England, and twelve years after the first Cunarder had crossed the ocean, the Government of Canada arranged for the carriage of the mails between Liverpool and Quebec. The contractors were Messrs. M'Clean, M'Clarty, and Lament of, Liverpool. They were succeeded by Messrs. Allan, who began in 1856 a steam service between Canada and Great Britain which deserves to be cited among striking illustrations of perseverance and pluck. At the outset, the Allan Line met with many mishaps. The North Atlantic is as trying to the na\dgator as the Baltic at its worst. Dangers due to fog and ice are encountered during most months of the year; while perils from sunken rocks and treacherous currents have to be faced at all seasons. Yet the steamers of the Allan Line, which in size, speed and luxury are equal to the best, run with regularity across the ocean between the ports of Quebec and Halifax in Canada, Portland and Balti- more in the United States, and those of Liverpool and Glasgow in the United Kingdom. One of these steamers is famed for having^ made the shortest recorded voyage out and home. On the 16th of December, 18G4, the Peruvian left Moville for Portland at G.2-1 p.m.; after having discharged her cargo and taken fresh cargo on board, she arrived at Moville on her return voyage at 9.15 a.m., on the loth of January, 1865; the time occupied in the double voyage being only twenty-four days, fifteen hours. When Dr. Lardner pronounced the scheme of BEIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 25 running steamers directly between Liverpool and New York to be perfectly chimerical, he said that it was quite feasible to run steamers between Valentia in Ireland, and St. Johns in Newfoundland. His plan comprised a journey by rail from London to Liverpool, by water from Liverpool to Dublin, by rail from Dublin to Valentia, and by sea from Valentia to St. Johns, thence by sea to Halifax and finally to New York. The absence of a railway between Dublin and Valentia rendered this scheme as chimerical as that which had been condemned. Nearly a quarter of a century later. Dr. Lardner's proposition was revived, with the difference that the port of Galway was to be the place of departure in L^eland, and New York or Boston the port of arrival on the North American Continent. A company was formed to carry out the undertaking ; it was styled the Royal Atlantic Steam Navigation Com- pany, and was generally known as the Galway Line. In Ireland it was hailed as a national enterprise, one fraught with promise and pride to the country, and certain to prove a source of vast pecuniary profit. A subsidy of £3,000 for each voyage out and home was accorded by the Government. This service began on the 27th of June, 1860, and ended in May, 1861. Its story, which needs not be told in detail, was one of miscarriage and disaster. One vessel, the Gonnaught, was lost ; a second, the Hibernia, was so much damaged during her preliminary trip as to be unfitted for employment ; a third, the Golu7nbia, was so greatly injured by coming in contact with ice off" Newfoundland, as to take upwards of twenty days in reaching Boston. The company had contracted 26 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. to carry the mails from shore to shore in six days ; but failed in doing so till they purchased the Collins Steamer Adriatic^ which made the passage from Ireland to Newfoundland in six days, returning in five days, nineteen hours, and forty-five minutes ; being the fastest trip which, till then, had been made from shore to shore. The failures of the Collins and the Galway Lines cannot be chronicled without regi*et that so much capital and so much laudable energy and skill should have been expended in vain. In 1863, the National Steam Navigation Company was formed in Liverpool. Its promoters purposed trading with the southern ports of the United States, as soon as the civil war came to an end. The war lasting longer than was expected, they resolved to run their steamers between Liverpool and New York. No larger vessels than those of the National line had then crossed the Atlantic; the size ranged from 3,000 to 3,500 tons burden. In 1864, three more of still larger tonnage were built for the company, other three in the succeeding two years, the result being that the National line possesses a fleet of steamers as fine as any which traverse the sea. A vessel starts weekly between Liverpool and New York, and fortnightly between London and New Y^ork. This company has been managed with marked ability; not a single pas- senger has lost his life through accident to one of their steamers. The excellent plan has been adopted of giving the captains and the chief officers of a National steamer a handsome sum by way of bonus every six months, in the event of the vessels under their care going from port to port free from preven- tible injury. The company's orders are to carry the BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 27 vessels and all on board in safety, and to aim at safety rather tban speed. Other companies have the like desire and give the same injunctions ; but none of them, the Cunard always excepted, is more rigid in insisting on their observance than the National Company. Messrs. Handy side and Henderson began to run steamers, in 1865, every fortnight between Glasgow and New York ; their steamers now run weekly from Glasgow and fortnightly from London. This is known as the Anchor line. The Anchor vessels enjoy a reputation in Scotland which is thoroughly merited. In 1866 the Liverpool and Great Western Steamship Company began business in Liverpool; this is the well-known Guion Line. Neither the Anchor nor the Guion Line can take credit for having escaped serious accidents. The most notable event in the recent history of Atlantic navigation is the establishment of the White Star line of steamers in the year 1870. Messrs. Ismay, Imrie, and Co., the principal pro- prietors of this line, then made a step in advance of all competitors. They employed Messrs. Harland and Wolff of Belfast to build steamers for them, and such steamers had never been launched before. Their speed is very great. To style them floating palaces is to use the language of sober truth, and not to indulge in hyperbole. Indeed, the ship- builders of Belfast have taught some useful lessons to their brethren on the Thames and the Tyne, the Mersey and the Clyde. A sketch of the establishment and progress of Atlantic steam-shipping companies would be in- complete without a mention of the endeavours made 28 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. by citizens of the United States to succeed in the attempt wherein Mr. Collins failed. Mr. Vanderbilt vainly expended a considerable sum of money in such a venture. A Boston company made a similar and an equally fruitless effort ; two handsome screw steamers, the Erie and the Ontario, belonging to them, made several trips between their city and Liverpool ; the outlay being far in excess of the receipts, the enterprise had to be abandoned. The capitalists of New York and Boston having proved unable to command success, those of Philadelphia determined to see whether they could not do better. The latter established what they style the American Line, in concert with the wealthy and powerful Pennsylvania Railway. If this line of passenger steamships, which crosses the ocean under the flag of the United States, can maintain a successful com- petition with its German, French and English rivals, the travelling public will be the gainer. The other lines of steamships which help to bridge the Atlantic are the State, which starts from Glasgow ; the Dominion and the Beaver, the Warren and the Leyland, which start from Liverpool; the Wilson, which starts from Hull, the Great Western from Bristol, and the Temperley from London ; the Transatlantic and the Hamburg, which touch at Plymouth; and the North German Lloyd, which touches at Southampton. The record of Atlantic steam navigation, from the year 1840 down to the present day, has been one of extraordinary and unceasing progress. It was thought to be a great feat, at one time, for a steamer to start every week from either side of the ocean ; several now start, as a matter of BEIDGING THE ATLANTIC. 29 course, from both sides weekly. Before the era of steam, it was a subject of congratulation when the voyage was completed in a month ; ten days is now the average length of the voyage by one of the fast lines, so that, as has been already remarked, it takes no longer time to go from the British Isles to the North American continent than was consumed in 1776 during the journey between the town of Boston and the city of Philadelphia. The trade with the United States from Liverpool alone is greater at the present day than the trade of Liverpool with all the world before the advent of the steamship. Seneca's prediction in his Medea has been fulfilled : the ultima Thule of the ancient Romans has ceased to be the farthest point of the habitable globe ; the Atlantic ocean, instead of being a wide barrier to intercom- munication, has become a convenient highway for commercial intercourse. It was the wish of Silas Deane, in which Jefferson concurred, that there should be an ocean of fire between the Old World and the New. No sane man, now living, would cherish or countenance so diabolical a desire. 30 II. FROM THE THAMES TO THE HUDSON. The port of London, wliicli was a favourite place of arrival and departure for transatlantic travellers, in the days when sailing packets had no competitors, is now comparatively neglected by them ; the Thames having become less attractive in this respect than the Mersey and the Clyde. Recently, however, vigorous efforts have been made to regain for the capital of England some of its lost credit, as a port for Atlantic traffic. Two companies well known in Liverpool and Glasgow, have started lines of steamers between the Victoria Docks and the wharfs on the North River, thereby bringing London into direct steam communication with New York. One is the National, the other the Anchor Company. Having already had personal experience of the steamers of the Cunard and North German Lloyd Companies, and desiring to sail from the Thames, I took a passage for the United States in the Canada^ belonging to the National line. The boats which this company despatch from London every fortnight are not quite so large as those which start from Liverpool, yet the. Canada is of 4,275 tons burden, being three times larger than the famous Bri- tannia^ the pioneer steamer of the Cunard line. PEOM TEE THAMES TO THE HUDSON. 31 There is an inconvenience connected with embarking at the Victoria Docks, and at some other docks also, which could easily be remedied. This is the demand made for dock dues upon passengers' luggage. Such a toll, like the steward's fee, is perfectly justifiable, but it would save annoyance, at a time when passen- gers are in no humour to be troubled unnecessarily^, if the payment for these dues, like that for the steward's fee, were included in the passage-money. The minor worries of life are due to a multiplicity of small payments. These docks are well fitted for pro- longing the excitement of parting from friends ; the steamer leaves the landing-place very slowly,; about an hour elapses before she is in the river and fairly under way, and, by coming from the landing-place to the dock gates, relatives and friends have another chance to repeat their good wishes to the voyagers. Judging from observation, I should say that both parties weary of making these a^ectionate demon- strations long before the opportunity for doing so has passed. Whilst the vessel is in the quiet waters of the river the passengers, who are doubtful about the steadiness of their legs and the strength of their stomachs when sailing over the salt waves, can settle down in their berths with greater comfort than if they were at once called upon to prove their sea-going qualities, and they can attend the first dinner on board ship with reasonable confidence that they will enjoy it. By the time tea is over we have entered the English Channel, where a fresh breeze is blowing, and the surface is more undu- lating than that of the River Thames. Passengers who suffer in the short chopping seas of the English Channel are wont to think that, if the steamers 32 rOLUMBTA AND CANADA. wbicli ply between Dover and Ostend or Calais, were as large as those which cross the Atlantic, the brief voyage would be much more pleasant. Now, I have seen vessels of the largest tonnage pitch and roll in a rough channel sea, to a greater extent than when the same steamers are on the open Atlantic during a gale. Certainly, many passengers in the Canada were soon in as miserable a state as if they had been crossing the channel in the smallest steamer that plies there. The first-class cabin passengers numbered up- wards of seventy. Conspicuous among them was a middle-aged lady, whose apparently hysterical con- dition upon coming on board drew forth general sympathy. She was on the way to a city in the State of Tennessee, where her son and brother lived, her husband having his abode in Australia. Neither grief at parting from acquaintances in Eng- land, nor terror at the prospect of a sea voyage had produced the hysterics under which she laboured ; inordinate fondness for bottled stout, or any other beverage of an alcoholic kind when her favourite one could not be procured, made her a fitting subject for a temperance lecture and the doctor's anxious care. Her husband could not be blamed for livino- at some distance from her, and the brother whom she was going to visit was not to be envied. A young gentleman from Glasgow, who was on his way to join a brother in the State of New Jersey, and who had a firm belief in making a rapid fortune in the United States, showed almost as great partiality for bottled stout as did this unfortunate woman ; but he kept within reasonable bounds on the whole, and was not uniformly offensive to his fcllow-passen- FROM THE THAMES TO THE HUDSON. 33 gers. He was careful to explain with much empha- sis that water was the beverage which he preferred, before leaving home, and that he had resolved to drink nothing else after landing. When I last saw him, before leaving the steamer, he was earnestly engaged in trying whether certain transatlantic decoctions, in which gin, or brandy, whisky, or rum, was present in considerable proportions, were to his taste. If he kept to his determination to drink nothing but water, I have little doubt about his suc- cess in the United States. An instance of his astute- ness occurred on board. Having agreed with some others, on whom time hung heavily, to play at pitch and toss, he found that the pennies had a trick of rolling about the deck. Thereupon he sought the aid of the engineer, who roughened the edges of a penny with a file, and thus made it lie flat on the spot where it fell. This reminded me of the man who wrote from Dunkeld to the Mint for what he called tossing pennies — that is, coins with two heads on the one and two tails on the other, and led me to think that even the sharpest Yankee would meet with his match in this shrewd youth from Glasgow. Several of the passengers were young English- men, who were going to be farmers in the United States. Those persons who had practical knowledge of farming looked upon them as predestined to gain experience at the cost of their purses. There were three pairs who had each chosen a different part of the American continent as best adapted for a venture. Two of these men were on their way to California, two were bound for an Eden in the State of Iowa, and two had resolved upon trying to breed cattle in the State of Texas. The gentlemen who had heard 34 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. that California was a splendid land for growing grain and making money, were unacquainted with agriculture. They looked forward to enjoying shoot- ing and fishing, and one of them had a hammock, in which he meant to take his ease when the weather was too hot to work, or when he was exhausted with the toil of sporting. They had no notion of the hardships of farming, even in such a highlj^- favoured land as California ; indeed, had they been aware of the difficulties in their path they would never have gone on the expedition. At home, a gentleman farmer is not generally successful. In the United States, a gentleman farmer is almost certain to lose his capital, and to find, when it is too late, that he has mistaken his vocation. Of course, if a gentleman who goes to farm land in the United States has some practical knowledge, as well as sufficient capital, and if he work much harder than the hardest-worked labourer does at home, he may expend his energies and turn his investment to pro- fitable account. The two who imagined the State of Iowa to be the paradise they were in quest of had some capital, a belief that farming could be done by proxy, and that a fortune could be gained by breeding and selling setters, two pups of an excellent breed being among their personal effects. They had made arrangements for obtaining copies of the English sporting papers, so as to be enabled to learn what was going on in the racing world, and to vary their other occupations with betting on some of the principal races. No long time would elapse before they would be more immediately concerned about how to get a dinner than about the future winner of the Derby. The pair whose destination was FEOM THE THAMES TO THE HUDSON. 35 Texas had many chances in their favour, having learned in Monte Video what cattle-rearing meant, and havino; also learned how to bear the ills of an emigrant's career. They had no apprehension about finding the roughest life in Texas worse than that which they had experienced in Monte Video, and they would probably find that the change from the turbulent South American State to the more tranquil State of Texas was one for the better. A young Frenchman was another passenger elate with the expectation of meeting with something profitable in the New World. He had been engaged in the production of beetroot sugar in France, and he fancied that he would either gain useful informa- tion, or perhaps discover a new field for his industry, by visiting the Southern States. He spoke English very well, and, unlike many of his countrymen and a few of mine, he was an excellent sailor. I was surprised that he did not take a passage in one of the French Transatlantic steamers, which sail weekly from Havre, till he told me the reason why he pre- ferred an English vessel. He had served as a volunteer in the late war, and was still liable to be called upon to serve in what is called the Territorial Army. Before he could take a passage in the French steamer, he would have to get written per- mission from the authorities, and to pay a consider- able fee for the necessary documents. Moreover, on landing at New York he would have to go to the French Consul, inform him of his address, and keep him informed of his addresses during his journey throughout the country. Provided this were done to the Consul's satisfaction, a permit would be given him when he desired to return home, and for this he D 2 36 COLUMCIA AND CANADA. would also have to pay a fee. The fees would amount to several pounds, and the formalities would occupy much time. All that had to be done to avoid the payment and the trouble was to take a ticket for London, and either embark there, or at any other port in a steamer sailing under the British flag. These regulations, though not so designed, have the practical effect of hindering many Frenchmen from proceeding to the United States in a French steamer. Among the other passengers was a retired publican, who had made enough money to live upon, and who was now carrying out a long-cherished wish by visiting the United States with his wife and son. He was a quiet, sensible, well-conducted man : his conversation was in good taste, and his manners were unobjectionable. His son, who had probably been reared in the public-house, was a living speci- men of Mi\ Punch's " 'Arry." The citizens of the United States had plenty of representatives on board. A cattle-breeder of Pennsylvania and his wife were types of what are known as Pennsylvanian Dutch. They had a varied assortment of prize animals in the hold, from pigs down to collie dogs. They were the first specimens of Pennsylvanian Dutch I had met, and the impres- sion they made on me was singularly favourable to their prize animals. In striking contrast was a family from the State of Massachusetts. The parents had spent three years in Germany and Bel- gium in order that their children might learn German and Frencli. They were all marked by that good breeding and refinement which is the distinctive characteristic of the educated classes in Massachu- setts, and which is never more conspicuous than FROM THE THAMES TO THE HUDSON. 37 when contrasted with the manners and tastes of those who inhabit some other parts of the Union. A family from New York supplied this contrast in a lesser degree than the Pennsylvanian couple. They boasted of their possessions, and were confident that nowhere but in New York could all the elegancies of life be seen and enjoyed. After having spoken of the luxury in which they lived at home, they would recount how cheaply they had contrived to live in some French towns ; an uncharitable person might have entertained a suspicion whether the home luxury was not a figment of their imaginations. Another New Yorker, who had left London after many years' residence there as a stockbroker, was returning to try his fortune in his native city. He was a very pious man, at least in conversation, and he spent much time in giving good advice to the steerage passengers, and bewailing the wickedness of the human race. He had three children, one of whom, a boy of about eight, was the most mis- chievous child I ever saw ; he had not profited by parental training. A theological student from New York, who had finished his studies in Germany, was well primed with comments on men and things : but frequent attacks of sea-sickness hindered him from giving his fellow-passengers the full benefit of his acquirements. Two gentlemen were very com- municative about each other and very mysterious about their own affairs. They had met before in an ocean steamer, and on that occasion one of them went by another name. One volunteered the in- formation that the other was a private detective. It is not unusual for an Atlantic steamer to carry a passenger or two who journeys under compulsion 38 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. ratter than for pleasure, and these passengers may be classed in that category. An ex-lieutenant in the navy was another puzzling passenger. He had seen a good deal of service in the Pacific, and had a fund of interesting pieces of information. Why he left the navy at an early age, when his prospect of further promotion was very favourable, he could not clearly explain. The severe attacks of rheumatism from which he had suffered did not account for his resignation so completely as he seemed to think. Rheumatism is an insidious and debilitating malady, but its symptoms are not, so far as I am aware, similar to those which may be caused by an extreme liking for alcohol. Several ladies were going to join their husbands, taking their children with them. One was bound for the far distant city of Winnipeg, the capital of the new Canadian Province of Mani- toba. Another was going to St. Louis. A Southern lady, who had the distinction of being a poet of note in her own land, was returning home with the plan of a new poem in her head. A Boston lady looked upon the poet with no friendly eye, while the poet was painfully candid in expressing her opinion of the Northerners who had beggared her in the war. A Dutch Protestant clergyman supplied another element of novelty, while four French Canadians, one of whom was a Roman Catholic priest, con- tributed still further to diversify the gathering. These Canadians had been absent fi^om home for ten months. They had visited England, France, Italy, and the Holy Land, and seen much that was new and strange ; they were all the more impressed with the spectacle because it was the first time they had left their native country. A bitter disappoint- FROM THE THAMES TO THE HUDSON. 39 ment awaited them in France. They had looked forward to feeling themselves perfectly at home there, and they found that they were much more at home in England. Though French was their native language, yet they had little in common with French- men. They were struck with the backwardness of the French peasantry as cultivators of the soil, and pitied the way in which the latter lived. They told me that the cattle of a Quebec farmer were better housed than many peasant proprietors in France. With farming in England, and more particularly in Scotland, they were much impressed. Probably they returned home feeling far more satisfied to live under the British flag than they were when Europe was unknown to them by personal observation. When Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley crossed the Atlantic in the steerage of the ScreWy they were as thoroughly separated from the cabin passengers as they would have been at the bottom of the sea. Indeed, nowhere is the distinction be- tween classes more clearly marked and more rigorously maintained than on board an ocean-going vessel. Were this not the rule, the horrors depicted in Mr. Maguire's " Irish in America " would em- bitter the life of many a poor and forlorn female emigrant. It is with good reason, then, that com- munication between male cabin passengers, the crew, and female steerage passengers is the subject of strict regulation. Desiring to inspect the steerage accommodation on board the Canada, and receiving the requisite permission, I went over that part of the steamer along with one of the officers. As many as 600 passengers could be housed there. They receive treatment of which they could not well 40 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. complain in return for the small sum paid as passage money. The food is abundant and well cooked ; in- deed, the cooking galley is a pattern of cleanliness, being as carefully adapted for its purpose as that in which the meals of the cabin passengers are pre- pared. Many a steerage passenger fares better on board such a steamer than he ever did on shore. A hospital is provided for the ailing of either sex ; in the female hospital special provision is made for the arrival of sea-born passengers. Unmarried women are under the care of a stewardess, and are carefully separated from the men. Married couples have a place set apart for them; a great improvement might easily be made in their case. Eight couples occupy as many berths; there is not even such a conventional separation between these couples as was effected, after a formal treaty, between Sterne and the lady traveller with whom he had to occupy the same room during his " Sentimental Journey " through Savoy. To effect a separation would cost any Steamship Company little, while it would contribute largely towards the comfort of the poorer married pas- sengers. Another change, easily effected, would benefit married and single alike. They have as much fresh water served out to them as they can desire, either for drinking or washing purposes ; but they cannot wash either themselves or their clothes, except in the tin pannikins in which they obtain the water. An enclosed place, furnished with a basin and a supply of water, might be provided in which they could perform their ablutions or cleanse their clothes in comparative comfort. Though the lot of a steerage passenger on board such a steamer FROM THE THAMES TO THE HUDSON. 41 as the Canada is more enviable tlian that of a cabin passenger on board the sailing ships in which all passengers used to cross the ocean, yet the changes I have indicated would be decided im- provements. After three-fourths of the distance which sepa- rates the Old World from the New have been traversed, the passengers are requested to fill up a paper, for the information of the United States' Government, with particulars of their names, ages, places of birth, places of abode, their objects in visiting the Republic, and with declarations whether they have been there before. I have already noted and commented on this requirement.' It is one which still seems to me extraordinary. In Russia, a foreigner is not surprised to be called upon to inform the police whence he comes, whither he is directing his steps, for what purpose he is journey- ing to and fro, how long he has lived in the world, in what place he first saw the light, in what county he has a home, what is the colour of his hair and eyes, how his nose is shaped and his mouth is formed, and what is the exact distance between the crown of his head and the soles of his feet. The visitor to the United States may be pardoned for thinkmg that he ought to be permitted to land there without being treated as if he entered Russia. The absurdity of the demand is paralleled by the in- adequacy of the information supplied. Ladies generally delegate to the Purser the duty of filling up the papers which concern them ; the Purser is guided in his task by the flattering fiction that the ^ " Westward by Rail : a Journey to San Francisco and Back." Third Edition, pp. 42, 43. 42 COLUMBIA AND CANA.DA. maximum age of a lady passenger is twenty-five. Till recently the owners or masters of vessels were required to pay two dollars for every passenger whom they landed for the first time within the terri- tory of the State of New York, and to give bonds that they would not land any one who, being poor, as well as friendless and homeless, might seek an asylum there, and become a charge upon the public. The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that it is unconstitutional for any State to exact the payment for passengers who set their feet on American soil for the first time, and to enforce a rule against the conveyance of destitute persons. The decision is a creditable one. I am unable to reconcile it, however, with one delivered by the same august Tribunal in 1845 when, after an argument from Webster in sup- port of the practice, it decided that the City of New York had a right to impose a tax upon immigrants.^ In the absence of an explanation it must be held that the Supreme Court has given contradictory decisions on the same point of constitutional law. The incidents of the voyage were of the usual kind. Imaginative passengers saw spouting whales where other people could discover nothing but the crests of waves. It blew a gale for a couple of days, and nervous passengers were apprehensive lest the vessel should go to the bottom at any moment. One passenger made the discovery that the screw, having got loose, was kept afiixed to the shaft by a rope, and that, as the Canada had no bulwarks and was lightly laden, the risk of destruction was very great. The only screw really loose was in this - Sir Charles Ly ell's " Travels iu North America." Second Series, vol. i. p. 263. "FROM THE THAMES TO THE HUDSON. 43 passenger's head. Worse than strong contrary- winds, which merely delayed our progress, were the days of dense fog and of rain. But at last the pilot comes on board; the holder of the number considered unlucky being the winner of the sweep- stake based on the number of the pilot's boat ; old newspapers are received and read with eagerness by passengers who have been several days at sea, and who, for lack of the morning and evening newspapers, have little to talk about. Sandy Hook is passed, and the steamer drops her anchor off Staten Island. The green trees and pleasant-looking villas on shore are most attractive to spectators who are tired of the sight of the waste of waters, and who know nothing of the ague which is the scourge of this pretty island. The health officer next appears, and finds every- thing in good order. A steward who cut his hand when drawing a cork out of a bottle, and a sailor who injured his face by falling down the hold, are the only invalids on board, even the lady who suf- fered from bottled stout having been pronounced convalescent by the doctor. Then the wharf on the Hudson River is reached ; acquaintanceships are broken, never, perhaps, to be renewed ; hearty fare- wells are said to Captain Sumner and the other excellent officers of a splendid and comfortable ship; warm thanks are specially given to Mr. Bell, the Purser, for much courtesy and attention, and the passengers nerve themselves for an interview with the Custom-House officers of New York. 44 III. THE EMFIEE CITY. In tlie land of freedom, upwards of two thousand articles are liable to custom's duty. Before landing, the traveller has to make out a list of the contents of his luggage. After landing, he is taken before a magistrate in order to affirm upon oath that the declaration which he made in writing is trustworthy. Having sworn to the truth of the statement, an officer is then deputed to search the traveller's luggage for smuggled goods. Either the declaration or the search is unnecessary. The visitor to the Republic, as well as any citizen who returns to it, is treated as a probable perjurer. Twice have I passed unscathed through the ordeal of the New York Custom House ; on neither occasion could I have suffered harm, for nothing in my possession could be declared contraband. This time, the officer asked me to unlock a box containing nay wife's wearing apparel ; before searching it, he asked me whether I was an American Citizen ; I replied that I had no claim to so honourable a title, that I was a harmless traveller bent upon journeying through the United States and Canada, and that I looked forward with pleasure to seeing at Philadelphia the finest International Exhibition which had ever THE EMPIRE CITY. 45 been formed ; thereupon he quietly remarked, " Guess that will do," closed the box, declining to search any other articles of luggage. The luggage belongino- to fellow-passengers, who had the distinction of being citizens of the United States, was subjected to a more troublesome examination. One of them had to part with all his spare cash in order to pay duty upon a present which he had brought to his mother. Another, who had declared on board the Canada thab he considered the tariff of his country iniquitous and smuggling a legitimate protest, had his luggage ransacked most conscientiously, whilst his wife and children stood by and groaned as payment of duty was demanded for one article after another. To be permitted to leave the Custom House with one's luggage intact is a triumph ; to drive to a hotel with- out being overcharged is an impossibility. This is no new experience. Writing in the year 1828, Mr. James Stuart says, " The hackney coaches are only constructed for four persons, very nice-looking with- out and within, generally driven by Irishmen, or men of colour, who are, we found, as apt to overcharge strangers as in other places." ^ A curious fiction prevails to the effect that the fares are calculated according to a fixed and authorized tariff. The New York " hackmen " treat this with ridicule. The only tariff* which I have been able to discover existed in their fertile imaginations, and baffled those persons who were accustomed to old-world rules of computa- tion. Once I tried to make a bargain before starting, and pointed out to an intelligent citizen that the sum he asked was four times greater than that to which ' " Three Years in North America," vol. i. p. 24, 4G COLUMniA AND CANADA. he was legally entitled ; Ins response was, " Guess you can leave it then." On the present occasion, I had to pay four dollars for being driven from the wharf of the National line to the Sturtevant House in Broadway. One-fourth of the sum would be con- sidered dear in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or London, and not more than one-fourth would be asked by the well-regulated " hackmen " of the capital of Massachusetts. Many sympathizing citizens were good enough to '* guess " that I had been shame- fully overcharged, but they were unable to suggest what I ought to have done in order to pay less. Indeed, it appears to be the custom in New York to denounce the extortionate demands of "hackmen," and to submit to them. No one takes a "hack" unless compelled to do so. It is easy to get from one part of the city to another for a trifle in a street car or an omnibus. But the stranger who steps on shore encumbered with luggage is unable to dispense with the " hackman's " costly help, and, as strangers are the chief sufferers, New Yorkers can bear the infliction with tolerable equanimity. Since I saw New York in 18G9, a good many things have happened there, as well as in other places. Most important among them, in the opinion of the citizens, is the dislodgment of Mr. Tweed and his friends from public offices of trust and responsibility. This is regarded as a civic revolution brought about, at the instigation of the Neiv York Times, by the united efforts of honest men. It was confidently anticipated that the era of lavish expenditure and of knavish appropriation of tlie public funds, of a system of government maintained by plundering the rich and corrupting the poor, had definitely closed, and THE EMPIRE CITY. 47 that an era of efficient, economical and laudable administration was about to begin. A lesson liad been taught to tbe wrong-doers. Mr. Tweed having been convicted of malversation, was ordered to re- fund the enormous sum of $6,000,000. He managed to escape from prison, but has been recaptured, and will have to make restitution in order to regain his liberty. A stranger does not see much improvement in the external condition of the city. The streets are as badly paved now as they were in the days when much of the money charged for doing public work remained in the pockets of the contractors. How profitable it must once have been, and may yet be to undertake to pave the streets of New York is shown by the disclosures made during a suit in the Supreme Court against the Nicholson Pavement Company. A particular piece of work was executed by the Company for the sum of $1,500,000; the nett profit amounted to $775,000. When the return is so large, it is not wonderful that the pavement should be rather uneven, and in constant need of repair. The Court House, upon which $12,000,000 were nominally expended, while Mr. Tweed was in power, is still unfinished. The New York ratepayer has not profited by the substitution of a city government, which was to be a pattern of purity, for one which was infamous for roguery. In 1870, the debt was nearly $55,000,000 ; now, including the floating debt, it is upwards of $161,000,000. No other city in the world, except Paris, has so large a debt ; that of London is but a trifle in comparison. It is clear that men who were to be model administrators have been able to spend money as lavishly as their peculating predecessors ; 48 rOLUMBIA AND CANADA. it is doubtful whether the difference between the two sets of administrators is obvious to those who pay rates ; certainly, it cannot be detected by the stranger who paces the badly paved streets. The Central Park, which is not under the direct control of the Municipality, is a striking contrast to the other objects of public interest which are main- tained out of the public purse. In the extent of wood and water, smooth turf and flower-beds, and in the roads kept in excellent repair, this Park has few equals. It is none the less attractive though the statue of Mr. Tweed, which some enthusiastic admirers desired to set up either there or in the city at the cost of the ratepayers, is still absent. Instead of this statue, the public are provided with a Menagerie gratis. The collection of wild beasts comprises a bison, a goat, a couple of parrots, several monkeys, a lion, tiger, and leopard, and many ordinary beasts and birds of prey. The lion, tiger, and leopard appear exceedingly unhappy. They are shown, not in dens where they may retire from public gaze, and take refuge from affectionate demonstrations conveyed by the points of umbrellas and sticks, but in cages barred all round, and placed so that they can be approached on all sides. In the last half-yearly report of Mr. Conkling, the Director of the Menagerie, there are some interesting statistics about the cost of maintaining the animals. An Elephant is the most expensive, its keep causing an outlay of $250 a year. The grizzly Bear and the Camel come next ; one of them can be kept for $150. A very fine Lion, with the special qualification of being a good roarer, can be kept for the small outlay of $125. A Jaguar costs $104, a Zebra $75 for THE EMPIRE CITY. 49 yearly keep, while the trifling sum of $63 is sufficient to maintain a Hyena, Leopard, or Puma. The number of animals at the end of 1875 was 626 ; at the end of 1873, when I believe the Menagerie to have been established, the number was 455 ; thus the increase in the course of three years was 171. The newspaper in which I read these statistics contained a letter penned by Macaulay, and predict- ing future woe for the Republic when the population grew dense, and thousands, who were unable to get dinners, were face to face in angry mood with fellow- citizens who were unable to digest the sumptuous dinners prepared for them. Then the institutions of the Republic would be subjected to a strain which might prove fatal to them. Allowing for the pro- gressive increase of living things in this growing country, the wild animals in the Central Park Menagerie will number about half a million at the time when there are two hundred persons to the square mile, and it is difficult to procure food. This prospect is more appalling than any which has alarmed those persons who fear what the future will bring forth in a country governed by the democracy. Yet, though many have been led by the vaticinations of Macaulay to indulge in forebodings about what may occur, no one has paid heed to the more terrible state of things which would ensue if half a million of wild beasts were famishing. The danger in the one case is as real as in the other. Starving democrats may try and eat the wild beasts, or the ravening beasts may feast upon the poor democrats. I leave the result to those persons who possess a vivid imagination, and who are prepared to foretell what Avill happen a hundred or a thousand years hence : E 50 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. as I do not know what will occur then, I shall avoid being mistaken by declining to prophecy. Complaints about the scarcity of work are common among artificers, yet there is no lack of new buildings, and of new churches in particular. In walking along Fifth Avenue I began to count the number of church spires, and found that they were too many to be kept in remembrance. Some of the new Presby- terian Churches are imposing structures ; they are surpassed, however, by the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Patrick, a marble edifice of vast proportions and an efi'ective architectural design. The material used is white marble. The cost must be enormous. The money required is readily forthcoming, much of it being contributed by Irish servant-girls, who freely part with a portion of their wages for the honour of their faith. Internally, some of these churches are as remarkable as they are in external appearance. The Rev. Dr. McGibbon, who came from Australia to the United States, returned home amazed at what he had seen in New York. The following is the judgment which he passed upon Dr. Hall's Church there, a judgment which, if rather severe, cannot be said to be charged with the narrow prejudices that might predominate in the mind of a clergyman whose home and sphere of clerical duty had lain in the Mother Country : "I submit that the magnificence of the temple in which Dr. Hall ministers, its gorgeous exterior, its massive steeple, its elaborate windows, its luxurious pews, its richly- carpeted and upholstered stairs and seats, its skylight, its polished wood, and its unique everything, costing $2,000,000, ought to be condemned as a sinful waste, and a practical notice to the poor that ' here the THE EMPIRE CITY. 51 Gospel and the ordinances of Christ are intended for the rich.'" "While churches have risen for the pro- pagation of established creeds, a new religion has been offered for the consideration of New Yorkers. In Paris and London, the believers in Comte have lonsf held services such as he enjoined, and practised the religion which he devised. Only now has New York been favoured in the same way, for not till this year has the religion of Humanity been formally incorporated and classed among creeds recognized by law. In the articles of incorporation its objects are said to be " to develope and extend a knowledge of the synthetic and religious nature of science and humanity; second, to preserve them, instead of theology, as the basis and substance of religion ; and third, to practise and promote such religion as the foundation of religious and social duties of human welfare and progress." Till I heard of the death of Baron de Palm, and learned the nature of the funeral service performed over his remains before burning them at a more convenient season, I was unaware that a Theosophical Society existed in New York, and that its design was to revive some of the rites of the Pagan Egyptians. The High Priest is Colonel Olcott. The service was held on Sunday in the Grand Lodge Room of the Masonic Temple. At the head of the coffin was a bronze cross with a serpent twined round it; a censer containing incense was at the foot ; seven coloured candles were burning upon it ; the incense and the candles being supposed to symbolize the ancient Sun-worship. When the service began, seven men dressed in black robes, and with palms in their hands, ranged themselves behind E 2 52 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. tlie coffin ; an Orphic liymn was then sung, one verse will suffice for a specimen of the whole : — " Oh Thou that givest light from high, Eternal Ether, Father's mind — Fire-sea that feed'st majestic suns. Let him immortal he." The Theosophic Litany, bearing a resemblance to compositions of the kind which have been framed by the founders of new creeds, was then repeated by Colonel Olcott, who afterwards delivered an address. The following passage will convey a fair understand- ing of the views of this strange body : — " This Society is neither religious, nor charitable, nor scientific. Its objects are to inquire, not to teach, and its mem- bers consist of men of various creeds and beliefs. Theology means the revealed knowledge of God, and Theosophy the direct knowledge of God. The one asks us to believe what some one else had seen and heard, and the other tells us to see and hear what we can for ourselves. Theosophy teaches that by cultivation of his powers a man may be inwardly illumined, and get thereby a knowledge of his own God-like qualities. It believes in no death-bed repentance. It considers the ruffian who stands under the gallows a ruffian still, though twenty prayers may have been uttered over him." Overlooking the Central Park is a plain but imposing structure just completed, and known as the Lenox Library. It is designed to contain the manuscripts, works of art, and books collected by its founder, and now made accessible to the public in this building. Mr. Lenox is a merchant who has devoted much of his fortune to collecting^ rare and i THE EMPIEE CITY. 53 useful works in art and literature, and who has decided to render what has been the amusement of his life a valuable possession for his fellow-citizens. He certainly has done better than the late Mr. Stewart, whose only memorial is a large store and a white marble palace in Broadway. Many years were spent in accumulating his wealth and building the palace in which he died ; the memory of both will soon pass away and his own name be forgotten, because he failed to devote a share of his colossal fortune to some object of public interest. The bitterest disappointment which the New Yorkers have had for many a day was to learn that the Mr. Stewart of whom they were proud, and whom they were accustomed to cite as a product of their unrivalled institutions, should have omitted to assign any part of his fortune for the adornment or benefit of the city. The office of the New York Herald, a conspicuous marble edifice, was one of the sights when I was last here. The ofiice of the Neiv Yorh Trihune is now a counter-attraction. A splendid view can be had from the upper windows of the lofty tower which crowns the Trihune building. Seldom have I seen a more skilfully-planned and carefully-finished structure than this. The lower floors are let out as business offices ; the upper ones are devoted to the editorial and printing departments of the newspaper. The persons who grudge the time and breath con- sumed in ascending the long flight of stairs can go in a twinkling from bottom to top in a steam lift, wiiicli is constantly ascending and descending. The Trihune has undergone great changes during late years. The death of Mr. Horace Greeley, its 54 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. founder and editor, was not followed by the deteriora- tion in the character of the paper which was generally but erroneously expected. Its loss has been a gain. The crochets and personalities in which Mr. Greeley delio^hted have ceased to characterize it. Public topics are now discussed in its columns on purely public grounds. Mr. Wliitelaw Reid, a representative journalist of the modern school, who is the present editor, has extended the influence of the newspaper by his splendid supervising and critical faculty, and largely increased its weight as an organ of cultivated opinion. The letters of its well-known London Cor- respondent, Mr. G. W. Smalley, have contributed in a marked degree to elevate the power of the Tribune. During the Franco-German War no other journal in the United States was better supplied with in- telligence; I have heard Mr. Smalley's services in this respect pronounced exceptional by a mag- nate of the London daily press, and Mr. Smalley himself hailed as " The Napoleon of journalism." The effectiveness of the letters of the London cor- respondent of the Tribune is enhanced by the fact that the minutest shortcomings of English public men, and the slightest failings in English social life, are unsparingly detailed and condemned by his pungent and lively pen. The journals of New York are many in number and varied in excellence. I have already men- tioned the Tribune, which is one of the most notable, I may name a few others which are equally conspicuous ; to enumerate and discuss them all will require the compass of a volume. The Herald^ which pants after a reputation for omnipresence, is foremost in circulation and popular favour; the THE EMPIRE CITY. 55 organ of no party, its support is accounted a great gain ; when, with some hesitation, it finally declared for the maintenance of the Union, President Lincoln declared that his hands were strengthened, and that the good cause had acquired an ally which was worth an army. The World, which represents the Democratic party, is written with great vigour ; the late Charles Sumner, who detested its politics, told me that he admired the literary finish which fre- quently characterized its leading articles. The Times has recently been the uncompromising advo- cate of the extreme section of the Republican party ; it distinguished itself by unearthing the misdeeds of Mr. Tweed and his accomplices, and acquired an amount of credit which is gradually diminishing ; in the opinion of bitter patriots it did not deserve all the praise which it once received, seeing that it was then under the editorship of an Englishman. The Sun prints what people in general hesitate to utter; it is the terror of those persons who shun notoriety, and the delight of scandal-mongers. Quite as noteworthy as any of these daily journals and more influential over cultured opinion than all of them combined, is the weekly Nation, which combines the best qualities of the Saturday Revieio and the Spectator, which treats political, social, and economic topics with a freshness of tone which is most gratifying, and an acerbity which does not always give pleasure; though in- discreet admirers may unreasonably contend tliat it is both infallible and omniscient, yet no judicious person can deny that it is exceptionally well in- formed and that, on momentous questions of public policy, it is generall}^ in the right. In the press of the United States less attention is 56 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. paid to how a thing is said, than to the consideration whether the statement be worth printing. Pic- turesqueness of phrase is preferred to purity of style. Newspaper EngHsh in the Republic is often a com- pound of newly-coined words, which seems very fine to young writers, and which is not always intelligible to ordinary readers. One journal is distinguished among its contemporaries for striving to preserve the use of idiomatic and irreproachable English. This is the New York Evening Post, over which Mr. Bryant, one of the most notable among modern poets, exercised editorial authority for many years. He endeavoured to train his contributors to write well, and his example has been as salutary as his precept. I have obtained a copy of the list of words which he forbids his contributors to employ ; as I think it more instructive than a chapter of dissertation, I reprint it in full. Some of the faults of expression which Mr. Bryant censures are com- mitted by other journalists than those of the United States. The objectionable word or phrase is printed in italics : — MR. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT'S "INDEX EXPURGATORIUS." Ahove and over, for more than. Bagging, for capturing. Action, „ proceedint^ Balance, „ remainder. Afterwards, „ afterward. Banquet, „ dinner, or supper Aggregate, „ altogether, or Base, as a verb totaL Beat, for defeat. Artiste, „ artist. Bogus. Assembly man. „ member of As- Brother Jonathan, for United States sembly. Call attention. for direct attention. Aspirant. Casket, „ coffin. Auditorium, „ auditory. Claimed, „ asserted. Authoress. Collided. Average, „ ordinary. Collateral, „ collateral security Advocation, „ vocatiou. Commence „ begin. THE EMPIRE CITY. 57 Conclusion, for close, or end. Congressman, ,, member of Con- gress. Cortege, „ procession. Cotemporary, „ contemporary. Cowple, „ two. Decade, „ ten years. Depot, „ station. Darkey, „ negro. Day before ijesterday, for the day be- fore yesterday. Debut. Decease, as a verb. Democracy, applied to a political party. Develope, for expose. Devouring element, for fire. Donate. Emjployi. Endorse, for approve. En route, " Esq." Fall, for autumn. Freshet, ,, flood. Oents, „ gentlemen. Graduates, „ is graduated. Greenbacks, „ Treasury notes. Hardly, „ scarcely. "Hon." House, for House of Eepresentatives. Humbug. Inaugurate, for begin. Indebtedness, „ debt. In our midst. Interment, „ burial. Interred, „ buried. Is being done, and all passives of this form. Issue, for question or subject. Item, for particle, extract, or para- graph. Jeopardize. John Bull, for Great Britain. Jubilant, „ rejoicing. Juvenile, ,, boy. Lady, „ wife. Last, ,, latest. Lengthy, „ long. Leniency, „ lenity. Loafer. Loan or loaned, ,, lend or lent. Located. Majority, relating to places or cir- cumstances, for most. Materially, for largely or greatly. Mrs. President, Mrs. Governor, Mrs. General, and all similar titles. Mutual, for common. Nominee, „ candidate. Notice, „ observe, or mention. Numerous, as applied to any noun, save a noun of multitude. Official, for officer. On yesterday. Our first page, for first page of the Evening Post. Oration. Over his signature. Pants, for pantaloons. Parties, „ persons. Partially, „ partly. Past two iveeJcs, for last two weeks, and all similar expressions relating to a definite time. Poetess. Portion, for part. Posted, „ informed. Primaries, „ primary meetings. Prior to, „ before. Progress, „ advance, or growth. Proximity, „ nearness. Quite, prefixed to good, large, &c. Residence, for house. Haid, „ attack. Realized, „ obtained. Record, „ character, or re- putation. Reliable, „ trustworthy. Repudiate, „ reject, or disown. Resident, „ inhabitant. Retire, as an active verb. Rev., for the Eev. R(>^e, „ the part. Roughs. Rowdies. Seaboard, „ sea-coast. Secesh. Section, „ district, or region. Sensation, „ noteworthy event. Spending, „ passing. Standpoint, „ point of view. 58 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. Start, for begin, or estab- lish. State, „ say. Stoji-ping, „ staying, or so- jt>uniing. Siihsequentlij, „ afterward. Taboo. Take action, „ act, or do. Talent, „ talents, or ability. Talented. Tapis. Ta/riff, for rates of faro, or schedule of rates. Telegrams, ,, despatches. The deceased. The United States, as a singular noun. Those wanting, for those who want. Those who, „ those persons who. Transpire, „ occur. Try an experiment, for make an ex- periment. Via, for by the way of Vicinity, „ neighbourhood. Wall Street slang generally : " bulls, bears, long, short, flat, cor- ner, tight, moribund, coma- tose, &c. We are mistaken in, for we mistake. Wharves, for wharfs. Which, with a noun, as "which man." ]\"oidd seem, for seems. I turn from the grave topic of newspaper writing and editing to the more popular one of amuse- ments. If the reader had been present at one of Gil- more' s concerts, he or she would have enjoj^ed a great treat. When I was formerly in New York I went to one of Thomas's excellent concerts held close to the Central Park. The situation of the building in which they were held is out of the way; the hall in which Gilmore's concerts took place is very ac- cessible, being close to Madison Square, in the heart of the city. Here it was that M. Offenbach gave the entertainments of which he chronicles the success, and which are understood to have afforded great pleasure to every one except the gentleman who was responsible for the necessary payments. This concert-room was formerly the terminus of the Harlem Railway. It had the look of Cremorne Gardens or the Jardin Mabille under a glass roof. Rows of coloured lights illumined the interior ; fountains of water delighted the eye and cooled the air, while shrubs of all climes and kinds diversified the ground. Provision was made for visitors who THE EMPIRE CITY. 59 desired to eat or drink. Half a dollar was charged for admission, the company being as select as the most fastidious could desire. A programme of the performance, handed to each person on entering, informed him or her not only what pieces were to be played, but also contained advertisements telling how to make money without trouble. I learned from them that the cost of a fortune in the Kentucky Lottery is only twelve dollars ; on payment of this sum I shall receive $100,000 provided I draw the first prize. Should I consider the promises of Spain more seductive and trustworthy than those of the State of Kentucky, I have but to pay twenty dollars in order to receive the same sum, provided I were to win the first prize in the lottery at Havanna. If the reader's faith in lotteries be cold and un- sympathetic, he will find other things to entertain him in this sheet. An account is given of Mr. Gil- more, who originated these concerts. With the modesty of genius, Mr. Gilmore frankly avows that nothing can equal the enthusiasm which he feels for his art, that he became a musician at the early age of eight, and that he "not only handles with skill, many of the instruments in his organization, but is also a master on the cornet." Be it noted that in quoting the last sentence, I confess my inability to understand it. Mr. Gilmore recently told Mr. R. M. Davey, " the brilliant and accomplished editor of the Spirit of the Times,'" that his " heart is ever and entirely in his work ; in his mission, as he likes to look upon it, and that he is determined to do his duty to his ideal and his country." In fulfilliuo- this task, neither his ideal nor his country has been properly grateful ; an intimation to this eff'ect is 60 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. given in a becoming and resigned spirit : " Let the world say what it may about me, my pockets are hght, but ray heart is full of gratitude to Providence and to the people for the assistance I have received, and am constantly receiving in forwarding the object of my life — the propagation of good music in America." Certainly the concert which I attended was excellent in every respect, the selections being well chosen, and the execution beino; finished and effective. The sinofingf of the " Young Apollo Club " deservedly aroused the en- thusiasm of the audience ; the youths who composed it had been carefully trained, and they rendered the several pieces with taste and accuracy. On the whole, Mr. Gilmore's concerts are worthy of high praise. I had the pleasure of visiting the exhibition of paintings by native artists at the National Academy of Design and, at a later day, of seeing the Loan Collection of paintings shown in the same building. Both exhibitions were fraught with instruction, the lesson taught by the former being the less flattering of the two. Many of the paintings were worthy of praise; the}?^ displayed technical skill, much mental resource and elaborated cleverness. But the best had no national impress ; all the artists appeared to have studied, or to have imitated the processes and peculiarities prevailing at Diisseldorf or Munich, Rome or Paris. From the higliest point of view this is not a drawback, but a distinct merit ; it is as meritorious to be a cosmopolitan artist as a cosmopolitan author. Yet, it is considered a demerit in a United States' citizen to show that no pent-up Utica contracts his powers, and that he is a citizen of the world. Hence, to pronounce the productions THE EMPIEE CITY. 61 of United States artists deficient in national pecu- liarities is to pass wliat tlieir countrymen regard as a fatal censure. JSTot by way of blame, but rather as a subject of congratulation, must I express the opinion that artists of the Republic have shown how they can adapt their powers to circumstances, and produce good pictures which are free from the stamp and mannerism of a single form of training, and the traditions of a single school. The Loan Collection was formed out of the choicest works in the possession of private persons in New York. The works of 221 artists were ex- hibited. Of these, 110 were Frenchmen, 41 were citizens of the United States, 31 were Germans, 17 were Romans, 12 were Belgians, 5 were Englishmen, 2 were Austrians, 2 were Scotsmen, and 1 was a Rus- sian. These figures prove that Modern French art is most to the taste of New York connoisseurs. The exhibition, which was a very good one, would doubtless serve to educate the public taste. The question of getting rapidly and cheaply from one part of this city to another has long been the subject of desire and suggestion. The omnibuses and street cars do not suffice for the conveyance of impatient passengers. It has been proposed to con- struct an Underground Railway, as in London, but the opposition to this scheme has proved insur- mountable. Other schemes have been advocated in the newspapers. What is styled an Elevated Railway seems to enjoy the greatest amount of support and approval. The rails are affixed to brackets extending laterally, at the height of about ten feet above the ground, from the sides of pillars placed, at short distances apart, along tlie outer 02 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. edge of the foot pavement. The engines and carriages overhang the rails, so that running off them is impossible. Excepting the noise made by a passing train, the plan has no obvious drawback. Yet such railways have many opponents, and it may be some time before they are generally introduced. The more conspicuous changes in New York since my last visit are that Mr. Tweed has been deposed and imprisoned, and Mr. James Fisk, Jr., shot; that other notorious citizens have carried their ill-gotten wealth to Europe, where they can live in splendour and display what they consider patriotism by scorning the effete and antiquated institutions of the country in which they have found an asylum ; that the city debt has been trebled while the city remains a speci- men of mal-administration ; that two new religions have been provided for the citizens whose piety had waxed cold, or who craved for novelty on Sundays ; that a handsome and commodious post ofi&ce, many beautiful churches, a central railway station, several new hotels, a public library and a newspaper office, both of which may be styled monumental, have been built ; that wild beasts have been collected for ex- hibition in the Central Park ; that an aquarium has been erected in Broadway, and that a railway carries passengers above the streets, instead of, as in London, underneath them. G3 IV. THE CITY OF BEOTHERLY LOVE. If a stranger wislied to increase the number of per- sons who considered him ahke presumptuous and incompetent, he would undertake to assign the foremost place to a particular city of the United States. Rigid impartiality, or unanswerable reasons would avail him nothing; asj-ainst the accusation of prejudice and folly, nor would they shield him from the perfect hatred of the citizens of every other city than the one named, while the citizens of the chosen city would exhibit no special gratitude, for they would contend that their dwelling-place had only received its just due. I was not surprised, then, to find that the pre-eminence accorded to Philadelphia in the year of national jubilee had not been meekly acquiesced in throughout the Union. I read in many newspapers that other places considered their historic titles to be equal to those of Philadelphia, and, if this were disputed, that their arrangements for accommodating and entertaining visitors, were much more complete and extensive than those of the city of Brotherly Love ; I also read articles in Phila- delphian newspapers deprecating the comments in their contemporaries, more particularly those of New York, and rebutting the unfair charge that the 64 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. visitors to Philadelphia would be the prey of extor- tionate hotel-keepers, whilst figuring as pilgrims at the shrine of Independence. Possibly some cities in the land of Islam envy the fame of Mecca, and think that they could most appropriately guard so precious a relic as the Caaba; and it may be that some Indian cities are convinced of their claims to be pro- nounced as holy and attractive to devotees as Benares. It is certain, however, than any visitor to the United States wjio desires to keep on good terms with his friends and acquaintances in New York, Boston, and every other place of note or notoriety, ought to be measured in his eulogies of Philadelphia. If anxious to make friends, or to retain friendship with the citizens of Philadelphia, he should not hesitate about praising their city. An American loyalist, writing in 1776, says that "in one point, not contented with being not agreeable, the Philadelphians are almost disagreeable ; the almost universal topic of conversation among them is the superiority of Philadelphia over every other spot of the globe." ^ A visit to the United States is not indispensable for discovering manifestations of the like spirit of municipal pride and jealousy. If the praises of Edinburgh were loudly sounded in Glasgow, or the pretensions of Glasgow vigorously urged in Edin- burgh ; if Belfast were lauded in Dublin, or Dublin held up in Belfast as a model ; if Liverpool, Man- chester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham should be told that they were but rush-lights in comparison with London, or if a Londoner should be informed that other cities in the United Kingdom were more ' Notes and Querie, , o wm cause him to feel regret, when, too late, that he had not been more prudent m h>s J"" • JJ^ ^ fancies that this is either an exaggeration or else ra his father is too -1^* *° ^"°- f ^^iTas himself. He sees, moreover, that his fathei has So a good old age, is highly respected, is very S nd sfems none the worse for any -a>-- -- committed in early life. He may even persuade hun- se'Tbat indulgence in youthful follies has been of some advantage to his father. He determines, then follow the bent of his inclination as a fu-e M o sssr^Tsrit-^^^^ iX sound and perfectly disinterested, he might be spared many disappointments, and become an fu member of society. What is true of -^^ luak is equally true of nations; nations, however, esent good advice even more angrily ^^--/fV^'fl^g fhey fancy that it must be designed to lo-eyhe r status in the world, and lessen their power of out- ^tS,Te'mr;eason why new countries and colonies ^re attached to the Protective system ,s that THE PEOVINCE OF ONTARIO. 237 they regard it as an indispensable condition for enabling them to command respect. When it is said in the United States, " Let us protect native industry," the meaniug is, let us uphold our nationality, make ourselves seli-sufiBciug, and strive to render the na- tions of Europe dependent upon us. A policy of ex- clusion was carried out with a rigour in Japan which can never be surpassed elsewhere ; since the Japanese have reversed it, they have lost nothing either in power or in the world's esteem. In Canada, the cry of Protection for native industry means " Let us build up a nationality and become something different from our neighbours across the frontier and our brethren across the ocean." Here is a problem which is not to be solved by reasoning. A Free Trader, in the fullest and truest sense, desires the happiness of the greatest number; his sympathies are co-extensive with mankind. A Protectionist is satisfied if he can promote the material well-being of those among whom he was born; his sympathies are bounded by his country. Until the sentiment of the brotherhood of mankind shall prevail among a given people, and the ideal at which they aim be the general good of the world, it is hopeless to expect that they will exchange Protection for Free Trade, provided they believe that any personal and local gain is obtainable by discouraging the industry of all the rest of the human race. The sum of many conversations on this subject both in the United States and Canada is that Great Britain incurs as much censure and ex- cites as much envy for preaching Free Trade now as she did for practising Protection a century ago, and the circumstance that she adds example to precept is considered an aggravation of her present offence. 238 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. Sufficient attention lias not been given to a desire which has been expressed for the formal recognition of Canadian nationality. Much has been written about Canadian loyalty, which is certainly very exuberant and thoroughly sincere. I believe that if the Queen were to visit Canada, the popular demon- stration there would be astounding in its fervour. Yet to confound this loyalty, with blind admiration for the Motherland, is to commit a great and common mistake. Everything done in the parent State is followed in Canada with an interest which is neither felt nor professed in the United States; but, let any attempt be made to affect Canada in a way deemed unfair and prejudicial, and there will be no hesitation about objecting with remarkable emphasis. In truth, the loyalty of Canadians closely resembles that of those among their forefathers who suffered for being United Empire Loyalists. They are justly proud of the political system of which they form a part. In their eyes, that system is identified with stable government and general prosperity; it guarantees to them an amount of personal freedom, combined with personal security, such as no other system can give in greater measure. Their loyalty is intensified by the convic- tion that their own wishes, duly expressed, are the only limits to any demands they might prefer to the parent State for a change in their relation to it. Many of the younger men are more anxious than their seniors to take a step which, without rendering Canada wholly independent, would lead to her being regarded as a nation. They have a notion that their happiness would be increased were the land they live in represented at foreign Courts. Among THE PEOVINCE OP ONTAIilO. 239 tlie efforts they have made to make " Canada First" at once a cry and a policy, the foundation of a weekly journal called the Nation had a place, which was shared by an excellent periodical, the Canadian Monthly. The magazine has lived for several years, and will, I hope, survive many more ; but the journal succumbed, after a brilliant career of about three years. A thesis which both have upheld with great power of argument and variety of illustration is that, in the present condition of the Dominion, the ordi- nary party divisions are unmeaning and the prevail- ing aims are illogical ; that, since Confederation was effected, the former party objects have ceased to have any weight ; that statesmen ought now to strive, not for the mere possession of office, but for the advancement of the country as a whole, and for its consolidation as a political unit. In other words, the purpose is to promote a feeling of nationality at the expense of provincialism, to make men who are of French descent, and who speak the language of France, or who are the descendants of parents of English, Irish, or Scottish birth, think less of the land and nation from which their fathers came than of the country in which their fathers have found a happy home, and where they have seen the light of day, Canada being the chief object of their love, and her interests having the first place in their endea- vours. The design is not unworthy of encourage- ment and countenance from all well-wishers of this magnificent division of America, even though the ultimate object of those persons who urge its adop- tion might be open to criticism. The leading jour- nal of Canada has energetically combated the notions of men who assuredly merit a considerate 240 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. and attentive hearing. My own desire is tliat tlie two systems of government in North America should produce their best results. They differ in form rather than in substance ; yet, as the world is influenced by forms nearly as much as by abstract propositions, the difference is not unimportant. Some citizens of the United States were almost struck dumb with amazement when the Earl of Dufferin, the deservedly popular Governor-General of Canada, told them at Chicago that the Canadians were essentially a Democratic people. They had thought that no one living under what they style Monarchical institutions, or rather none who do not yield allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, can be actually free to exercise the maximum of self-government. They little know how slightly the Monarchical system of Great Britain corresponds with monarchy in its worst and most common mani- festation, and how little real difference there is between the Government of which they are proud and that which constitutes the essence of the British monarchy. They talk of the sovereignty of the people as the corner-stone of their institutions, and they seem unaware that the sovereignty of the peo- ple has been the ruling maxim and guiding star of leading British statesmen from the earliest days down to those in which we live. Not even in the United States do the people play the part of sovereigns more thoroughly than in the United Kingdom. It is true that the popular election of the head of the State is not observed in the same manner now as in the early days of English history, and that the elec- tion of a dynasty by Act of Parliament has super- seded the custom of ancient times. It is true, also. THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO. 241 that the British Constitution as it now exists, or rather as it is now interpreted, is very different from what it was supposed to be when a Henry or a Charles, a James or a George invoked its sanction in order to enforce his own designs against the wishes of the people. What has survived and tri- umphed is the principle which is its essence and the maxim which it inculcates, the principle that free- dom is the birthright of the people, the maxim that self-government is their duty. All that is best in the Constitution of the United States forms a part of the Constitution of Great Britain. The Canadians are conscious of these things, and they know that they have good reason to admire and glory in the form of government under which they enjoy freedom. They know also, that if all the colonists of America had been dealt with accordino- to the true theory of the British Constitution, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams might have declaimed in vain, and the contest for the independence of the United States would never have been provoked. Yet I fear that some young Canadians are inclined to indulge in ideas which have the drawback of being opposed alike to sound reason and the spirit of the age. If their desires were fulfilled, they would take a step backward in the science of government. What would they gain by having a Minister at Washing- ton and at each of the capitals of Europe ? This might give them the dignity of a nation, and it would also increase their taxes. In these days of intercommunication by steam and telegraph. Minis- ters Plenipotentiary and Ambassadors are ana- chronisms, and all nations would save much and lose nothing by abolishing legations and embassies. 242 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. A Consul can do whatever is requisite ; a Minister or Ambassador is but a costly ornament, and a new country ought to have the shrewdness to prefer what is useful to that which is purely ornamental. This may be accounted a matter of detail. Let it be granted that the new nation would dispense with representatives at foreign Courts. What else would it gain ? A flag ? The Canadians have got one. A distinctive name ? They enjoy that also. A Gover- nor or President elected by themselves ? It would not be impossible to obtain that without battling for independence. An army ? They have got as well- organized a defensive force as Switzerland, and a military academy for the training of officers on as good a model as that at Sandhurst. A fleet ? Their mercantile marine is now larger than that of many European Powers, and Great Britain maintains a navy for their defence; if they were independent, they would certainly have the privilege of paying for their own men-of-war. Protection for native industry ? They are free to protect native industry to their heart's content, to copy the economical blunders of the Mother country when she was young and ignorant of the true principles of commerce, when her ambition was in excess of her wisdom and when she would not believe what Sir Dudley North enunciated as far back as 1G91, that "the whole world as to trade is but as one nation." Though I think that the natural aspirations of the young and patriotic Canadians have taken a WTong turn, yet I hold that they have a solid foundation. They spring from the conviction that the day must come, if it have not already arrived, when their native land should hold a higher rank than that of THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO. 243 a British colony. Indeed, to regard the Dominion, with its Parliament and separate government, as a mere Colony is to do violence to facts. To define exactly what it is, and to characterize its position in a phrase, constitute a difficulty not easily sur- mounted. Unfortunately, also, the world at large has a vague and absurd notion of the country and its capabilities. The Province of Quebec has repre- sented Canada for upwards of two centuries ; that Province does not possess a very rich soil nor a mild climate, and it has been supposed that what is true of it applies to the whole Dominion. When the French army, under the chivalrous and heroic Montcalm, made a determined stand in this Pro- vince against the attempt to deprive France of her grand domain in the New World, all that Voltaire, the best-informed man of his day, thought fit to remark was that he could not understand why people should try to cut each other's throats in order to become the proprietors of a few acres of ice. Since the time of Voltaire there has not been much progress in knowledge of the condition and resources of the land which he ignorantly depre- ciated. The Province of Ontario, formerly known as Upper Canada, was once covered with wood ; the early settlers had to clear the ground of trees before they could plough their fields and sow their seed. Life there came to be regarded as life in the bush, an existence of much hardship and yielding a scanty recompense. At present, the drawback is that there are too few trees ; the preservation of the forests being now as important a problem as that which vexed the first settlers when wood was super- abundant. Yet many educated persons in Europe R 2 244 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. do not doubt for a moment that Canada is a land resembling, in its main features, the Sea of Ancient Ice at tlie North Pole and the Black Forest as described by Csesar. Of the Prairie Province of Manitoba, where the entire population of Great Britain might easily find a pleasant home, and of the Province of British Columbia, a large part of which is as rich in mineral treasures and enjoys as balmy a climate as the State of California, hardly anything is known in Europe. Yet these Provinces, including the not less important Maritime Provinces, make up the Dominion, which in area is equal to the United States, and in variety of soil, tem- perature, natural productions, and resources is on a par with them. The prospects of such a country ought to be more correctly estimated. It is natural for its inhabitants to think that they are something more than a colony, if something less than a nation. I see no reason why the existing relation between Canada and the Motherland should be materially altered. A future change ought to tighten the bond of union rather than relax or sever it. The un- doubted tendency of the age is to bring into closer association the people who have sprung from the same race. To this is attributable a united Italy and a united Germany, and the gist of the Eastern Question is the desire of the Slavonic race to be- come partners in government and a unit in natio- nality. Why should the destiny or determination of the Anglo-Saxon race be otherwise ? If brethren ought to dwell together in unity, surely the members of this race are well able to set a good example to the human family ! The exact place which the THE rPtOVINCE OF ONTARIO. 245 Coufederation of Canada and the future federations of Australasia and South Africa should fill in the British Empire is a subject for discussion and arrangement, yet it is one which all true patriots, alike in the parent State and her Colonies, ought to be prepared to treat with a view to harmonious decision. Meantime, there is much to be done as regards Canada which has been overlooked or neglected. The leading men of the Dominion hap- pily place full value upon Imperial recognition of their titles to approbation ; but their claims to such dis- tinction seldom receive due attention. A few years back it was pompously announced that the scope of the Order of St. Michael and St. George had been enlarged so as to permit distinguished colonists to become members of it. They naturally look with disfavour upon hereditary honours. Indeed this feeling is gaining ground in England, and the day may not be distant when all titular distinctions there shall be the rewards of personal merit and enjoyed by those only who have duly earned them. Lord Dufferin was recently raised to the highest rank in the Order of St. Michael and St. George, because he had proved himself to be a most efficient Governor-General of Canada ; but not a single native-born Canadian has yet been made a Knight Commander of the Order. As the omission is not attributable to any lack of deserving candidates, it must be ascribed to simple indifference or sheer neglect. This may seem a trivial matter, as trivial as the privilege in the French Republic of certain men to wear a scrap of red ribbon in their button-holes ; but, if the Canadians were properly considered in the distri- bution of well-earned titular distinctions, they 246 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. would feel for the hand which conferred them quite as much enthusiasm as Frenchmen feel for the authority which makes them members of the Legion of Honour. Again, there are many cases in which Canadian statesmen might be fitly entrusted with the discharge of Imperial functions ; every such appointment would make their fellow-citizens under- stand that they formed part of the same Imperial organization. But it does not enter into the calcu- lations of the Home Government to make any appointment of the kind. I have said enough to express my own impression of the lisi'ht in which Canadians view the land to which they are attached, and of the manner in which they ought to be regarded and treated in turn. Many points of detail I have passed over. One of these, which I shall merely cite by way of example, is the absurdity of such a grand portion of the British Empire being denied the right to accord naturalization to any foreigner who desires to cast in his lot with that Empire. A foreigner can be naturalized in Canada, but he cannot claim the privileges of a British subject when he leaves Canadian territory. This matter, among others, ought to be the subject of appropriate legislation, and the British statesman who deals with such topics in a right spirit will deserve the congratu- lations and gratitude of his countrymen. 247 XV. TRAVELLERS AND BANKERS IN NORTH AMERICA. British gold is a commodity wliich, according to Horace Greeley and otlier United States journalists, has wrought much mischief in their country. My experience is that few things are more useless there. Several times I have suffered all the privations of poverty because, my supply of the national currency being exhausted, I had nothing left in my purse but English sovereigns. In France, Italy, Germany, or any other European country, the traveller who possesses these coins can always get what he wants in a shop or a hotel. But in the United States they are objects of suspicion. Once a good Samaritan let me have what I wanted in exchange for one, and only charged about twenty-five per cent, for his kindness. He was a coloured gentleman. His civility was overpowering, and had its reward. I do not blame the citizen of the United States for de- clining to cash the gold coin of England. If one of them were to tender a gold eagle to an English shopkeeper, he might fiud that it was not valued at its proper rate. What surprised me most of all was to learn that in Canada the gold and silver coins of Great Britain are not readily negotiable. The Canadian prefers 248 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. liis dollars, whether in silver or bank notes, to the specie of the Motherland. In Australia or South Africa, the English traveller never learns from the currency that he is not at home. In the great dependency of India, he finds an unaccustomed mode of reckoning in vogue, and he sees coins which are new to him. In the small possession of Heligo- land he may be startled, as I once was, at being asked to pay thirteen shillings for the performance of a trifling service, though, when he learns that the " schillinof " is a Hamburo- coin which is less in value than a penny, he will pay the debt with entire equanimity. I was struck with the remarks of some fellow-passengers by the Pacific Railway when they learned, upon entering the States of Nevada and California, that gold and silver coins were alone current, and that greenbacks were treated as foreign money. They felt that this circumstance tended to disprove the unity of their country. With not dis- similar feelings, the English visitor to tbe Dominion of Canada learns that the money which is a legal tender in the United Kinordom differs from that generally current there, and that he has to reckon in dollars and cents instead of pounds, shillings, and pence. The title of Mr. Warren's novel, " Ten Thou- sand a- Year," must be altered to " Fifty Thousand a- Year," in order to produce on the mind of a Canadian the effect produced upon that of an Englishman. Most persons who travel in America provide them- selves, before starting, with a letter of credit. A drawback to this consists in the necessity of deter- mining upon the places which are to be visited, so that the signature of the holder may be forwarded to the correspondents of the bank which issues the TEAVELLEES AND BANKEUS. 249 letter. Another drawback is that a commission is charged upon the amount drawn by the holder. Those persons who take]circular notes avoid both of these inconveniences. I once cashed circular notes in New York to the same amount as the sum which a friend had drawn against his letter of credit ; he had to pay three dollars by way of commission, whereas I could not be called upon to pay anything. Indeed, the utility of these circular notes is too well known to need confirmation. Yet even they might be rendered still more serviceable. Those which I carry are issued by the London and Westminster Bank. There is hardly a place of importance in Europe, Asia, Africa, JNorth America, South America, the East Indies, the West Indies, and Australasia, which is not named in the letter of advice supplied along with them. The only important omission is the city of Boston ; why this great bank should not have a correspondent there is a puzzle with wdiich I should have preferred not to be troubled. These notes and the letter of advice are printed in the French tongue. This may have been necessary several years ago, but has now become an absurdity. Not a banker on the Continent of Europe is unable to decipher the English words on a note of the Bank of England, of Ireland, of any Scottish bank, or on a United States or Canadian greenback, while there are not a few bank managers and clerks in the United States and Canada to whom the Fi^ench language is as unin- telligible as Sanskrit. At Chicago, I was once politely asked to translate the contents^of the note and letter of advice, the clerk informing me that he was slightly in doubt as to the import of certain words, and that his fellow-clerks had not been able 250 noLUMDiA A^^D Canada. to clear up the mystery. On other occasions, I have been satisfied that those persons who professed to be able to read the foreign words had an opinion of their import the reverse of my own. No one who has used one of these notes needs to be told that they have to be endorsed by the person in whose name they are drawn, and that the signa- ture must correspond with that written in the letter of advice. At Toronto, I had the novel experience of being suspected by a bank clerk of having com- mitted a new, or rather an impossible kind of forgery, that of forging my own name. After care- ful consideration, a long conference with the manager, and frequent surveys of my person, the clerk told me that the signatures did not tally. The one had been written with a very fine-pointed pen, the other with a broad-pointed one, and this con- stituted a difference which was held to be serious. Being asked whether I had any more notes than the sinorle one which I desired to have cashed, I was pleased to be able to state and prove that I possessed several. At length, it was decided that I might be the legal owner of these notes, and might have a right to demand cash in exchange for them, and, when I called again on a like errand, it was not hinted to me that I must be somebody else. While kept waiting, I had ample opportunities for seeing how business was done in this bank, a branch of the Bank of British North America. I learned that no one could get a cheque caslied without being " identi- fied." A respectable-looking man, who brought a cheque for a few dollars, was subjected to a process of examination and cross-examination resembling that which goes on when an important but doubtful TRAVELLERS AND BANKERS. 251 witness is giving evidence in a court of justice. He stated where he Hved and mentioned persons whom he knew, but was unable to give any other than a negative answer to the reiterated question, " But is there no one to identify you ? " Fortunately some one entered who was personally known to the clerks and the man whom they were treating as a rogue, and then the few dollars were handed over to him. When the money was presented, it was done with the air of the magistrate who, being in a lenient mood, tells the accused to go free, but not to offend again. If every banker had refused to cash my circular notes I should have been little the worse. The only unpleasant consequence would have been the necessity of making an application to personal friends or acquaintances, who, I am sure, would be more eager to comply with my request than I should be in preferring it. Other persons might be less fortunate, and in their behalf I should be glad if bankers in the United States and Canada did not think it their duty to treat every stranger as a swindler. If bankers in the United Kingdom were to insist upon the " identification " of every person who presents a cheque for payment, the business of banking would be less profitable than it is, because the time which ought to be occupied in transacting it would be wasted by the clerks in discharging the unremunerative duties of amateur detectives. I fear that the formalities which are enforced in the United States and Canadian banks, reminding me of what prevails in the petty bank of a third-rate German town, are symptomatic of actual business being far from brisk, and of time not being on a par with money. 252 XVI. IMPJiESSIONS Oi' TOliONTO. It was with unfeigned reluctance that I said fare- well to the genial and enterprising inhabitants of Toronto. In addition to much private hospitality, I had enjoyed that of three clubs, the Toronto, the National, and the United Empire. The first is an old and select establishment; the other two are young and vigorous rivals. In all of them, good eating and drinking can be had at a charge which seemed to me very moderate, and with a refinement which cannot be surpassed. I had been long enouofh here to take an interest in the local busi- ness of the place. Three important electoral con- tests occurred during my stay. It was supposed that the result would have an appreciable effect upon tlie policy and stability of Mr. Mackenzie's Administration. That of South Ontario was the most important, for it was accepted as in some mea- sure a trial of strength between the Government and the Opposition. The leading members of both parties joined in the canvass, nor did the Premier tliink it undignified to come forward as a speaker in support of Mr. Edgar, the candidate of his party. A better candidate or a more admirable specimen of a native-born Canadian, it would be diiEcult to find. IMPEESSIONS OF TOEONTO. 253 He had already been in Parliament and distinguished himself there. Not only was he beaten, but a seat was lost to his party. Though the majority was only forty-one, yet the defeat had the greater significance in a political point of view, because Mr. Gibbs, the successful candidate, based his claims for support on the advocacy of uncompromising Protection, as well as on general opposition to the Ministry. I had the satisfaction of seeing a specimen of one arm of the defensive force upon which the Dominion relies, the Toronto Field-Battery. Even after a careful scrutiny it was difficult to distinguish it from a battery of the Eoyal Artillery. I was not surprised when Colonel Strange, the Dominion Inspector of Artillery, said that he had never ex- pected " after a quarter of a century in the service, to see a Volunteer battery so thoroughly efficient in every respect." If the entire defensive force be of equal quality, Canada has no cause for being trou- bled with a panic, while belligerent Fenians will act wisely in keeping out of harm's way. During my stay in Toronto, Dominion Day was celebrated. It was the ninth anniversary of the confederation of the Provinces and of the beginning of a career as full of promise for the happiness of the people and for the good of mankind as was ever vouchsafed to a nation. The anniversary was observed as a public holiday. The streets were gay with flags and crowded with pleasure-seekers, and the absence of those persons who desecrate such occasions by intoxication was most gratifying to me. A Lacrosse match was the spectacle which attracted the largest number of sight-seers. A young and ambitious set of players had challenged an older and 254 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. famous one. To the evident surprise of the former, a few goals or runs were scored by it. At this un- expected success some of the youths manifested their dehght with such an energy of demonstration that I almost expected them to verify the exagge- rated saying about men jumping out of their skins for joy. The game is one in which many hard knocks are given and received, and in which speed of foot, quickness of hand, and sharpness of eye have to be displayed. In one match, a set of Indians con- tended with a set of palefaces ; the Indians were beaten alike on their own grounds and at their here- ditary game. A brilliant display of fireworks in the Horticultural Gardens concluded the rejoicings of Dominion Day in Toronto. No public holiday could have been better kept, nor could a great historical anniversary be celebrated with more heartiness or propriety. On the 12th of July, I saw the procession which Orangemen consider appropriate in a part of the world where Orangeism is an anachronism. Yet, if some Irishmen or their descendants and sympa- thizers deem it essential to their happiness to parade in yellow scarves and sashes on one day in the year, and others consider themselves faithless to their creed and country if they omit to make a like public display, adorned with green scarves and sashes, on another, it would be intolerant to hinder, and it would be bad taste to blame them. So long as they keep the peace, they do no harm to others, even if they fail to benefit themselves. Happily, these processions seldom lead to ill consequences in Ontario, while they are regarded as splendid spectacles by the children. I IMPRESSIONS OF TORONTO. 255 There are three theatres in Toronto where excel- lent performances are given. During my visit, an English opera troupe appeared at the summer theatre in the Horticultural Gardens. The principal members of it, the Misses Holman, are two Canadian young ladies, the elder of whom sings and acts very well. I saw them perform in Ijecocq's " Girofle, Girofla." The operetta was well put on the stage, and the com- pany acted with considerable finish. Miss Holman, who played the leading female part, did so with much effect, and justified the praise which admiring Cana- dians lavish upon her. If she could only get rid of a spasmodic action of the shoulders, which mars the effect of her acting, she would satisfy the most fasti- dious critic. These are but a few of the sights and pleasures which made my stay in the capital of On- tario one to be remembered with satisfaction. I was unfortunately unable to attend any of the political picnics, which are a favourite form of party demon- stration. Speechifying is the staple of the enter- tainment, though refreshments in a solid and liquid shape are not omitted from the programme. Having read the reports of many speeches delivered on these occasions, I found that they all bore a similar character ; the speakers trumpeting forth the merits and services of themselves and their own party, and bewailing the sins and shortcomings of the party to which their opponents belonged. I regretted most of all that other engagements prevented me from accepting the invitation of the Honourable George Brown to visit his estate of Bow Park. As the founder and proprietor of the Toronto Globe, as an ex-Premier of Canada prior to confederation, as a Senator of the Dominion, he is one of the most 256 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. notable men in the country; like enegotic and eminent men in all countries, he is the target for criticism, seldom friendly and not unfrequently unjust. He has long wielded a powerful pen, and he has attained a position of authority which renders him an object of envy and animadversion. If public men could be fairly judged during their lifetime, I fancy the persons who speak most bitterly about this truly representa- tive Canadian would modify their language and make allowance for much which they dislike. It is certain that Mr. Brown's place in Canada is a conspicuous one ; the future historian will probably say far more in his praise than some of his contemporaries would dream of doing. The Globe is now edited by his brother, Mr. Gordon Brown, a man of great sagacity, force of character, and journalistic talent, the Honour- able George Brown devoting the greater part of his time to the rearing of thoroughbred farm stock. Like Charles James Fox and Lord Althorp, he finds a pleasure in his farm much more satisfying than that afforded by the turmoil of public life. Cer- tainly, his success in improving the breed of cattle in the Dominion is not the least among his useful achievements. From an article in the Canada Farmer for the 15th January, 1876, 1 learn that Bow Park estate covers 900 acres, of which 780 are under cultivation, the remainder being covered with roads, farm buildings, orchards, and belts of timber, and supplying pieces of wild land where the cattle take their daily recreation. The bulls, which are of the purest breeds, have been imported from England. The good health of the cattle is remarkable, the death-rate being under one per cent, yearly. No better notion of what has been accomplished can be IMPEESSIONS OP TORONTO. 257 given tliim by quoting the following passage : — " The popularity of the herd keeps pace with its improvement. Buyers come from all quarters. A drove of remarkably fine heifers went across the Continent two years ago, and was shipped at San Francisco by steamer for the Emperor of Japan. The Provincial Government of New Brunswick were purchasers last Fall of thirty head of young stock ; and Bow Park bred shorthorns have already found their way.into many States of the adjoining Repub- lic, and into a large proportion of the townships of Ontario." I repeat my regret that I can speak of this remarkable place from hearsay only, and I add my hope that I may yet be able to do so after a personal visit. Of this I entertain no doubt : the place must be in every respect noteworthy, because Canadians who say uncomplimentary things of the Honourable George Brown as a journalist and a legislator readily express their admiration for Bow Park. I cannot single out for separate mention all the per- sons in Toronto from whom I received much kindness and attention. Rivals in politics, they were at one in doing what lay in their power to give me informa- tion and to render my stay agreeable. Belonging, as they did, to opposite camps, I learned more from them than if they had been members of the same party and treated public questions with the one- sidedness of those persons who represent a single aspect in pohtics or government. I am convinced that Canadian politics, however provincial they may seem, and however arid and unattractive they may be to the superficial observer, are in reality worthy of close study by all students of political science. 258 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. Indeed, Canada is a theatre on which a great legislative drama is now in progress. All the races which inhabit the United Kingdom are there work- ing out a common destiny in concert with the race which inhabits France. We know how difficult it is for Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Irishmen to dwell together in concord, promoting their own hap- piness by a right acceptance of the soothing principle of compromise, and by submitting to the rule of expediency instead of stiffly contending for the uniform application of logical but unpractical conclusions. Our Canadian brethren have the further difficulty of persuading those among them who are of French origin, to unite in a general design, and to place the interest of a common country above the prejudices of race and the promptings of tradition. Hitherto the result has been far more satisfactory than any mere reasoner could have foreseen. All thinofs are workinof for good. Frenchmen in speech and descent here manifest as strong an attachment to self-govern- ment and to parliamentary institutions as the most patriotic Briton could display, and they belie the idle talk about the representative system of the United Kingdom being unsuited for the excitable members of the Celtic family. There was true wisdom as well as Gallic wit in the reply of the late Sir George Cartier to the inquiry of the Queen, "What, Sir George, is a French Canadian?" ' ' Your Majesty, he is an Englishman who speaks French." The French Canadians speak English also, and many combine in a remarkable degree the best qualities of both nationalities. Moreover, they are among the most patriotic subjects of the Crown, IMPRESSIONS OF TORONTO. 259 and the saying of Sir Etienne Taciie, that the last shot fired on the North American Continent in support of British supremacy would be fired by a French Canadian from the citadel of Quebec, forcibly expresses what would happen in an almost impossible event. s 2 2C0 XVII. TOEONTO TO SOUTHAMPTON. I JOURNEYED to tliG Suspension Brido^e whicli crosses tlie river Niagara over the Great Western Railway, thence to Buffalo nnd New York over the Erie Railway. The latter is a line with which British investors are painfully familiar. They have received from its directors abundant and reiterated promises of future dividends, accompanied with requests for the disbursement of more capital. In a work pub- lished in 1860, and written by Mr. F. C. Grattan, who had been British Consul at Boston for twenty years, it is said, " Should any one be tempted to trust his money in American ventures, let him inquire the history of the New York and Erie Rail- road Company." Yet, despite warning and ex- perience, credulous investors continued to furnish the directors of this company with the additional capital which the shrewder citizens of the United States refused to supply. So long as money is sent from this side of the Atlantic, the directors of the Erie Railway are always pleased to receive and prepared to spend it on the other. If the British capitalist had never become a holder of Erie shares or bonds, or if he had judiciously refrained from responding to the demands for more capital, it is probable that TORONTO TO SOUTHAMPTON. 261 tlie line would have been better managed, and it is certain that its condition could not have been more hopeless than at present. The line is well made ; it runs through a rich and beautiful country ; it is a trunk line connecting the markets of the West with the mart of New York. But it has competitors, equally favoured in all these respects, which, being narrow-guage lines, can be worked at less cost than it can be, seeing that it is a broad-guage one. The rates charged must be the same as those which are charged by directors of other companies, though the work has to be done at greater outlay. This railway may pay a dividend on the ordinary stock about the same time that a dividend is paid by the Emma Mine. The position of a bondholder may be considered more favourable by those investors who are exceedingly sanguine. I should rank Erie bonds with those of Greece or Mexico, Honduras or Turkey, as a safe and permanent investment. For the third time during this visit to the United States, I arrived at New York and spent a few days there. On one of these occasions the heat was overpowering, being more intense, I was told, than had been experienced for many a year. Indeed, the hundredth anniversary of the Republic was remarkable as the year in which the hottest summer on record had occurred. For weeks together, I did not see the thermometer indicate less than 89° in the shade ; while it often indicated 106°. In Admiral Anson's " Voyage round the World," it is said that the highest point of the thermometer in the Centurmi, during three years and nine months, was 76°. The Rev. Richard Walter, who wrote the story of the voyage, remarks that, once in 2C2 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. 1746, the thermometer in London marked 78°, and that he had heard of the temperature having been 98° at St. Petersburg in 1743, this, he says, being a " degree of heat, that, were it not authorized by the regularity and circumspection with which the ob- servations seem to have been made, would appear altogether incredible." Till I had spent the summer months in the United States and Canada, I was quite as sceptical as the chaplain to Admiral Anson about the degree of heat which the human frame could sustain. I now readily admit, however, that the hottest spot which the imagination can picture may be found on this side of the grave, and that the best men may suffer as severely as the worst. As it suited my convenience to land at South- ampton, I resolved to embark at New York in a steamer of the Wilson line which touched there on the way to Hull. I had heard the steamers of this company both disparaged and praised. Whether they are well adapted for encountering the terrific storms which sometimes sweep over the Atlantic, I shall leave to the decision of professional mariners. I can say that the state-room occupied by my wife and myself was the best-arranged and most spacious I have ever seen. On the other hand, there was a great and unfavourable contrast between the meagre fare provided for the first-class passengers, and the frequent and sumptuous repasts served on board the steamer of the National line which I have described in the second chapter. The first-class passengers were few in number, without being select. All the ofiicers were ex- perienced navigators, and pleasant men. Captain Laver, who had been for fifteen years in the TORONTO TO SOUTHAMPTON. ■ 263 service of the Inman line, and had but recently entered the service of the Wilson line, had a perfect familiarity with the Atlantic in all its moods and phases. Mr. Guthrie, the chief officer, had been in command of several steamships ; but, having spent three years on shore, he accepted this subordinate post tiU he should again obtain an independent command. The second and third officers had been frequently backwards and forwards between England and the United States. The less I say about the crew the better. Such a motley set of sailors I never saw before. The best seaman among them was a Greek, and the next best was a negro. Sometimes, when the officer of the watch gave an order, he had to explain to the sailors what he meant, and show them how to execute it. When sailors do not always know one rope from another, they fail to inspire a landsman with con- fidence. Had Mr. Plimsoll been a passenger, he might have been more impressed with the sea- worthiness of the vessel than with that of the crew. At Southampton I had an easy task in con- vincing the Customs authorities that no spirits, cigars, or silver-plate were concealed in my luggage. Perhaps a large profit can be got by importing spirits from the United States or Canada, but this is a business about which I am ignorant. I know that I can buy cigars one-third cheaper in London than in New York, so the temptation to bring them from the latter to the former place is not one to which I am likely to succumb. I have no objection to silver-plate when it is given to me ; but, when furnishing a house at my own expense, I prefer electro-plate, firstly, because it costs less ; secondly. 264 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. because it is quite as serviceable, and thirdly , because it lias sliglit attraction for pilferers. I bad simply to unlock one or two articles of Uiggage as a matter of form. The absence of superfluous fussi- ness on the part of the Custom House officers made the landing here and the prospect of a speedy arrival at home all the more agreeable. The steamer from which I had landed continued her voyage to Hull, her destined port. Her name is one which is now shrouded in the painful mystery which surrounds the ill-fated President, the Pacific, the City of Boston, and other craft which have disap- peared and left no sign. Sailing from Hull for New York in the regular course, she never reached her destination. It is improbable that any tidings will ever be obtained of the last voyage and the end of the steamship Colomho. 265 XVIII. A EETROSPECT AND A COMPARISON. If some of the Fathers of the Repubhc, such as Frankhn and Jefferson, John Adams and Washington, had risen from their graves and been present at its centenary, they would have been as strangers among a people whom they had moulded into a nation, having as much to unlearn as the most prejudiced foreigner, and as much to learn as the most intelli- gent Japanese. They would have had to take lessons in the geography of their country in order to ascertain the boundaries and designations of many States, the names and situations of many cities; they would have had to acquire information about the ways of party managers and the mode in which the chief magistrate is now elected ; they might have been puzzled to recognize any material likeness between the system of government which they found in operation and the carefully balanced Republic which they called into existence, Jefferson would assuredly contemplate with delight the pure democracy which has fulfilled his wishes, given effect to his teaching, and supplanted the original Republic. Franklin, John Adams, and Washington might prefer tlie form of government which they had elaborated with a single-minded 266 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. desire to render tlie welfare of their country indepen- dent of the triumph of a party, to protect the people from becoming the tools or dupes of professional politicians, and to insure the effective representation of the deliberate and undoubted opinion of the nation. While finding matter for discussion or criticism, they would also find much wherein to' glory. The widened area and increased population of their country ; the grand array of States and Territories ; the vastness and opulence of cities which in their day were but petty towns, covering what was once a dense wood or noisome swamp ; the net-work of railways, over which goods and passengers are carried with a rapidity and con- venience far in excess of what was possible on the canals which they considered a perfect means of transport ; the newspapers as far superior to the e:azettes of their time as a modern school manual is to a niediseval horn-book ; the steamboats which crowd the rivers ; the electric telegraphs which have made lightning the servant of thought ; the innumer- able appliances which have lengthened and ameliorated existence since they left the world, and the absence from their country of the curse of slavery which they deplored, but could not extirpate: all these things would excite their admiration and thankfulness, and justify them in rejoicing over the results of their handiwork. " What are the great United States for, if not for the regeneration of man ?" General Choke defiantly put this question when he was persuading Martin Chuzzlewit to become a permanent settler in Eden. The phrase is a condensed reflex of the optimism A EETBOSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 267 wliich prevailed when tlie Republic was young. The rhodomontade in which Britons so delighted in the eighteenth century, that the impostor Jenkins was enabled to originate war with Spain by telling a committee of the House of Commons, when interrogated as to what he thought after the Spanish captain had cut off his ear, " I commended my soul to God, and my cause to my country," — soon became the fashion among the citizens of the Republic in North America. They fancied themselves to be a peculiar people, who had been entrusted with the sacred mission of diffusing a vague abstraction called the " Great American Idea," and considered, when they uttered the immoral phrase, " our country right or wrong," that they were giving vent to a maxim of the truest patriotism. Taught to repeat that the natural equality of all men is a self-evident truth, they have always been disinclined to inquire how far this assertion will stand the test of critical examina- tion. A patriotic phrase can feeldom bear analysis, and those persons who utter it, being instinctively conscious of that fact, shrink from substantiating the literal accuracy of what they glibly repeat. It is self-evident that all men are not created equal. If all men enter the world with equal possibilities, they do not enjoy equal opportunities, and opportunity is fortune or fate. Natural equality and mutual dependence is the rule of the human race. An infant left to itself will starve : those persons who leave an infant to itself commit murder. The idlest talk in which people can indulge is that which treats of human rights without taking human duties into account. It is infinitely more to the advantage of the community that duties, which are coextensive 268 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. with rights, should be ascertained and discharged than that rights should be asserted and lauded. The tendency of some unreflecting United States citizens has been to follow the lead of Jefferson, and hold that they have done enough when they have pro- claimed and upheld their collective independence. Believing that this is all that can be required of them, they are prone to speak with contempt of nations wherein human nature and society are treated as complex problems and wherein no vain attempt is made to enforce or parade a purely chimerical uniformity. The only true and really practical equality is equality before the law, and of this the United States do not possess a monopoly. It is a rule, to which the exceptions are not more frequent there than in other lands, that those persons who boast the loudest about the country to which they belong by the accident of birth, seldom give that country any reason to be proud of them, while those persons who copy their example, after having been naturalized, seldom give the country which they have left any cause to regret their departure. While the phrases of Jefferson have exercised an important influence over his fellow-countrymen, other causes have contributed to establish a feel- ing of superiority in their minds. United States nationality was based upon the vigorous resistance of the Empire from which it was an off-shoot. The triumph of the seceding and victorious Colonists was twofold; they had become independent, and they had conquered their independence in the teeth of formidable odds. After their power to have their own way was demonstrated in the field, they had to face sneers and prejudices more cutting and painful A RETROSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 269 tlian the arms of the foo. They were assured that their independence was an illusion, that they must inevitably become the sport of anarchy, the vassals of a dictator, or the prey of a foreign conqueror. Though the elements of strength and greatness in the infant Republic were recognized by a few states- men of genius, among whom Charles James Fox was most conspicuous, yet the majority of those persons who gave any heed to its affairs gleefully pointed out how far the government fell short of perfection and confidently predicted that the republican bubble would soon burst. Undue boasting and exaggerated expectations, on the one side, were coincident with, if they did not encourage unfair depreciation on the other. It was unfortunate that some of the earliest travellers in the United States were foolish enthu- siasts, who wrote nonsense about a state of nature and the rights of man. The Marquis of Lafayette exhibited a childish exultation at playing the part of a good republican. If it be difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven, it is easy for such an one to get unmerited credit on earth by professing to be no better than the humblest of mankind, and to attain an exalted place by judiciously stooping. Being a marquis and a man of large fortune, Lafayette found in the profession of theoretical republicanism, the enjoyment of a new sensation and a passport to a popularity which he might not otherwise have obtained. His countryman, M. Brissot, who was guillotined by his republican brethren in Paris on account of his undoubted attachment to liberty, visited the United States in 1788. He expected to find a 270 COLUMCTA AND CANADA. terrestrial paradise tliere. Before landing lie ex- perienced vivid pleasure from a commonplace inci- dent. The master of tlie vessel in which he was a passenger, having spoken with a fishing-boat off the banks of Newfoundland, received a few cod-fish, for which he gave some salt beef and pork in exchange. This reminded M. Brissot of " primitive times, the thought of which is always associated with greater purity and happiness." ' On stepping ashore at Boston, he was " spared the annoyances, which are even more humiliating than wearisome, of a visit from custom-house officers, as is the rule in Euro- pean countries." He was charmed with the aspect of the people in the streets of this town. These sturdy Republicans had neither the pleasure-seeking look of Parisians nor the haughty carriage of the English; "their air was simple and honest, yet fraught with the dignity of men conscious of their freedom, and who regard their fellow-men as their brethren and equals." Once he saw the driver of a stage-coach, who was the butt of bitter remarks from the passengers, keep his temper and hold his tongue. M. Brissot thought that in Europe a bloody quarrel would have been the result of a similar provocation ; here, however, the result con- vinced him that " in a free country reason extends her empire over every class." He noted some drawbacks in this modern Arcadia. There were too many prosperous lawyers in Boston and too many bachelors in New York; both being dangerous ele- ments in a Hepublic. It pleased him to learn that the bachelors in Pennsylvania paid a heavier poll- ^ " Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats-Unic," par J. P. Brissot, vol. i. p. 105. A RETEOSrECT AND A COMPARISON. 271 tax than married men. He saw with disgust the sad and novel spectacle of Eepublicans smoking cigars. He states that " this custom is loathsome to a Frenchman. It must be offensive to women because it affects the purity of the breath ; it must be censured by a philosopher because it causes superfluous expense." In his opinion, as great an evil as tobacco-smoking is for women in a Re- public to follow the fashions. Being present at a cliuner-party in New York, he saw two ladies in low- necked gowns and he " was scandalized at this indecency in female Republicans." His fellow- countryman, the Marquis de Chastellux, who visited the United States a few years before him, comments in a like strain on the necessity for the women of a Republic being models of simplicity in dress ; he thinks it incompatible with the political system of the country that gold, silver, or diamonds should be worn.^ The translator of the marquis's book, who was an uncompromising partisan of the United States, and travelled there during the Revolution, records that " the rage for dress among the women in America, in the very height of the miseries of war, was beyond all bounds." ^ M. Brissot does not exempt even the Quakers from backsliding in this matter : he holds that their principles began to decay when they took to wearing fine linen. In addition to the superabundance of lawyers, bachelors, and fashionable garments, M. Brissot observed with regret, that some persons, whom he styles well-bred, ostentatiously dispensed with pocket handkerchiefs. Among the hints for their improvement, with >= " Travels in North America in 1780-81-82," vol. ii. p. 360. ' Vol. ii. p. 115. 272 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. wliich he favoured the citizens of the United States, was one to the effect that they should abolish public gaols. They cost much to build and they are unpleasant places of abode. Far better, he thinks, would it be if criminals were condemned to serve their terms of imprisonment in their own houses, with policemen on duty at the doors. Another piece of advice, equally judicious and practical, was that a mercantile marine should neither be en- couraged nor maintained. In his opinion a sea- faring life is unnatural. Men who navigate the ocean may become sea- sick and must dispense with the society of their wives ; the one being a great affliction and the other a great deprivation. His conclusion is that Republicans ought to avoid being sea-sick and should maintain domestic habits by engaging in the coasting- trade and always keeping within sight and reach of land.'* Had he tried the experiment, he might have found that the malady which he dreaded does not always spare the fair- weather sailor who coasts along the shore. On the whole, however, M. Brissot was enchanted with the United States. AVTierever he went, " he met with the hospitable reception which is accorded to a brother and a friend, travelling for the good of the human race." Being struck wilh the purity of ' the manners, he explains this by saying that nine- tenths of the people are dispersed throughout the country. If the purity be as great now as it was then, the explanation does not hold good. In 1800, one twenty-fifth part of the population was congre- gated in towns having 8,000 inhabitants and up- wards ; in 1870, the proportion was one-fifth." * * Vol. i. p. 100. ' " Walker's Statistical Atlas." 187G. A EETROSPECT AND A COMPAEISON. 273 Though pronouncing France, which he had quitted in disgust, to be " the richest, the most powerful, and most enlightened country in the world," M. Brissot adjures those who " doubt the prodigious effects of liberty upon man and his industry, to go to the United States. What miracles will they not see there ! " ' In the year 3 of the French Republic and the year 1795 of the civilized world, Volney embarked at Havre for the United States. He had travelled much and written some striking works ; he was an actor in the Revolution, siding with the Girondists, and had passed ten months in prison on account of his advocacy of freedom. Grieving for the past, disquieted about the future, he crossed the Atlantic in quest of a peaceful asylum wherein to dwell for the remainder of his life. He travelled over the United States, " studying the climate, laws, inhabi- tants, and their manners, chiefly with regard to social life and domestic happiness." After an ex- perience of three years, he resolved to end his days there, but the animosity against the French was so great, in 1798, that he recrossed the ocean in the hope of finding a quiet resting-place in Europe. Volney planned a work on the United States, of which the only part given to the world was an out- line of the physical characteristics of the country, entitled a "View of the Climate and Soil of the United States of America." In an introduction he sketches the plan of the entire work, which would have been in direct contrast, in many respects, to the idyllic picture by his countryman, M. Brissot. • Vol. ii. p. 327. 274 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. He expressed regret at not having found " in the Americans those fraternal and benevolent disposi- tions with which some writers have flattered us ;" he thought that they retain a strong tinge of the national prejudices of their Mother Country against the French. He was impressed with the differences between the two nations ; differences which wholly escaped M. Brissot's observation. Volney says, " The Americans charge the French with levity, indiscre- tion and talkativeness, and the French reproach tliBm with a dryness of manner, a stiffness, and a taciturnity, that carry the appearance of pride and haughtiness, and such a negligence of those atten- tions, those civilities, on which they set a value, that they continually imagine they see in them a design to affront, or rudeness of character." In his opinion, the latter charges are not devoid of fouuda- tion, though he doubts whether the national in- civility be wholly due to systematic design. He thinks the people particularly deserve to be called, what they often call themselves, a " young people," on account of " the inexperience and eagerness, with which they give themselves up to the enjoyments of fortune and the seductions of flattery." He thinks, too, that the United States have been more indebted to their isolated situation and the natural riches of the country " than to the essential goodness of their laws, or the wisdom of their administration, for their public prosperity, and civil and individual wealth." In reviewing the conduct of the people and the Government from 1783 to 1798, he beheves that he can prove by incontestable facts, " that neither more economy in the finances, more good faith in public transactions, more decency in public morals, more A RETROSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 275 moderation of party spirit, nor more care in educa- tion and instruction, prevailed in the United States, in proportion to their population, the mass of affairs, and the multiplicity of interests, than in most of the old States of Europe : that whatever has been done there of good and useful, and whatever of civil liberty, and security of person and property, exists among them, is owing rather to popular and personal habits, the necessity of labour, and the high price of all kinds of work, than any able measures or sage policy of government." ^ The foregoing extracts prove how very dissimilar were the conclusions of Volney and Brissot ; exaggeration on the one side was paralleled by exaggeration on the other. Mr. Isaac Weld was the earliest traveller from the European side of the Atlantic who gave a really valu- able account of what was to be seen in the United States and Canada. His object in going thither was to learn whether he could advise his countrymen to emigrate from Ireland. He paid his visit seven years after M. Brissot; unlike him, he was not treated as a friend and brother. According to Mr. Weld, if it were found out " that a stranger is from Great Britain or Ireland, the people imme- diately begin to boast of their constitution and free- dom, and give him to understand that they think every Englishman a slave because he submits to be called a subject." * He was unfavourably impressed with the poorer class of the people : " They return rude and impertinent answers to questions couched in the most civil terms, and will insult a person that ' Preface to " View of the Climate and Soil of the United States of America," by C. F. Volney, p. xv. * Isaac Weld's " Travels through North America and Canada in 1795.G-7," vol. i. p. 125. T 2 276 COLUMBIA AiND CANADA. bears the appearance of a gentleman, on purpose to show how much they consider themselves upon an equality with him. Civility cannot be purchased from them on any terms ; they seem to think that it is incompatible with freedom, and that there is no other way of convincing a stranger that he is really in a land of liberty, but by being sulky and ill- mannered in his presence." ^ The bad manners that shocked Mr. Weld were due to a natural cause which can be easily under- stood by recalling what took place in France when the circumstances were similar. Nothing could surpass the ceremoniousness and high breeding of the old French nobles, who delighted in exhibit- ing their proficiency in paying compliments and displaying, on all occasions, an exquisite politeness. Their dress was as elaborate as their phrases. After the Revolution, it was considered the duty of good French citizens to be rough in manner, rude in speech and careless in dress, the object being to show that they were not aristocrats. For a like reason, Jefferson sedulously avoided doing anything, as President, which George the Third would do as King. The King of Great Britain went to open Parliament in a carriage and delivered a speech ; President Jefferson sent a message to Congress, and, when he visited the capitol, he rode on horse- back. If the King had ridden on horseback, the President would have driven in a carriasfo. Wash- ington and John Adams held levees modelled upon those of monarchical rulers; Jefferson openly dis- carded the etiquette which savoured of Old World • Vol. i. p. 29. A EETROSPECT AND A COMPAEISON. 277 customs. Many of his contemporaries were aware that this was a mixture of hypocrisy and affectation. One of them, Mr. Samuel Breck, who was well acquainted with several Presidents, thus refers to him in his " Recollections :" — " That levelling phi- losopher, Jefferson, was the first President who broke down all decorum and put himself when abroad upon a footing with the plainest farmer of Virginia. I say ' when abroad,' because in his family he lived luxuriously and was fastidious in the choice of his company. But when he wanted to catch the applause of the vulgar — with whom, how- ever, he was too proud to associate — he would ride out without a servant, and hitch his pacing nag to the railing of the Presidential palace." The people were pleased to see the simple manners which the great man assumed to flatter them, and they re- turned his flattery with interest by copying and exaggerating his example, considering a studied unpoliteness of demeanour an unmistakeable token of their unbending patriotism. This was as childish as the conduct of the rabid French Republicans, who demonstrated that they were very different persons from the wicked and well-dressed nobles whose heads they had cut off, by flaunting dirty shirts and bespattered boots when they condescended to enter a drawing-room. Mr. AVeld was surprised to find so many men in the United States with military titles and he was still more surprised to see " such numbers of them employed in capacities apparently so inconsistent with their rank ; for it is nothing uncommon to see a captain in the shape of a waggoner, a colonel the driver of a stage coach, or a the United States] is unfavourable to national advancement." ^ A statement like this shows an absolute incapacity to estimate the social condiiion of that country. Both Captain Basil Hall and Captain Marryat ' " Mcu and Manners in America," vol. i. p. 3GP. A EETROSPECT AND A COMPARISON. ^.oo were notable specimens of a school of naval officers wliich is now extinct. They had received a liberal education, had seen much service and many lands, had kept their eyes open when afloat and on shore, and had the gift of using their pens deftly. Both of them went to the United States inspired by curiosity about the Republic of which they had heard contra- dictory accounts, and desirous of communicating the true facts of the case to their countrymen. Captain Hall avers that seldom did a traveller visit " a foreign land in a more kindly spirit " than that which animated him when he disembarked at New York. But a spirit of bitterness quickly succeeded one of good feeling. He saw many things that displeased, and heard much that annoyed him : he grew tired of having to return daily answers to the question " What do you think of us upon the whole ? " while he was mortified at witnessing the dissatisfaction which was shown when his reply was not one of unqualified praise. Entering a court of law, he was astounded to see a chief justice seated on the bench without a gown enveloping his person and a wig covering his head. This was the first thing he saw which made him " distrust the wisdom with which the Americans had stripped away so much of what had been held sacred so long." Just as Martinus Scriblerus could not think of the Lord Mayor other- wise than clad in his fur gown and decked with his gold chain, so this experienced but simple-minded sailor was unable to imagine that justice could be administered, or the law expounded by a judge in plain clothes. "When Captain Hall sailed up the Hudson, he gazed on the country seats of the old patroons upon its 286 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. bank, and mourned over the fact that there the ancient aristocracy is withering away, as everywhere else in the country, " to the great exultation of the people, before the blighting tempest of Democracy." ^ What vexed him above all was to hear the people con- stantly " praise themselves, their institutions, and their country, either in downright terms, or by some would-be indirect allusions, which were still more tormenting." Equally unbearable was " a solemn sort of enigmatical assumption," on their part, " of the intricacy and transcendent grandeur of the whole system not to be comprehended by weak European minds." He tried hard, indeed, to see things through other people's spectacles, but he failed utterly. " In spite of my own best wishes, encou- raged by the ardent persuasion of the Americans, I found all parts of the country very much alike. I could never in any place discover for myself, or hear upon good authority, anything of that peculiar intelligence, of that peculiar high-mindedness, so much insisted on by American writers, and rung into my ears by almost every person I met with from end to end of the continent." ^ Even the country did not find favour in his fastidious eyes : " A more unpicturesque country is not to be found elsewhere," is his sweeping and damnatory verdict. He was shocked at the prevalence of dram drinking, which he considers to be the concomitant of demo- cracy, and, in his opinion, " is probably not less hurtful to health of body, than that system of Government appears to be to the intellectual powers of the mind." ^ If he had travelled in Kussia, he * " Travels in North America," vol. i. p. 47. Vol. ii. p. 72. « Vol. ii. p. 84. A RETEOSPECT AND A COMPAEISON. 287 would have found abundance of dram drinking and despotism, and might then have learned that demo- cracy is not singular in being associated with ardent spirits. These are a few of his objections and sam- ples of his criticism. He was no more successful as a prophet than as a critic, for he pronounced a pro- jected railway between Boston and Albany to be " a visionary project." If I had been in doubt as to his qualification for deciding upon the merits of the United States Constitution, I should have doubted no longer after reading that, in his opinion, the House of Commons, as constituted before the first Reform Bill became law, " could not possibly be made better." ^ Captain Marryat aimed at a still higher flight than Captain Hall. He states in the introduction to the six volumes of his " Diary," that his " remarks will be based on an analysis of human nature ; " that his object has been " to examine and ascertain what were the effects of a Democratic form of government, and climate, upon a people which, with all its foreign admixture, may be con- sidered as English." Upon one point, he had made up his mind : " Democracy is the form of govern- ment best suited to the present condition of America." Instead of the analysis promised in the introduction, many petty details, not worth re- tailing, are supplied in the text ; such as how two girls bartered their bonnets, how a tailor of Cin- cinnati refused to come and take his measure for a coat, alleging that it was anti-republican to wait on a customer, while there is a surfeit of the super- ' Vol. iii. p. 412. 288 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. fluous matter to be found in tlie least pliilosophical books about the United States, to tlie effect that the citizens eat too quickly and drink too often. Assertions abound in which no analytical character can be detected ; such as : " There never was, nor ever will be, anything like liberality under a Democratic form of government ; " " Slander and defamation flourish under a Democracy." One of the greatest evils, according to Captain Marryat, is the absence of an Established Church, the effects of an Established Church being, " to cement the mass, cement society and communities, and increase the force of those natural ties by which families and relations are bound together." He bewails the lamentable fact that the people choose their rulers and their clergymen, thus controlling the Government and fettering religion : " Add to this the demoralizing effects of a Democracy which turns the thoughts of all men to mammon, and it will be acknowledged that this rapid fall is not so very surprising."^ Mammon, like Bacchus, has plenty of worshippers in countries where the people are powerless alike over the State and the Church. However, Captain Marryat does not blame Demo- cracy for all that he dislikes and denounces in the United States ; he says that the cHmate is partly in fault ; if the chmate be to blame, then some re- sponsibility is taken off the citizens of the Republic. His views about the people, which are neither philo- sophical nor complimentary, he sums up as follows : " The character of the Americans is that of a rest- less, uneasy people — they cannot sit still, they can- * " A Diary in America," vol. iii. pp. 15, 92, 1.57. A liETROSPECT AND A CO:\[rARISOX. 289 not listen attentively, unless the theme be politics or dollars — they must do something, and, like children, if they cannot do anything else, they will do mischief — their curiosity is unbounded, and they are very capricious. Acting upon impulse, they are very generous at one moment, and without a spark of charity the next. They are good-tempered, and possess great energy, ingenuity, bravery, and pre- sence of mind. Such is the estimate I have formed of their general character, independent of the demoralizing effects of their institutions, which renders it so anomalous."^ More extraordinary than all his censure is some of his praise. He attributes, the " fair distribution of good looks among the women," to the political and social condition of the country. The Constitution of the United States has been often eulogized : Captain Marryat is the only person who has given it the credit of rendering women beautiful, and upholding the supremacy of the better sex. He says that the men ought to be proud of the women, " for they are really good wives — much too good for them." Yet these women are not quite perfect : " They do not modulate their voices." Here Captain Marryat is at variance with Fenimore Cooper, who says : " The voices of the American females are particularly soft and silvery ; and I think the language, a harsh one at best, is made softer by our women, especially of the middle and southern states, than you often hear it in Europe."^ Other drawbacks were detected by Captain Marryat, who arrived at the conclusion that these women " have a remarkable apathy as to the « Vol. i\. p. 120. ^ " Notions of a Travelling Bachelor," vol. ii. p. 133. U 290 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. sufferings of others, aH indifference to loss of life, a fondness for politics, all of which are unfeminine ; and lastly, a passion for dress carried to too great an extent." On the other hand, and by way of set- off, " they have a virtue which the men have not, which is moral courage, and one also which is not common with the sex, physical courage."^ Captain Marryat saw little to applaud, and much to deplore. The wonder is that he should say any- thing complimentary, seeing that, in his opinion : " The standard of morality in America is lower than in any other portion of the civilized globe." This is a hard saying, but not harder, or more reckless, than the following : " There is no character so devoid of principle as the British soldier and sailor." Utterances of this emphatic and random kind do not inspire confidence in the writer's judg- ment, nor do they prepare the reader to look with favour on the writer's panacea for the ills which he records, a panacea which I give without comment : *' The greatest security for tlie duration of the present institutions of the United States is the establishment of an aristocracy." Captain Marryat begins his Diary by stating that his remarks are to be based on an analysis of human nature ; he ends it with the avowal that his object has been to " point out "the effects of a Democracy upon the morals, the happiness, and the due apportionment of liberty to all classes." His concluding words are : " If I have any way assisted the cause of Con- servatism, I am content." This cause has been greatly injured by the ill-timed help of such a * Vol. ii. Second Series, p. 17. A RETfiOSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 291 misjudging supporter as Captain Marryat. The indisputable achievement of Captain Basil Hall and himself was to deepen the worst prejudices of the citizens of the United States towards Englishmen, to increase international misconceptions, and to throw obstacles in the path of the good and un- biassed men and women on both sides of the Atlantic who were striving to substitute amity for undiscerning rancour, and kindliness for distrust and jealousy. While Captain Hamilton and Mrs. Trollope, Captain Hall and Captain Marryat were actively employed in demonstrating to all intelligent readers their utter incompetence to pass judgment on the North American Republic, De Tocqueville was engaged in preparing the book which entitled him to be ranked with Montesquieu. Democracy in America, like the Spirit of Laws, has many faults ; the generalizations frequently betray an imperfect apprehension of facts ; the appreciation of the social forces which have caused the results under discussion is either defective, or wanting altogether ; the predictions of what the future will bring forth have been signally falsified by events, and they now seem to the most sympathetic reader to be ludicrously absurd. What has given De Tocqueville a deserved and undying fame is not so much the views which he has enunciated, or even the exquisite style in which he has set forth his thoughts and facts, as the admirable and thoroughly philosophic spirit in which his pen has done its work. He did not visit the United States, like some of his countrymen, to find the realization of a beautiful dream, nor like many of mine to find clap-trap arguments in con- u 2 292 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. demnation of free government, but in order to ascertain the quality of the fruit yielded by fair freedom's tree, and to give a faithful report of his investigation. He states his case and distributes praise or blame with the laudable impartiality of a righteous judge, who has listened with patience and digested with care the arguments on both sides of a given question. The decision which he pro- nounces is unalloyed either by mocking temper or despicable bias. The undiscerning partisan of Democracy, who fancies that the multitude are gifted with supreme wisdom, can turn to the pages of De Tocqueville for a corroboration of his faith in the divinity of numbers ; Sir Robert Peel recom- mended the masterpiece of the great Frenchman to the electors of Tamworth as the authority from which irrefragable facts could be drawn about the intolerable tyranny of tlie majority where the people exercise unlimited sway. Charged with being a revolutionist by the upholders of the divine right of bad rulers, and with being an aristocrat of the worst type by unappeasable demagogues, De Tocque- ville really belonged to the select band of philo- sophic politicians which is repelled by the dogmatic assumptions of the prejudiced, and the idle shibbo- leths of the ignorant, which dreads nothing so much as a political cataclysm and loves nothing more ardently than orderly political improvement. The work of De Tocqueville on the United States forms an era in the literature of travel in that country. Before he wrote, men and women thought it no shame to indite meaningless diatribes against what displeased them there, and to give the name of books of travel to mere party pamphlets. Many A EETROSrECT AND A COMPARISON. 293 silly books were written by persons wlio tliouglit they had a mission to make fun of the Yankees, and who had been sent into the world by an over-ruling Providence to compete with equally silly persons who came from the United States in order to ofive fantastic accounts aboi:^ the British Isles. While as regards breadth of view, keenness of insight, ad- miration of what is praiseworthy, appreciation of all that is noteworthy and noble in the constitution, the customs and the character of the British people, Mr. Emerson showed himself as philosophic in judging one side of the Atlantic, as De Toqueville the other ; and while Hawthorne, the exquisite novelist, followed in Mr. Emerson's steps without rivalling his performance, other writers showed that malevolence and stupidity are not the growths of British soil exclusively. A single sample of this will suffice. Not even Mrs. Trollope at her worst ever said anything more ridiculous than the following in Mr. Ward's English Items, or Mlcvoscojnc Views of Eng- land and Englishnen. Discussing the unpleasant topic of expectoration, he says : "I contend that it is superlatively disgusting to the English merely be- cause it is an American habit. Hating us with an intensity that helpless rage can only know, it is their highest delight to cavil at us, and finding nothing more serious to object to, cur earliest traducers seized upon tliis, and each hireling caterer to the morbid feeling against America in England attempts a facetious improvement on the stereo- typed jokes of his predecessors." Passing over the books which are simply non- sensical, the number of those which repaid perusal when they appeared and which still instruct the 294 COLUMTUA AND CANADA. student of history, is very large. Among tliem may be cited Dr. Charles Mackay's Life and Liberty in America, a genial narrative of interest- ing experiences : if the author had not revisited the country at a critical time, and misinterpreted the problem which was then in process of solution, his reputation as a judicious observer would have been greater than it is. Mr. Sala, a brilliant and kindly writer, would have rendered his Diary in the Midst of War still more notable by a sympathy with the cause which was certain to prevail. In his Civilized America, Mr. Grattan gave much useful information, the result of twenty years' sojourn in Boston as British Consul ; unfortunately, however, he judged the social arrangements too frequently by a standard taken from his previous residence on the continent of Europe. Mr. Chester, in his Trans- atlantic Sketches, gave expression to the remark- able discovery that a good choral service for the cadets at West Point would go far to remedy what he considered amiss in the Republic. Mr. Rose, a writer of talent, led the readers of his Great Country to suppose that the Roman Catholic churches and congregations there chiefly deserved commendation. Mr. Hilary Skinner, whose After the Storm is a lively and intelligent picture of the United States at the close of the Great Civil War, merits a place of honour among the travellers who have crossed the Atlantic. Sir Charles Dilke, in his Greater Britain, passed judgment on the United States with an acuteness of perception and a sympathy with what ought to be held in respect, which are rare in those persons who have criticized and coraniented on the North American Republic. A EETROSPECT AND A COMrARISON. ZVb I have reserved for separate mention tlie books of travel by two novelists, one of whom is fore- most among the greatest of modern times. The American Notes, of Dickens, displeased many persons in the United States. In this case the fault was in the reader. The book was unpre- tentious ; not a word in it had been set down in unkindness, though several passages were the reverse of flattering. It contained a good deal of exaggeration verging on caricature; but this was the manner in which Dickens dealt with home as well as foreign topics. Any one who calmly peruses it now in a proper spirit will wonder that it was ever the subject of bitter animadversion. The truth is that another kind of book was expected from the pen of the great novelist. Far more unpalatable things set forth in Martin Ghuzzhwit, gave less annoyance, or rather caused less disappointment. His real triumph is to have secured more admirers in the United States than in any other English- speaking land, a triumph which is equally creditable to both parties. Mr. Anthony Trollope is a popular living novelist. He has successfully competed with his mother as a writer of fiction and of books of travel. One of the latter, entitled North America, cannot be classed among his best productions. Writing in 1862, Mr. Trollope failed to forecast the issue of the deadly struggle between freedom and autocracy, between the partisans of the equality of all men before the law and the upholders of the inequality of negroes. He disbelieved in a result which was inevitable, and dreaded a conclusion which no sensible on-looker could regret. As a critic, Mr. Trollope was far less 296 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. biassed than his mother; he had no pecuniary faihire to ascribe to the people of the Repubhc ; he had sur- vived the Reform Bill and learned that anarchy is not the sure consequence of extending the suffrage in the United Kingdom. Yet the aversions to which he gives frank utterance resemble those of his mother : " I dislike universal suffrage ; I dislike vote by ballot ; I dislike above all things the tyranny of demo- cracy." ^ Since he wrote these words, he has seen the suffrage made nearly universal at home ; he has seen the ballot become the law of the land, and he has not perceived any diminution of the happiness of the people or failure to appreciate his excellent novels. It is undeniable that he had a reason to complain of the tone which prevailed among some of the people with whom he associated. They told him certain things which were at once extraordinary and distasteful, such as : " That Wellington was beaten at Waterloo ; that Lord Palmerston was so unpopular that he could not walk alone in the streets; that the House of Commons was an acknow- ledged failure ; that starvation was the normal con- dition of the British people, and that the Queen was a bloodthirsty tyrant." * However, these tokens of perverse ignorance ought not to have been presented as proofs of ill-feeling. Mr. Trollope is rather exacting. He passes summary and unqualified con- demnation on the hotels of the United States ; he is as ruthless in judging the newspaper press, saying : *' In the whole length and breadth of the United States there is not published a single newspaper which seems to me to be worthy of praise. . . They ' " Noitli America," vol. ii. p. 109. * Vol. ii. p. 174. A EETltOSPECT AND A COMPAKISON. 297 are ill-written, ill-printed, ill-arranged, and, in fact, are not readable."^ While difficult to please abroad, lie is not more easily satisfied at home ; for, in his opinion, " a really good newspaper. ... is still to be desired in Great Britain." " He affirms that he has " ever admired the United States as a nation." That nation might reasonably pray to be spared the irritation of his candid friendship. Sir Charles Lyell, whose travels on the Continent of North America belong to a class apart, remarks that : "As politicians, no people are so prone to give way to groundless fears and despondency respecting the prospect of affairs in America as the English, partly because they know little of the conditions of society there, and partly from their own well- founded conviction, that a near approach to uni- versal suffrage at home would lead to anarchy and insecurity of property." ^ A corresponding mis- placed commiseration was manifested in the United States towards England at an earlier day. Writing in 1788, Dr. Noah Webster observes, " I am sensible that the Americans are much concerned for the liberties of the British nation ; and the Act for making Parliaments Septennial is often mentioned as an arbitrary, oppressive Act, destructive of Eng- lish liberty. . . I wish my countrymen would believe that other nations understand and can guard their privileges, without any lamentable outcries from this side of the Atlantic." ^ The people on both sides of the Atlantic have upheld their liberties despite all the gloomy forebodings and sinister pre- ' Vol. ii. pp. 423, 427 « Vol. ii. pp. 424, 425. ' " Travels in North America," First Series, vol. i. p. 227. * " Essays and Fugitive Writings," p. GO. 298 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. dictions of distracted and feeble-minded critics. Sir Charles Lyell had the acuteness to perceive certain mistakes of his countrymen, but he was not able to avoid all their errors. Twenty years have elapsed since his words were penned ; during that period the suffrage has been extended to a degree which he thought perilous, still there are no signs of the anarchy which he foresaw or of the general spolia- tion which he considered inevitable. It is true, however, that some persons are still prone to fancy tlia North American Republic to be in imminent peril from a bugbear of their imaginations. At one moment, they say that the decisive hour has arrived because a civil war has broken out; at another, they see a crisis pregnant with woe and destruction, because the result of a presidential election is in dis- pute. Yet the Constitutions of the United Kingdom and the United States survive the jeers of detractors and the faint-hearted support of timorous friends, being fraught with the strength which can with- stand a shock and the vitality which survives a disaster. Republican institutions are commonly supposed to be inefficient, unstable, and short-lived. Such is the conclusion at which many persons have arrived after reading about the Republics of ancient Greece and Rome, and of Italy during the Middle Ages. It was generally supposed, at the establishment of the Republic in North America, that the blunders and shortcomings of the Republics of antiquity would be repeated, that liberty would soon be succeeded by licence, and that licence would be crushed alonn: with liberty, under the heel of a tyrant. This A RETROSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 299 expectation was strengthened by what occurred in Europe a few years later ; then it was confidently predicted that the Revolution in France was an ensample of the drama which would speedily be played on the American Continent, and the natural prelude to it. The cause of free and beneficent government in Europe has sustained greater detriment from the so- called liepublican Administrations in France than from any other events in modern history Each has been a screaming farce in the opinion of the cynic, and a mournful tragedy in the opinion of the philo- sopher. The first was the most tragic and inde- fensible; it was a carnival of slaughter, an orgy, headed in turn by the demon of unreason and the lord of misrule. It furnished reasons to justify the sarcasm of Mr. Herbert Spencer, that modern democracy is old despotism differently spelt. After the autocratic rule of the king had been successfully transformed into a constitutional monarchy; after the constitutional monarchy had been abolished simply for the sake of change, Lewis XVI. beheaded, because he was a king by hereditary descent, and in order that monarchs, whom a like accident had placed upon a throne, might take warning by his fate, and Mary Antoinette beheaded also because she was a king's wife; after nobles, who had voluntarily surrendered their hereditary privileges, had been executed by the hundred because they had inherited and enjoyed them; after the established religion had been abolished as a malignant relic of monarchy, and its priests compelled to renounce the exercise of their sacerdotal functions under the penalty of exile or death, so that they miglit clearly perceive how com- 300 COLUMDIA AND CANADA. pletely tlie vile days of superstition and religious intolerance had vanished ; after the unoffending seasons and days of the week had received new names, and were reckoned after a new fashion ; after a republican clock, with the hours divided into tenths, had been set up over the Tuileries, in order that the emancipated citizens whom the Republican guillotine had spared might have a visible recurring proof of the comprehensiveness of the alterations which had been made ; after the trammels of old civility had been discarded, and men were compelled to use the term " citizen " when addressing their neighbours, and when the happy time finally arrived at which notliing was wanting to a scene of unpre- cedented confusion and distrust, its delighted authors resolved to confer upon all the nations of the earth the blessings of which their fellow-countrjanen had a monopoly. Some countries showed an unaccount- able aversion to the attempts which were made to civihze them, and even resisted by force of arms : the Republican philanthropists of regenerated France were not the men to be thwarted when on an errand of frati^rnity. In the name of holy liberty and blessed peace, they carried the sword and the torch throughout Europe ; when tired but not sated of slaughter, they incorporated into the Republic the ravaged lands of the vanquished. While earnestly engaged in their apostolic mission they were inter- rupted by Bonaparte assuming the title of Emperor and the habits of a tyrant, amid the acclamations of Republicans who had blustered about the rights of man, and had trodden liberty under foot whenever they could do so with impunity. The. second French Republic, like the first, sue- A RETROSPECT AND A COilPARISON. 301 ceeded a constitutional monarchy. The creation of a few speeches, it was maintained by oratory till the time came for it to be betrayed by its president, just as the first had been strangled by a consul. Before the second Republic had paved the way for a second empire, it had managed to annihilate the infant Re- public of Rome. The third Republic came into the world, at the bidding of a delirious Parisian mob, on the morrow of a great national disaster. Under this free Government, any citizen may summon a public meeting if the police give him permission ; he may print whatever he pleases in a newspaper, provided he publish nothing offensive to those in authority. The duration of this nominal Republic depends upon the desire of the people of France to live under it. If they really understand that the want of their country is not a saviour but self-government, then they will uphold the third Republic, and convert it into a government worthy in all its parts of a free people. Between the Republic in North America and other modern Republics, that of Switzerland alone excepted, there is not and there never has been any similarity in essence, constitution, and aim. Like the British Constitution, it is " broad-based upon the people's will." It is as natural a growth of the soil as the forests which once overspread the land. Its definite form has been the result of a natural process of evolution. Long before the Constitution of the United States was framed the people exercised self- government, and were trained to the practice of self- help in the colonies, which were republics in all but the name. The chief product of the Revolution was 302 COLUMIifA AND CANADA. a new flag and a ruler who, with the title of Presi- dent, fulfilled the functions of King. The most revolutionary proposals of any citizens of the United States were firstly, that Hebrew should be sub- stituted for English ; and secondly, if English were retained, that the letters should be turned upside down. The most foolish thing done with a patriotic intent, was the compilation of a dictionary in which the words were spelled so as to have an un-English look. Planting trees of liberty, cutting off the heads of those persons w4io were disliked by the occupants of official posts, a general subversion of society and social customs, never occurred to Washington and Franklin as indispensable preliminaries to the esta- blishment of a form of administration in which the multitude was to be the recognized Sovereign. In truth, the United States Republic has nothing in common with those fungus Governments which wax great in a single night, and wither in a day. It is a goodly tree of slow growth and mature development which dates from the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was planted by Sir Walter Raleigh. When a Republic is in question, there is much or little in a name. Some Frenchmen are not only satisfied but overjoyed when they live under a government to which the name of a Republic is given in official documents. Such a government may be as tyrannical in maintaining what is called law and order as any so-called saviour of society; the country may be ruled from Paris, through the arbitrary intervention of prefects, with as much con- tempt for personal independence as if a Bourbon or a Bonaparte were on the throne. These men are pleased, however, so long as crimes against A EETROSPECT AND A COMPAEISON. 303 liberty are perpetrated in the name of a Re- public. As to the genuineness of the Republic in jSTorth America, there never has been any doubt ; yet, so long as its aegis was thrown over the crime of slavery, it was impossible for its well-wishers in this country to refrain from adverse and uncompli- mentary criticism. Some of the bitterest things said by travellers on the American continent were inspired by their laudable detestation of slavery, and their observation of its vicious effects. These ex- pressions of opinion gave dire offence to thousands in the United States, who heartily sympathized with the poor slaves, but who could not brook fault- finding from a British pen. Others in this country, who regarded any Republic as a sort of political volcano, lived in constant dread of the mischief which might be wrought by that in North America, notwithstanding the distance which separated it from the British Isles, and they apprehended that, at any moment, and in an insidious manner, British institutions might be what they called " Ameri- canized." The latter dread is now extinct. If our constitution were to be "Americanized" it would be rendered far less democratic than it is; the monarch would regain the personal power which George III. usurped, but which no Sovereign will exercise again. The British Constitution is now re- stored to its pristine purity, and promises to remain the charter and the glory of a free people when half the capitals of Europe are as Nineveh and Palmyra. While the Republic in North America has been regarded with suspicion or imperfect appreciation for the reasons assigned, it has also suffered from 304 COLUMDIA AND CANADA. over-laudation. To proclaim to all the world that a particular form of government is absolutely perfect is an invitation to tlie sensible portion of mankind to inquire what are its undoubted defects. Well-meaning but foolish persons used to think that they discharged a patriotic duty in repejiting that the British Constitution was the quintessence of human wisdom, and the envy of those persons who did not live under it. Happily, the day is gone by when irrational boasting of this sort can be heard with patience. Sensible persons who are conscious of the excellencies of that Con- stitution readily admit that it is capable of amend- ment ; they rejoice to think that, without detriment to its spirit, it can be easily and rapidly moulded to suit the wants of the revolving ages. Its unrivalled merit consists in an elasticity which cannot be matched, and an adaptability which can- not be surpassed. If it be true that the Consti- tution of the United States is beyond improvement, and ought to be admired without reserve, it is clear that its difference from that of Great Britain is fundamental. Such is the character given to it by Mr. Edward Everett, one of the orators whom the citizens of Massachusetts considered incomparable, and a statesman upon whom they conferred the highest honours in their gift. In one of his care- fully-prepared addresses he says : " We are author- ized to assert that the era of our independence dates the establishment of the only perfect organi- zation of Government." . . . . " Our Government is in its theory perfect, and in its operation it is perfect also. Thus we have solved the great problem in human affairs." . . . . " A frame of A EBTBOSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 305 government perfect in its principles, has been brought down from the airy region of Utopia, and has found a local habitation and a name in our country." These passages were composed and spoken when slavery was a cherished institution of the United States. Nor was Mr. Everett alone in holding the opinion that everything had been ordered for the best in the Republic, which was perfect in theory and perfect in operation. In the introduction to his History of the United States, written in 1834 and recently reprinted, Mr. George Bancroft recounts the peculiar glories of his great country. He proudly says that nothing is wanting in the land over which a favouring Pro- vidence has uniformly watched : " There is no national debt ; the community is opulent ; the Go- vernment economical ; and the public treasury full." Forgetting the fact of slavery at the time he penned the following words, he contends that the United States "have the precedence in the practice and defence of the equal rights of man." Contrasting his own nation with the nations of Europe, he says that while they " aspire after change, our Consti- tution engages the fond admiration of the people, by which it was established. . . . Other Govern- ments are convulsed by the innovations and reforms of neighbouring states ; our Constitution, fixed in the affections of the people, from whose choice it has sprung, neutralizes the influences of foreign principles, and fearlessly opens an asylum to the virtuous, the unfortunate, and the oppressed of every nation."^ Since Mr. Bancroft wrote this in- " Jntrotluetioii to tlio Centenary Edition of the " History of the United States." By George Bancroft X 306 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. troduction, tlie immutable Constitution lias been transformed : the fourteeiDtli and fifteenth amend- ments have rendered it the great charter of a united nation; when he penned his eulogium, it was but the charter of men who boasted of having no stain of black blood in their veins or on their skin. Instead of sneering at the nations of Europe on account of the innovations and reforms which they have accepted or devised in their systems of govern- ment, Mr. Bancroft would have exhibited more philosophy, and greater appreciation of what is praiseworthy, had he pointed out how changes in national constitutions are concomitants of a coun- try's growth and development, resembling the changes in the human frame from infancy to maturity. The real drawback in the existing system of government in the United States is that a power has obtained an influence which thwarts the inde- pendent action of the Constitution. Many a United States patriot who thinks of the interests of his country and has no personal end in view, whose hands are spotless and whose aims are laudable, is as helpless as if he were a citizen of the moon. These true lovers of their country are numbered by the thousand ; all of them are inspired with a noble ambition to counteract the designs and doings of professional and knavish politicians, and to secure a pure and praiseworthy administration of public affairs. Yet such men cannot work together with the unanimity of rascals whose object is to dip their foul hands into the public purse and who are in- different to the fame of their country so long as they are enriched. For nearly a century, the Union A RETROSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 307 pined under the incubus of slavery : at present, its aspirations towards a happier state are counteracted by the malign effects of party tactics and disciphne. The people, though nominally supreme, appear to be impotent. Like Gulliver in the toils of the Lilli- putians, they are encompassed with a network of rules and arrangements which hinders them from moving as their fancy dictates. The election of a particular man to a particular office is primarily due to those men who nominate him ; some electors are the mere puppets of party managers. If the best men are not uniformly elected, that does not prove Democracy to be a farce or a failure, it merely indicates that Democracy has been hoodwinked or outwitted. For years the people compromised with the upholders of slavery rather than give logical effect to their convictions. Party misgovernment may be tolerated in like manner for a long time, yet it will share the fate of slavery when the people think fit to pronounce its doom. The Fathers of the Republic, if they had beheld it in the grandeur and pride of its centenary, would have been still more surprised after comparing their native land with the other countries of the civilized globe. Most of them died in the belief that time's latest birth was the most extraordinary and eventful, that the star of empire had undoubtedly moved westward, that the old nations of Europe were hastening to swift decay. The first century of the existence of the Republic, during which its area has been widened and its power consolidated, has seen a degree of progress in Europe equally marked and marvellous : nations which Franklin considered in a 308 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. state of irremediable decrepitude having renewed tlieir youth, and moved with a steady and untiring pace, alongside of their sanguine and lusty competitor, in the march of improvement. The Europe of a hundred years ago has been transformed as completely as the constitution of the United States and the face of the North American continent. France, which avenged the overthrow of Montcalm at Quebec by securing the capitulation of Cornwallis at Yorktown, has undergone many vicissitudes since then, has soared high in the elation of great triumphs and been humiliated in the dust by crushing reverses, has been the victor before whom proud nations have trembled and the vanquished tyrant to whom these nations have prescribed humiliating terms, has conquered when men predicted that her strength was illusory, and been overthrown when the belief in her strength was universal, has astounded the world by unexampled fortitude in the dark hour of bitter trial and unexpected mishap, maintaining her prestige after disasters under which less favoured nations would have succumbed. Italy has been con- verted from a name in ancient history and in modern geography into one of the Great Powers of Europe. Germany, which in former days was but a congeries of petty principalities without cohesion and without a head, has become an empire hardly less powerful and compact than the defunct empire of Rome. By the abolition of serfdom, Russia has acquired a title to something more admirable than that of an empire in which real barbarism was concealed under a little French polish. Holland still confines herself, as in the days when she was the banker of the struggling Republic in America, to making money in place of A EETROSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 309 aiming at conquests ; she lias seen the kingdom of Belgium carved out of her territory almost without a sigh. The Fathers of the Republic might regard with interest the success which has attended the adaptation of the British constitution to the latter kingdom. They would see with satisfaction that Greece was no longer in subjection to the Turk, though they might regret that this historic kingdom enjoyed independence at the expense of its creditors. They would find Spain stripped of her vast possessions in South America and expending her energies, not in attempts at universal conquest, but in periodical revolutions. Turning to the old Spanish Colonies which are now petty Republics, they would seriously doubt whether the anarchy prevailing among them is an actual improvement on the despotism of earlier days. They would observe with natural surprise that an empire in Soutli America had set an example to all these Republics in financial honesty and in good government, and prospered equally whether its head be at home or travelling in distant lands. If they inquired about the Republic of Liberia they would learn, with mingled feelings, that negroes had established it and had imitated one of the worst blunders of white men by ordaining that none but a negro should hold office. In their survey of the world they would behold the British Empire at every turn. Franklin likened that empire to a beautiful china vase which, when once broken was rendered unattractive and valueless. In his eyes, the secession of the Thirteen Colonies had given a shock to it from which recovery was impossible ; before he died he thought that it had become a splendid fragment of a magnificent 310 ■ COLUMBIA AND CANADA. wliole. Since then it has absorl)ecl the empire of the Moguls and found in Austrahisia and South Africa, in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Pacific such an accession of territory and renown as would have astounded the sedate philosopher of Philadelphia. Yet the present vastness of that empire would be less opposed to the preconceived notions of the Fathers of tlie Republic than the manner in which it is now governed. They would find a colonial policy in operation of which the leading principle is to permit the colonists to have their own way in their own concerns, and of which the result has been to make the subjects of Queen Victoria on the continents of Nortli America, Australasia, South Africa, and in the islands of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, the most enthusiastic and energetic upholders of the fabric of the empire over whicli she rules. The changes in the Parliament of the United Kingdom would appear to them almost incredible ; they would be inclined to doubt the testimony of their senses. Writing to Dr. Price in 1780, Franklin pronounced the Parliamentary abuses to be beyond the reach of ordinary remedies, a revolution being the only cure, and this he considered the people too craven to achieve. In default of such a heroic remedy being employed, he predicted that the nation would continue " to be plundered and obliged to pay, by taxes, the plunderers for plundering and ruining." Without any more serious revolution than that which can be eff*ccted by a few Acts of Parliament, what Franklin deemed alike indispensable and impossible has been accomplished. These twin sisters of iniquity, parliamentary corruption and government patronage, are now among the traditions of an age A RETEOSPECT AND A COMPAEISON. 311 about wliicli tbe rising generation in this country reads with a mixture of astonishment and increduhty. A legislature more free than that of Britain from the taint or even the suspicion of corruption does not exist. The representation of the people is not yet theoretically perfect ; it would be difficult, however, to name any other nation wherein the popular control over its rulers is more direct and complete than in the United Kingdom. Nowhere can personal merit succeed with greater ease and certainty in obtaining an office of honour and emolument in the military or civil service of the country ; it is sufficient to pass the requisite examination to obtain a commission in the army or a place under government. If George the Third were to unite with the Fathers of the Republic in comparing the present condition of his country and theirs, he would unquestionably arrive at the conclusion that the power which he loved to exercise and the patronage which he liked to dispense, could alone be enjoyed in full measure at Washington, and that if he wished to act as a Sovereign after his own heart, he must become President of the United States. Having made them- selves thoroughly acquainted with the existing condi- tion of the civilized world, the Fathers of the Re- public might ask themselves whether they ought not to modify some old opinions and disavow certain pre- judices which they once cherished as incontrovertible truths. That the North American Republic was a light shining in the darkness, that its constitution first proclaimed and secured the rights of man, that the rest of tbe world had been mired in a slough of ignorance and misery from which extrication was well- nigh impossible, was the dismal creed of the founders 312 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. of the United States, and of their immediate successors. They were convinced that the keys of the future had been given by a favouring Providence into their hands, that they had been predestined to teach the nations how to Uve. The United States occupy a conspicuous place in the grand pro- cession of the nations ; but they have not led the van. In the performances which constitute the merit and glory of a people, the progenitor of the United States can still afford to challenge rivalry. She was foremost in abolishing slavery. In relieving trade and commerce from the shackles of a selfish and immoral policy, which generally assumes the seduc- tive disguise of true patriotism, she took a step in advance which no nation has yet had the boldness to follow. Franklin advocated the freedom of industry ; Washington fought, and fought successfully for it. When the suggestion is now made by British writers that the original policy of the great Republic should prevail, many of its citizens denounce the proposal as insidious, and sneer at Free trade fanatics, to whom purity of motive is denied, just as it was to the abolitionists of New England who were formerly persecuted to the death, chiefly because their argu- ments were borrowed from Great Britain. Those persons who believe that the world is ruled by moral forces, who hold that the truth must prevail against the protected manufacturer as it has done against the protected slaveholder, who condemn the slavery of the pocket as well as that of the person, who sympathize with the consumer suffer- ing from the blight of protection just as they did with the poor dark-skinned producer who groaned A KETROSPECT AND A COMPAEISON. 313 under the yoke of slavery, can afford to wait in patience tlie inevitable end, being certain that justice is omnipotent. Fiscal policy apart, with which patriotic citizens of the United States are fully competent to deal, the desires and ideals of the two great sections of what is called the Anglo-Saxon race are one in essence and aim. If the brotherhood of man be not a mere phrase, and if the natural affinity of kindred races be the paramount factor in civilization that philor'o- phers allege, then that race should agree to work in concert for a common end. A wish to do so is the first requisite. About the readiness of the United Kingdom to co-operate in the benign work, there can be no question. Indeed, this has been demonstrated by speeches from statesmen of the highest class, such as Earl Granville, Mr. John Bright, and Mr. W. E. Forster; by addresses and writings of men of letters and science, such as Lord Houghton, Mr. R. H. Hutton, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Mr. Edward Dicey, Sir Charles Dilke, Professor Huxley, and Professor Tyndall ; of divines like Dean Stanley, Principal Tulloch, and Dr. Martineau ; of great philosophers, such as Mr. Herbert Spencer and the late John Stuart Mill. Nor can one political party now lay claim to a monopoly of right feeling in this matter. No more friendly or more judicious speeches have ever been uttered in our day about the United States than those which the Earl of Beaconsfield, Lord Derby, Lord Carnarvon, and Sir Stafiford Northcote have delivered. Most significant of all, not as a mere harbinger, but as a confirmation of change, was an admirable article in the Quarterly Bevieiu for July, 1876. In that venerable organ of T 314 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. Englisli Conservatism, the career of the Repubhc in North America was sketched in an appreciative spirit and the wish was enunciated that a cordial and close association between the two English-speak- ing powers of the earth should be substituted for the mutual misunderstanding and jealousy which marred their relations in bygone days. These expressions of amity are heartily recipro- cated by the most cultured citizens of the United States. They know, as the noble poet, Whittier, has finely phrased it, that — " Thicker than water, in one rill, Through centuries of story, Our Saxon blood has flow'd, and still We share with you the ^ood and ill, The shadow and the glory." One thing, however, is lacking. The people of the United States are wont to pride themselves on their dissimilarity from their fellows in the land of their forefathers ; they exaggerate the trivial points of difference and overlook the substan- tial facts of resemblance between the Governments under which both have flourished, being apparently unaware how much rational monarchy is sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States and how much rational Republicanism is contained in the British Constitution. Till the school books, from which children born in the great Republic arc taught the annals of their country, shall be recast in a spirit the reverse of that which has hitherto animated their compilers, many incidents which ought to be allowed to sink into oblivion will continue to foster mischievous errors and almost ineradicable prejudices in youthful minds. A EETEOSPECT AND A COMPARISON. 31 5 I disbelieve in tlie specific virtue of a treaty. An ambitious nation can dispense with a declaration of good intentions wlien resolved to maintain harmony with its equal in power and spirit. Never has a nation, bent upon waging war and confident of vic- tory, been frustrated by diplomatic protests against a breach of solemn stipulations. Irrational and sanguinary wars have originated in an alleged disre- gard of some article in the treaty which not only restored peace to countries lamenting treasure squandered, resources impaired and hearths made desolate, but which was also designed to serve as a covenant of perpetual friendship. What the de- spoiled and perplexed Seminole Chief said of treaties between a nation of white men and a tribe of Indians applies to treaties in general : " The white man's for ever does not last lons^ enousfh." If a closer tie is to bind together the two English- speaking nations, something more durable than a treaty ought to form the nexus between them. A great scheme of Confederation has been proposed ; but no agreement as to its terms has yet been arrived at. Better than any treaty, far simpler than such a scheme, and a prelude to the adoption of one hereafter, would be an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and an Amendment to the Consti- tution of the United States, giving to citizens of the Republic, and subjects of Queen Victoria common citizenship in the Anglo-American Empire. In- cluding subsidiary yet indispensable details, such a change would be significant rather than great. After, as before it, the two countries would preserve their identity and independence ; but their inhabi- tants could then cherish the assurance that they 316 COLUMBIA AND CANADA. stood in closer fellowship to eacli other than to the rest of the human race, and that, though repre- yenting two nations, they were in reality but one people. Continuing to be rivals everywhere, they would cease to be aliens throughout that vast area of the globe where the Star-spangled banner and the Union Jack bear witness that it is consecrated to freedom. The land of Abraxa, under the wise administration of Utopus, was transformed into the happy Re- jmblic, and has since then borne his name. That community, though far from perfect, is constantly cited as the type of what good men desire, and what no man can accomplish. It is needless to aim at re})eating the imaginary achievement of Utopus in order to increase the sum of human well-being. If the people of the North American Republic and of the British Empire were uniformly to act in con- formity and concord, on all questions of international relationship, they would not only advance their own interests, pursue their noblest aspirations and set an inestimable example, but they would also mate- rially contribute to justify the hopes of ardent and sanguine philanthropists that, in a happier and more enlightened future, mankind will rejoice over the peaceable establishment of the United States of the World. When all nations agree to dwell together in unity. Paradise will be regained. THE END. V GILBEET AND EITINGTON, PEINTEBS, ST. JOHN'S SQUABB, LONDON. C 310 88 ^^-n^ -^o .<2> ;■ y -f,0^^ '0^ / :'MM' \^<-^ '^•' %>/ 'Mm-. %.*'■ "•