The year 1851 is memorable for the celebration, at Boston, of the opening of the Ogdensburg Railway, to connect Boston with Canada and the Lakes, and also of the Grand Junction Railway, a semicircular line by which all the railways radiating from that city are linked together, so that a passenger starting from any one of the city stations can take his ticket for any other station on any of those railways, either in the suburbs or at distant points. I am not aware that so perfect a system has been attempted elsewhere. The natural configuration of its site has probably suggested the scheme. Boston proper is built on an irregular tri-conical hill, with its famous bay to the east; on the north the wide Charles River, with the promontory and hills of Charlestown and East Cambridge; on the south Dorchester Heights. Between the principal elevations are extensive salt marshes, now rapidly disappearing under the encroachments of artificial soil, covered in turn by vast warehouses, streets, railway tracks, and all the various structures common to large commercial cities.
It was in the month of July, that a deputation from the Boston City Council visited our principal Canadian cities, as the bearers of an invitation to Lord Elgin and his staff, with the government officials, as well as the mayors and corporations and leading merchants of those cities, and other principal towns of Upper and Lower Canada, to visit Boston on the occasion of a great jubilee to be held in honour of the opening of its new railway system.
Numerous as were the invited Canadian guests, however, they formed but a mere fraction of the visitors expected. Every railway staff, every municipal corporation throughout the Northern States, was included in the list of invitations; free passes and free quarters were provided for all; and it would be hard to conceive a more joyous invasion of merry travellers, than those who were pouring in by a rapid succession of loaded trains on all the numerous lines converging upon "the hub of the universe."
Our Toronto party was pretty numerous. Mr. J. G. Bowes was mayor, and among the aldermen present were Messrs. W. Wakefield (who was a host of jollity in himself), G. P. Ridout, R. Dempsey, E. F. Whittemore, J. G. Beard, Robt. Beard, John B. Robinson, Jos. Sheard and myself; also councilmen James Ashfield, James Price, M. P. Hayes, S. Platt, Jonathan Dunn, and others. There were besides, of leading citizens, Messrs. Alex. Dixon, E. G. O'Brien, Alex. Manning, E. Goldsmith, Kivas Tully, Fred. Perkins, Rice Lewis, George Brown, &c. We had a delightful trip down the lake by steamer, and at Ogdensburg took the cars for Lake Champlain. We arrived at Boston about 10 a.m. Waiting for us at the Western Railroad Depot were the mayor and several of the city council of Boston, with carriages for our whole party. But we were too dusty and tired with our long journey to think of anything but refreshments and baths, and all the other excellent things which awaited us at the American Hotel. Here we were confidentially informed that the Jubilee was to be celebrated on temperance principles, but that in compliment to the Canadian guests, a few baskets of champagne had been provided for our especial delectation; and I am compelled to add, that on the strength thereof, two or three worshipful aldermen of Toronto got themselves locked up for the night in the police stations.
It is but justice to explain here, that a very small offence is sufficient to procure such a distinction in Boston. Even the smoking of a cigar on the side-walks, or the least symptom of unsteadiness in gait, is enough to consign a man to durance vile. The police were everywhere.
The first day of the Jubilee was occupied by the members of the committee in receiving their visitors, providing them with comfortable and generally luxurious quarters, and introducing the principal guests to each other—also in exhibiting the local lions. On the second day there was an excursion down the harbour, which is many miles long and broad. Six steamboats and two large cutters, gay with flags and streamers, conveyed the party; champagne was in abundance (always for the Canadian visitors!)—each boat had its band of music—very fine German bands too. Then, as the flotilla left the wharf and passed in succession the fortifications and other prominent points, salvoes of cannon boomed across the bright waters, re-echoing far and wide amid the surrounding hills. President Fillmore and his suite were on board the leading vessel, and to him, of course, these honours were paid. On every boat was spread a banquet for the guests; toasts and sentiments were given and duly honoured; and to judge by the noise and excited gesticulations of the banqueters, nothing could be more complete than the fusion of Yankees and Canadians.
At noon, a regatta was held, which, the weather being fine, with a light breeze, was pronounced by yachtsmen a distinguished success. At five o'clock the citizens crowded in vast numbers to the Western Railway Station, there to meet His Excellency the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, with his brother Colonel Bruce and a numerous staff. He was welcomed by Mayor Bigelow, a fine venerable old man of the Mayflower stock. Mutual compliments were exchanged, and the new comers escorted to the Revere House, a very handsome hotel, the best in Boston. Everywhere the streets were lined with throngs of people, who cheered our Governor-General to the uttermost extent of their lung-power.
On the third day took place a monster procession, at least a mile and a-half in length, and modelled after the plan of the German trades festivals. Besides the long line of carriages filled with guests, from the President and the Governor-General down to the humblest city officer, there was an immense array of "trades expositions" or pageants, that is, huge waggons drawn by four, six, eight and sometimes ten horses, each waggon serving as a model workshop, whereon printers, hatters, bootmakers, turners, carriage-makers, boat-riggers, stone-cutters, silversmiths, plumbers, market-men, piano-forte makers, and many other handicraftsmen worked at their respective callings.
The finest street of private residences was Dover Street, a noble avenue of cut stone buildings, occupied by wealthy people of old Boston families. The decorations here were both costly and tasteful; and the hospitality unbounded. As each carriage passed slowly along, footmen in livery presented at its doors silver trays loaded with refreshments, in the shape of pastry, bon-bons, and costly wines. The ladies of each house, richly dressed, stood on the lower steps and welcomed the visitors with smiles and waving of handkerchiefs. At two or three places in the line of procession, were platforms handsomely festooned, occupied by bevies of fair girls in white, or by hundreds of children of both sexes, belonging to the common schools, prettily dressed, and bearing bouquets of bright flowers which they presented to the occupants of the carriages.
I could not help remarking to my companion, one of the members of the Boston City Council, that more aristocratic-looking women than these Dover Street matrons, were not, I thought, to be found in all Europe. He told me not to whisper such a sentiment in Boston, for fear it might expose the objects of my complimentary remark to being mobbed by the democracy.
At length the procession came to an end. But it was only a prelude to a still more magnificent demonstration, which was the great banquet given to four thousand people under one vast tent covering half an acre of ground on the Common. Thither the visitors were escorted in carriages, with the usual attention and solicitude for their every comfort, and when within, and placed according to their several ranks and localities, it was truly a sight to be remembered. The tent was two hundred and fifty feet in length by ninety in width. The roof and sides were all but hidden by the profusion of flags and bunting festooned everywhere. A raised table for the visitors extended around the entire tent. For the citizens proper were placed ten rows of parallel tables running the whole length of the inner area; altogether providing seats for three thousand six hundred people, besides smaller tables at convenient spots. There were present also a whole army of waiters, one to each dozen guests, and indefatigable in their duties.
The repast included all kinds of cold meats and temperance drinks. Flowers for every person and great flower trophies on the tables; abundance of huge water and musk melons, and other fruits in great variety and perfection, especially native grown peaches and Bartlett pears, which Boston produces of the finest quality. Also plenty of pastry of many tempting kinds. It took scarcely twenty minutes to seat the entire "dinner party" comfortably, so excellent were the arrangements.
Before dinner commenced, Mayor Bigelow, who presided, announced that President Fillmore was required to leave for Washington on urgent state business; which he did after his health had been proposed and acknowledged. A little piece of dramatic acting was noticeable here, when the President and Lord Elgin, one on each side of the Mayor, shook hands across his worshipful breast, the President retaining his lordship's hand firmly clasped in his own for some time; a tableau which gave rise to a tumultuous burst of applause from the whole assemblage.
Then commenced in earnest the play of knives and forks, four thousand of each, producing a unique and somewhat droll effect. After the President had gone, Lord Elgin became the chief lion of the day, and right well did his lordship play his part, entering thoroughly into the prejudices of his auditors while disclaiming all flattery, pouring out witticism after witticism, sometimes of the broadest, and altogether carrying the audience with him until they were worked up into a perfect frenzy of applause.
"The health of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" having been proposed by His Honour Mayor John P. Bigelow, was received, as the Boston account of the Jubilee says, "with nine such cheers as would have made Her Majesty, had she been present, forget that she was beyond the limits of her own dominions; and the band struck up 'God save the Queen,' as if to complete the illusion." The compliment was acknowledged by Lord Elgin, who said:
"Allow me, gentlemen, as there seems to be in America some little misconception on these points, to observe, that we, monarchists though we be, enjoy the advantages of self-government, of popular elections, of deliberative assemblies, with their attendant blessings of caucuses, stump orators, lobbyings and log-rollings—(Laughter)—and I am not sure but we sometimes have a little pipe-laying—(renewed laughter)—almost, if not altogether, in equal perfection with yourselves. I must own, gentlemen, that I was exceedingly amused the other day, when one of the gentlemen who did me the honour to visit me at Toronto, bearing the invitation of the Common Council and Corporation of the City of Boston, observed to me, with the utmost gravity, that he had been delighted to find, upon entering our Legislative Assembly at Toronto, that there was quite as much liberty of speech there as in any body of the kind he had ever visited. (Laughter.) I could not help thinking that if my kind friend would only favour us with his company in Canada for a few weeks, we should be able to demonstrate, to his entire satisfaction, that the tongue is quite as 'unruly' a 'member' on the north side of the line as on this side. (Renewed laughter.)"Now, gentlemen, you must not expect it, for I have not the voice for it, and I cannot pretend to undertake to make a regular speech to you. I belong to a people who are notoriously slow of speech. (Laughter.) If any doubt ever existed on this point, it must have been set at rest by the verdict which a high authority has recently pronounced. A distinguished American—a member of the Senate of the United States, who has lately been in England, informed his countrymen, on his return, that sadly backward as poor John Bull is in many things, in no one particular does he make so lamentable a failure as when he tries his hand at public speaking. (Laughter.) Now, gentlemen, deferring, as I feel bound to do, to that high authority, and conscious that in no particular do I more faithfully represent my countrymen than in my stammering tongue and embarrassed utterance (continued laughter), you may judge what my feelings are when I am asked to address an assembly like this, convened under the hospitable auspices of the Corporation of Boston, I believe to the tune of some four thousand, in this State of Massachusetts, a State which is so famous for its orators and its statesmen, a State that can boast of Franklins, and Adamses, and Everetts, and Winthrops and Lawrences, and Sumners and Bigelows, and a host of other distinguished men; a State, moreover, which is the chosen home, if not the birthplace of the illustrious Secretary of State of the American Union. (Applause.)"But, gentlemen, although I cannot make a speech to you, I must tell you, in the plain and homely way in which John Bull tries to express his feelings when his heart is full—that is to say, when they do not choke him and prevent his utterance altogether (sensation)—in that homely way I must express to you how deeply grateful I and all who are with me (hear, hear), feel for the kind and gratifying reception we have met with in the City of Boston. For myself, I may say that the citizens of Boston could not have conferred upon me a greater favour than that which they have conferred, in inviting me to this festival, and in thus enabling me not only to receive the hand of kindness which has been extended to me by the authorities of the City and of the State, but also giving me the opportunity, which I never had before, and perhaps may never have again, of paying my respects to the President of the United States. (Applause.) And although it would ill become me, a stranger, to presume to eulogise the conduct or the services of President Fillmore, yet as a bystander, as an observer, and by no means an indifferent or careless observer, of your progress and prosperity, I think I may venture to affirm that it is the opinion of all impartial men, that President Fillmore will occupy an honourable place on the roll of illustrious men on whom the mantle of Washington has fallen. (Applause and cheers.)"Somebody must write to the President, and tell him how that remark about him was received. (Laughter.)"Gentlemen: I have always felt a very deep interest in the progress of the lines of railway communication, of which we are now assembled to celebrate the completion. The first railway that I ever travelled upon in North America, forms part of the iron band which now unites Montreal to Boston. I had the pleasure, about five years ago, of travelling with a friend of mine, whom I see now present—Governor Paine—I think as far as Concord, upon that line."Ex-Governor Paine, of Vermont—It was Franklin."Lord Elgin—He contradicts me; he says it was not Concord, but Franklin; but I will make a statement which I am sure he will not contradict; it is this—that although we travelled together two or three days—after leaving the cars, over bad roads, and in all sorts of queer conveyances, we never reached a place which we could with any propriety have christened Discord. (Laughter and applause.)"As to the citizens of Boston, I shall not attempt to detail their merits, for their name is Legion; but there is one merit, which I do not like to pass unnoticed, because they always seem to have possessed it in the highest perfection. It is the virtue of courage. Upon looking very accurately into history, I find one occasion, and one only upon which it appears to me that their courage entirely failed them. I see a great many military men present, and I am afraid that they will call me to account for this observation (laughter)—and what do you think that occasion was? I find, from the most authentic records, that the citizens of Boston were altogether carried away by panic, when it was first proposed to build a railroad from Boston to Providence, under the apprehension that they themselves, their wives and their children, their stores and their goods, and all they possessed, would be swallowed up bodily by New York. (Laughter.)"I hope that Boston has wholly recovered from that panic. I think it is some evidence of it, that she has laid out fifty millions in railways since that time."
"Allow me, gentlemen, as there seems to be in America some little misconception on these points, to observe, that we, monarchists though we be, enjoy the advantages of self-government, of popular elections, of deliberative assemblies, with their attendant blessings of caucuses, stump orators, lobbyings and log-rollings—(Laughter)—and I am not sure but we sometimes have a little pipe-laying—(renewed laughter)—almost, if not altogether, in equal perfection with yourselves. I must own, gentlemen, that I was exceedingly amused the other day, when one of the gentlemen who did me the honour to visit me at Toronto, bearing the invitation of the Common Council and Corporation of the City of Boston, observed to me, with the utmost gravity, that he had been delighted to find, upon entering our Legislative Assembly at Toronto, that there was quite as much liberty of speech there as in any body of the kind he had ever visited. (Laughter.) I could not help thinking that if my kind friend would only favour us with his company in Canada for a few weeks, we should be able to demonstrate, to his entire satisfaction, that the tongue is quite as 'unruly' a 'member' on the north side of the line as on this side. (Renewed laughter.)
"Now, gentlemen, you must not expect it, for I have not the voice for it, and I cannot pretend to undertake to make a regular speech to you. I belong to a people who are notoriously slow of speech. (Laughter.) If any doubt ever existed on this point, it must have been set at rest by the verdict which a high authority has recently pronounced. A distinguished American—a member of the Senate of the United States, who has lately been in England, informed his countrymen, on his return, that sadly backward as poor John Bull is in many things, in no one particular does he make so lamentable a failure as when he tries his hand at public speaking. (Laughter.) Now, gentlemen, deferring, as I feel bound to do, to that high authority, and conscious that in no particular do I more faithfully represent my countrymen than in my stammering tongue and embarrassed utterance (continued laughter), you may judge what my feelings are when I am asked to address an assembly like this, convened under the hospitable auspices of the Corporation of Boston, I believe to the tune of some four thousand, in this State of Massachusetts, a State which is so famous for its orators and its statesmen, a State that can boast of Franklins, and Adamses, and Everetts, and Winthrops and Lawrences, and Sumners and Bigelows, and a host of other distinguished men; a State, moreover, which is the chosen home, if not the birthplace of the illustrious Secretary of State of the American Union. (Applause.)
"But, gentlemen, although I cannot make a speech to you, I must tell you, in the plain and homely way in which John Bull tries to express his feelings when his heart is full—that is to say, when they do not choke him and prevent his utterance altogether (sensation)—in that homely way I must express to you how deeply grateful I and all who are with me (hear, hear), feel for the kind and gratifying reception we have met with in the City of Boston. For myself, I may say that the citizens of Boston could not have conferred upon me a greater favour than that which they have conferred, in inviting me to this festival, and in thus enabling me not only to receive the hand of kindness which has been extended to me by the authorities of the City and of the State, but also giving me the opportunity, which I never had before, and perhaps may never have again, of paying my respects to the President of the United States. (Applause.) And although it would ill become me, a stranger, to presume to eulogise the conduct or the services of President Fillmore, yet as a bystander, as an observer, and by no means an indifferent or careless observer, of your progress and prosperity, I think I may venture to affirm that it is the opinion of all impartial men, that President Fillmore will occupy an honourable place on the roll of illustrious men on whom the mantle of Washington has fallen. (Applause and cheers.)
"Somebody must write to the President, and tell him how that remark about him was received. (Laughter.)
"Gentlemen: I have always felt a very deep interest in the progress of the lines of railway communication, of which we are now assembled to celebrate the completion. The first railway that I ever travelled upon in North America, forms part of the iron band which now unites Montreal to Boston. I had the pleasure, about five years ago, of travelling with a friend of mine, whom I see now present—Governor Paine—I think as far as Concord, upon that line.
"Ex-Governor Paine, of Vermont—It was Franklin.
"Lord Elgin—He contradicts me; he says it was not Concord, but Franklin; but I will make a statement which I am sure he will not contradict; it is this—that although we travelled together two or three days—after leaving the cars, over bad roads, and in all sorts of queer conveyances, we never reached a place which we could with any propriety have christened Discord. (Laughter and applause.)
"As to the citizens of Boston, I shall not attempt to detail their merits, for their name is Legion; but there is one merit, which I do not like to pass unnoticed, because they always seem to have possessed it in the highest perfection. It is the virtue of courage. Upon looking very accurately into history, I find one occasion, and one only upon which it appears to me that their courage entirely failed them. I see a great many military men present, and I am afraid that they will call me to account for this observation (laughter)—and what do you think that occasion was? I find, from the most authentic records, that the citizens of Boston were altogether carried away by panic, when it was first proposed to build a railroad from Boston to Providence, under the apprehension that they themselves, their wives and their children, their stores and their goods, and all they possessed, would be swallowed up bodily by New York. (Laughter.)
"I hope that Boston has wholly recovered from that panic. I think it is some evidence of it, that she has laid out fifty millions in railways since that time."
After his lordship, followed Edward Everett, whose speech was a complete contrast in every respect. Eloquent exceedingly, but chaste, terse and poetical; it charmed the Canadian visitors as much as Lord Elgin's had delighted the natives. Here are a few extracts:—
"It is not easy for me to express to you the admiration with which I have listened to the very beautiful and appropriate speech with which his Excellency, the Governor-General of Canada, has just delighted us. You know, sir, that the truest and highest art is to conceal art; and I could not but be reminded of that maxim, when I heard that gentleman, after beginning with disabling himself, and cautioning us at the onset that he was slow of speech, proceed to make one of the happiest, most appropriate and eloquent speeches ever uttered. If I were travelling with his lordship in his native mountains of Gael, I should say to him, in the language of the natives of those regions, sma sheen—very well, my lord. But in plain English, sir, that which has fallen from his lordship has given me indeed new cause to rejoice that 'Chatham's language is my mother tongue.' (Great cheering.)"We have, Sir, in this part of the country long been convinced of the importance of this system of communication; although it may be doubted whether the most sagacious and sanguine have even yet fully comprehended its manifold influences. We have, however, felt them on the sea board and in the interior. We have felt them in the growth of our manufactures, in the extension of our commerce, in the growing demand for the products of agriculture, in the increase of our population. We have felt them prodigiously in transportation and travel. The inhabitant of the country has felt them in the ease with which he resorts to the city markets, whether as a seller or a purchaser. The inhabitant of the city has felt them in the facility with which he can get to a sister city, or to the country; with which he can get back to his native village;—to see the old folks, aye, Sir, and some of the young folks—with which he can get a mouthful of pure mountain air—or run down in dog days to Gloucester or Phillips' beach, or Plymouth, or Cohassett, or New Bedford."I say, Sir, we have felt the benefit of our railway system in these and a hundred other forms, in which, penetrating far beyond material interests, it intertwines itself with all the concerns and relations of life and society; but I have never had its benefits brought home to me so sensibly as on the present occasion. Think, Sir, how it has annihilated time and space, in reference to this festival, and how greatly to our advantage and delight!"When Dr. Franklin, in 1754, projected a plan of union for these colonies, with Philadelphia as the metropolis, he gave as a reason for this part of the plan, that Philadelphia was situated about half way between the extremes, and could be conveniently reached even from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in eighteen days! I believe the President of the United States, who has honoured us with his company at this joyous festival, was not more than twenty-four hours actually on the road from Washington to Boston; two to Baltimore, seven more to Philadelphia, five more to New York, and ten more to Boston."And then Canada, sir, once remote, inaccessible region—but now brought to our very door. If a journey had been contemplated in that direction in Dr. Franklin's time, it would have been with such feelings as a man would have now-a-days, who was going to start for the mouth of Copper Mine River, and the shores of the Arctic Sea. But no, sir; such a thing was never thought of—never dreamed of. A horrible wilderness, rivers and lakes unspanned by human art, pathless swamps, dismal forests that it made the flesh creep to enter, threaded by nothing more practicable than the Indian's trail, echoing with no sound more inviting than the yell of the wolf and the warwhoop of the savage; these it was that filled the space between us and Canada. The inhabitants of the British Colonies never entered Canada in those days but as provincial troops or Indian captives; and lucky he that got back with his scalp on. (Laughter.) This state of things existed less than one hundred years ago; there are men living in Massachusetts who were born before the last party of hostile Indians made an incursion to the banks of the Connecticut river."As lately as when I had the honour to be the Governor of the Commonwealth, I signed the pension warrant of a man who lost his arm in the year 1757, in a conflict with the Indians and French in one of the border wars, in those dreary Canadian forests. His Honour the Mayor will recollect it, for he countersigned the warrant as Secretary of State. Now, Sir, by the magic power of these modern works of art, the forest is thrown open—the rivers and lakes are bridged—the valleys rise, the mountains bow their everlasting heads; and the Governor-General of Canada takes his breakfast in Montreal, and his dinner in Boston;—reading a newspaper leisurely by the way which was printed a fortnight ago in London. [Great Applause.] In the excavations made in the construction of the Vermont railroads, the skeletons of fossil whales and paloeozoic elephants have been brought to light. I believe, Sir, if a live spermaciti whale had been seen spouting in Lake Champlain, or a native elephant had walked leisurely into Burlington from the neighbouring woods, of a summer's morning, it would not be thought more wonderful than our fathers would have regarded Lord Elgin's journey to us this week, could it have been foretold to them a century ago, with all the circumstances of despatch, convenience and safety. [Applause.]"I recollect that seven or eight years ago there was a project to carry a railroad into the lake country in England—into the heart of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Mr. Wordsworth, the lately deceased poet, a resident in the centre of this region, opposed the project. He thought that the retirement and seclusion of this delightful region would be disturbed by the panting of the locomotive, and the cry of the steam whistle. If I am not mistaken, he published one or two sonnets in deprecation of the enterprise. Mr. Wordsworth was a kind-hearted man, as well as a most distinguished poet, but he was entirely mistaken, as it seems to me, in this matter. The quiet of a few spots may be disturbed; but a hundred quiet spots are rendered accessible. The bustle of the station house may take the place of the Druidical silence of some shady dell; but, Gracious Heavens! sir, how many of those verdant cathedral arches, entwined by the hand of God in our pathless woods, are opened to the grateful worship of man by these means of communication. (Cheers)."How little of rural beauty you lose, even in a country of comparatively narrow dimensions like England—how less than little in a country so vast as this—by works of this description. You lose a little strip along the line of the road, which partially changes its character; while, as the compensation, you bring all this rural beauty—"The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields,"within the reach, not of a score of luxurious, sauntering tourists, but of the great mass of the population, who have senses and tastes as keen as the keenest. You throw it open, with all its soothing and humanizing influences, to thousands who, but for your railways and steamers, would have lived and died without ever having breathed the life giving air of the mountains; yes, sir, to tens of thousands, who would have gone to their graves, and the sooner for the privation, without ever having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man—that of a glorious combing wave, a quarter of a mile long, as it comes swelling and breasting towards the shore, till its soft green ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and dies along the whispering sands!" (Immense cheering.)"But even this is nothing compared with the great social and moral effects of this system, a subject admirably treated, in many of its aspects, in a sermon by Dr. Gannett, which has been kindly given to the public. All important also are its political effects in binding the States together as one family, and uniting us to our neighbours as brethren and kinsfolk. I do not know, Sir, [turning to Lord Elgin,] but in this way, from the kindly seeds which have been sown this week, in your visit to Boston, and that of the distinguished gentlemen who have preceded and accompanied you, our children and grandchildren, as long as this great Anglo-Saxon race shall occupy the continent, may reap a harvest worth all the cost which has devolved on this generation." [Cheers.]
"It is not easy for me to express to you the admiration with which I have listened to the very beautiful and appropriate speech with which his Excellency, the Governor-General of Canada, has just delighted us. You know, sir, that the truest and highest art is to conceal art; and I could not but be reminded of that maxim, when I heard that gentleman, after beginning with disabling himself, and cautioning us at the onset that he was slow of speech, proceed to make one of the happiest, most appropriate and eloquent speeches ever uttered. If I were travelling with his lordship in his native mountains of Gael, I should say to him, in the language of the natives of those regions, sma sheen—very well, my lord. But in plain English, sir, that which has fallen from his lordship has given me indeed new cause to rejoice that 'Chatham's language is my mother tongue.' (Great cheering.)
"We have, Sir, in this part of the country long been convinced of the importance of this system of communication; although it may be doubted whether the most sagacious and sanguine have even yet fully comprehended its manifold influences. We have, however, felt them on the sea board and in the interior. We have felt them in the growth of our manufactures, in the extension of our commerce, in the growing demand for the products of agriculture, in the increase of our population. We have felt them prodigiously in transportation and travel. The inhabitant of the country has felt them in the ease with which he resorts to the city markets, whether as a seller or a purchaser. The inhabitant of the city has felt them in the facility with which he can get to a sister city, or to the country; with which he can get back to his native village;—to see the old folks, aye, Sir, and some of the young folks—with which he can get a mouthful of pure mountain air—or run down in dog days to Gloucester or Phillips' beach, or Plymouth, or Cohassett, or New Bedford.
"I say, Sir, we have felt the benefit of our railway system in these and a hundred other forms, in which, penetrating far beyond material interests, it intertwines itself with all the concerns and relations of life and society; but I have never had its benefits brought home to me so sensibly as on the present occasion. Think, Sir, how it has annihilated time and space, in reference to this festival, and how greatly to our advantage and delight!
"When Dr. Franklin, in 1754, projected a plan of union for these colonies, with Philadelphia as the metropolis, he gave as a reason for this part of the plan, that Philadelphia was situated about half way between the extremes, and could be conveniently reached even from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in eighteen days! I believe the President of the United States, who has honoured us with his company at this joyous festival, was not more than twenty-four hours actually on the road from Washington to Boston; two to Baltimore, seven more to Philadelphia, five more to New York, and ten more to Boston.
"And then Canada, sir, once remote, inaccessible region—but now brought to our very door. If a journey had been contemplated in that direction in Dr. Franklin's time, it would have been with such feelings as a man would have now-a-days, who was going to start for the mouth of Copper Mine River, and the shores of the Arctic Sea. But no, sir; such a thing was never thought of—never dreamed of. A horrible wilderness, rivers and lakes unspanned by human art, pathless swamps, dismal forests that it made the flesh creep to enter, threaded by nothing more practicable than the Indian's trail, echoing with no sound more inviting than the yell of the wolf and the warwhoop of the savage; these it was that filled the space between us and Canada. The inhabitants of the British Colonies never entered Canada in those days but as provincial troops or Indian captives; and lucky he that got back with his scalp on. (Laughter.) This state of things existed less than one hundred years ago; there are men living in Massachusetts who were born before the last party of hostile Indians made an incursion to the banks of the Connecticut river.
"As lately as when I had the honour to be the Governor of the Commonwealth, I signed the pension warrant of a man who lost his arm in the year 1757, in a conflict with the Indians and French in one of the border wars, in those dreary Canadian forests. His Honour the Mayor will recollect it, for he countersigned the warrant as Secretary of State. Now, Sir, by the magic power of these modern works of art, the forest is thrown open—the rivers and lakes are bridged—the valleys rise, the mountains bow their everlasting heads; and the Governor-General of Canada takes his breakfast in Montreal, and his dinner in Boston;—reading a newspaper leisurely by the way which was printed a fortnight ago in London. [Great Applause.] In the excavations made in the construction of the Vermont railroads, the skeletons of fossil whales and paloeozoic elephants have been brought to light. I believe, Sir, if a live spermaciti whale had been seen spouting in Lake Champlain, or a native elephant had walked leisurely into Burlington from the neighbouring woods, of a summer's morning, it would not be thought more wonderful than our fathers would have regarded Lord Elgin's journey to us this week, could it have been foretold to them a century ago, with all the circumstances of despatch, convenience and safety. [Applause.]
"I recollect that seven or eight years ago there was a project to carry a railroad into the lake country in England—into the heart of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Mr. Wordsworth, the lately deceased poet, a resident in the centre of this region, opposed the project. He thought that the retirement and seclusion of this delightful region would be disturbed by the panting of the locomotive, and the cry of the steam whistle. If I am not mistaken, he published one or two sonnets in deprecation of the enterprise. Mr. Wordsworth was a kind-hearted man, as well as a most distinguished poet, but he was entirely mistaken, as it seems to me, in this matter. The quiet of a few spots may be disturbed; but a hundred quiet spots are rendered accessible. The bustle of the station house may take the place of the Druidical silence of some shady dell; but, Gracious Heavens! sir, how many of those verdant cathedral arches, entwined by the hand of God in our pathless woods, are opened to the grateful worship of man by these means of communication. (Cheers).
"How little of rural beauty you lose, even in a country of comparatively narrow dimensions like England—how less than little in a country so vast as this—by works of this description. You lose a little strip along the line of the road, which partially changes its character; while, as the compensation, you bring all this rural beauty—
"The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields,"
"The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields,"
within the reach, not of a score of luxurious, sauntering tourists, but of the great mass of the population, who have senses and tastes as keen as the keenest. You throw it open, with all its soothing and humanizing influences, to thousands who, but for your railways and steamers, would have lived and died without ever having breathed the life giving air of the mountains; yes, sir, to tens of thousands, who would have gone to their graves, and the sooner for the privation, without ever having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man—that of a glorious combing wave, a quarter of a mile long, as it comes swelling and breasting towards the shore, till its soft green ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and dies along the whispering sands!" (Immense cheering.)
"But even this is nothing compared with the great social and moral effects of this system, a subject admirably treated, in many of its aspects, in a sermon by Dr. Gannett, which has been kindly given to the public. All important also are its political effects in binding the States together as one family, and uniting us to our neighbours as brethren and kinsfolk. I do not know, Sir, [turning to Lord Elgin,] but in this way, from the kindly seeds which have been sown this week, in your visit to Boston, and that of the distinguished gentlemen who have preceded and accompanied you, our children and grandchildren, as long as this great Anglo-Saxon race shall occupy the continent, may reap a harvest worth all the cost which has devolved on this generation." [Cheers.]
Other speeches followed, which would not now interest my readers. In due time the assemblage broke up, and the guests streamed away over the lovely Common in all directions, forming even in their departure a wonderful and pleasing spectacle.
We Canadians remained in Boston several days, visiting the public institutions, presenting and receiving addresses, and participating in a series of civic pageants, the more enjoyable because to us altogether novel and unprecedented. Our hosts informed us, that they were quite accustomed to and always prepared for such gatherings.
In chapters xlvi. and l. of this book, I have referred to certain conversations I had with Sir Wm. Logan, on the existence of ocean beaches, extending from Newfoundland to the North-West Territory, at an altitude of from twelve to fifteen hundred feet above the present sea level. Also of a secondary series of beaches, seven hundred feet above Lake Ontario, at Oak Ridges, eighteen miles north of Toronto; and a third series, one hundred and eighty to two hundred feet above the Lake, which I believe also occur at many points on the opposite lake-shore. In chapter xlvi. I mentioned the fact of my finding evidences of human remains at the very base of one of these lower beaches, at Carlton, on the Weston and Davenport Roads, near Toronto.
When I wrote those chapters, and until this present month of January, 1884, I was doubtful whether I should not be regarded as fanciful or unreliable. I have now, however, just seen inGood Wordsfor this month, an article headed "Geology and the Deluge," from the pen of the Duke of Argyle, which appears to me conclusive on the points to which I allude, namely, first, that there was spread over the whole northern portion of this continent, a sea fifteen hundred feet above the land; secondly, that the depth of water was reduced to a thousand feet, and remained so during the formation of our Oak Ridges; and lastly, that a further subsidence of eight hundred feet took place, reducing the sea to the height of the Carlton beach; and that the latest of these subsidences must have occurred after our earth had been long peopled, and within historic times—probably at the date of the deluge recorded by Moses.
His Grace says:—
"I think I could take any one, however unaccustomed he might be to geological observation or to geological reasoning, to a place within a few miles of Inverary, and point out a number of facts which would convince him that the whole of our mountains, the whole of Scotland, had been lying deeper in the sea than it does now to a depth of at least 2,000 feet. . . . I believe that the submergence of the land towards the close of what is called the Glacial Period, was to a considerable extent a sudden submergence, probably more sudden to the south of the country than it was here, and that the Deluge was closely connected with that submergence. . . . The enormous stretch of country which lies between Russia and Behring's Straits is very little known, and almost uninhabited. It is frozen to within a very few feet of the surface all the year round. In that frozen mud the Mammoth has been preserved untouched. There have been numerous carcases found with the flesh, the skin, the hair and the eyes complete. . . . Has this great catastrophe of the submergence of the land to the depth of at least two or three thousand feet, taken place since the birth of Man? In answer to this question I must refer to the fact now clearly ascertained, that Man co-existed with the Mammoth, and that stone implements are found in numbers in the very gravels and brick earths which contain the bones of those great mammalia."
"I think I could take any one, however unaccustomed he might be to geological observation or to geological reasoning, to a place within a few miles of Inverary, and point out a number of facts which would convince him that the whole of our mountains, the whole of Scotland, had been lying deeper in the sea than it does now to a depth of at least 2,000 feet. . . . I believe that the submergence of the land towards the close of what is called the Glacial Period, was to a considerable extent a sudden submergence, probably more sudden to the south of the country than it was here, and that the Deluge was closely connected with that submergence. . . . The enormous stretch of country which lies between Russia and Behring's Straits is very little known, and almost uninhabited. It is frozen to within a very few feet of the surface all the year round. In that frozen mud the Mammoth has been preserved untouched. There have been numerous carcases found with the flesh, the skin, the hair and the eyes complete. . . . Has this great catastrophe of the submergence of the land to the depth of at least two or three thousand feet, taken place since the birth of Man? In answer to this question I must refer to the fact now clearly ascertained, that Man co-existed with the Mammoth, and that stone implements are found in numbers in the very gravels and brick earths which contain the bones of those great mammalia."
I should be glad to quote more, but this is enough to account for the circumstances I have myself noted, and to explain also, I think, the vast deposit of mud which forms the prairies of the Western States, and of the Canadian North-West; which has its counterpart in the European prairie countries of Moldavia and Wallachia. But the Duke appears to me to overlook the circumstance, that the vast accumulation of animal remains in Siberia, mostly of southern varieties, to which he refers, must have been swept there, not by an upheaval, but by a depression in the northern hemisphere, and a corresponding rise in the southern, whence all these mammoths, lions and tigers, are supposed to have been swept. To account for their present elevated position, a second convulsion restoring the depressed parts to their original altitude, must apparently have occurred—at least that is my unscientific conclusion. It would seem that we ought to look for similar accumulations of animal matter in our own Hudson's Bay territory, where, also, it is stated, the ground remains frozen throughout summer to within three feet of the surface, as in Siberia.
While I was a member of the City Council, the question of the proper qualification for electors of municipal councils and of the legislature, was much under discussion. I told my Reform opponents, who advocated an extremely low standard, that the lower they fixed the qualification for voters, the more bitterly they would be disappointed; that the poorer the electors the greater the corruption that must necessarily prevail. And so it has proved.
In thinking over the subject since, I have been led to compare the body politic to a pyramid, the stones in every layer of which shall be more numerous than the aggregate of all the layers above it. And this comparison is by no means strained, as I believe it will be found, that each and every class is indeed numerically greater than all the classes higher in social rank—the idlers than the industrious—the workers than the employers—the children than the parents—the illiterate than the instructed—and so on. Thus it follows as a necessary consequence, that the adoption of the principle of manhood suffrage, now so much advocated, must necessarily place all political power in the hands of the worst offscourings of the community—law-breakers, vagrants, and outcasts of all kinds. This would be equivalent to inverting the pyramid, and expecting it to remain poised upon its apex—which is a mere impossibility.
Whether the capstone of the social pyramid ought to be king or president, is not material to my argument. On republican principles—and with the French King, Louis Philippe, I hold that the British constitutional monarchy is "the best of all republics"—the true theory of representative institutions must be, that each class of the electors should have a voice in the councils of the country equal to, and no greater than, each of the several classes (or strata) above. This would greatly resemble the old Scandinavian storthings, in which there were four orders of legislators—king, nobles, clergy, and peasants, each of which had a veto on all questions brought before any one of them.
Thus, the election of members of local municipal councils would be vested in the rate-payers, much as at present. The district (not county) councils would be elected by the local municipalities; and would themselves be entitled to elect members of the provincial legislatures. These latter again might properly be entrusted with the election of the Dominion House of Commons. And to carry the idea a step further, the Dominion Legislature itself would be a fitting body to nominate representatives to a great council of the Empire, which should decide all questions of peace or war, of commerce, and other matters affecting the whole body politic. To make the analogy complete, and bind the whole structure together, each class should be limited in its choice to the class next above it, by which process, it is to be presumed, "the survival of the fittest" would be secured, and every man elected to the higher bodies must have won his way from the municipal council up through all the other grades.
I should give each municipal voter such number of votes as would represent his stake in the municipality, say one vote for every four hundred dollars of assessable property, and an additional vote for every additional four hundred dollars, up to a maximum of perhaps ten votes, and no more, which would sufficiently protect the richer ratepayers without neutralizing the wishes of the poorer voters.
On such a system, every voter would influence the entire legislation of the country to the exact extent of his intelligence, and of his contributions to the general expenditure. Corruption would be almost, and intimidation quite, impracticable.
To meet the need for a revisory body or senate, the retired judges of the Upper Courts, and retired members of the House of Commons, after ten or twenty years' service, should form an unexceptionable tribunal for any of the colonies.
I am aware that the election of legislators by the county councils has been already advocated in Canada, and that in other respects this chapter may be considered not a little presumptuous; but I conclude, nevertheless, to print it for what it is worth.
Ihave, I believe, in the preceding pages, established beyond contradiction the historical fact, that the Conservative party, whatever their other faults may have been, are not justly chargeable with making use of the Protection cry as a mere political manoeuvre, only adopted immediately prior to the general elections of 1878.
I have mentioned, that when I was about eighteen years of age, the Corn-Law League was in full blast in England. I was foreman and proof-reader of the printing office whence all its principal publications issued, and was in daily communication with Col. Peyronnet Thompson, M. P., and the other free-trade leaders. I was even then struck with the circumstance, that while loudly professing their disinterested desire for the welfare of the whole human race, the authors of the movement urged as their main argument with the manufacturers and farmers, that England could undersell the whole world in cheap goods, while her agriculturists could never be under-sold in their own markets. This reasoning appeared to me both hypocritical and fraudulent; and I hold that it has proved so, and that for England and Scotland, the day of retribution is already looming in the near future. As righteously might a single shop-keeper build his hopes of profit upon the utter ruin of all his trade competitors, as a single country dare to speculate, as the British free-trader has done, on the destruction of the manufacturing industries of all other nations.
The present troubles in Ireland, are they not the direct fruit of the crushing out of its linen industry? The Scindian war in India, was it not caused by the depopulation of a whole province of a million and a half of people, through the annihilation of its nankeen manufacture. And if Manchester and Birmingham had their way, would not France and Germany, and Switzerland and America—including Canada—become the mere bond-slaves of the Cobdens and the Brights—et hoc genus omne?
But there is a Power above all, that has ordered events otherwise. I assume it to be undeniable, that according to natural laws, the country which produces any raw material, must ultimately become its cheapest manipulator. England has no inherent claim to control any manufactures but those of tin, iron, brass and wool; and with time, all or most of these may be wrested from her. Her cotton mills must ultimately fade away before those of India, the Southern States, and Africa. Her grain can never again compete with that of Russia and the Canadian North-West. Her iron-works with difficulty now hold their own against Germany and the United States. Birmingham and Sheffield are threatened by Switzerland, by the New England States, and—before many decades—by Canada. And so on with all the rest of England's monopolies. Dear labour, dear farming, dear soil, will tell unfavourably in the end, in spite of all trade theories andex partearguments.
Yet more. It would not be hard to show, I think, that the tenant-right and agrarian agitations of the present day are due to Free Trade; that the cry, "the land belongs to the labourer," is the direct offspring of the Cobden teaching; and that the issue will but too probably be, a disastrous revulsion of labour against capital, and poverty against wealth. They who sow the wind, must reap the whirlwind! God send that it may not happen in our day!
Imay venture, I hope, to put down here some of the conclusions to which my fifty years' experience in Canada, and my observation of what has been going on during the same term in the United States, have led me. It is a favourite boast with our neighbours, that all North America must ultimately be brought under one government, and that the manifest destiny of Canada will irresistibly lead her on to annexation. And we have had, and still have amongst us, those who welcome the idea, and some who have lately grown audacious enough to stigmatize as traitors those who, like myself, claim to be citizens, not of the Dominion only, but of the Empire.
To say nothing of the semi-barbarous population of Mexico, who would have to be consulted, there is a section of the Southern States which may yet demand autonomy for the Negro race, and which will in all probability seize the first opportunity for so doing. Then in Canada, we have a million of French Canadians, who make no secret of their preference for French over British alliance; and who will surely claim their right to act upon their convictions the moment British authority shall have become relaxed. Nor can they be blamed for this, however we may doubt the soundness of their conclusions. Then we have the Acadians of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow French Canada wheresoever she might lead; nor could the few British people of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island—unaided by England—escape the same fate. Even Eastern Ontario might have to fight hard to escape a French Republican régime.
There remain Middle and Western Ontario, and the North-West—two naturally isolated territories, neither of which could be expected to incur the horrors of war for the sake of the other. It is not, I think, difficult to foresee, that, given independence, Ontario must inevitably cast her lot in with the United States. But with the North-West, the case is entirely different.
From Liverpool to Winnipeg,viaHudson's Bay, the distance is less by eleven hundred miles than by way of the St. Lawrence. From Liverpool to China and Japan,viathe same northern route, the distance is—as a San Francisco journal points out—a thousand miles shorter than by any other trans-American line. It is reallytwo thousand milesshorter thanviaSan Francisco and New York. From James's Bay as a centre, the cities of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Hamilton, London, and Winnipeg, are pretty nearly equidistant. How immense, then, will be the power which the possession of the Hudson's Bay, and of the railway route through to the Pacific, must confer upon Great Britain, so long as she holds it under her sole control. And where is the nation that can prevent her so holding it, while her fleets command the North Atlantic Ocean. Is it not utterly inconceivable, that English statesmen can be found so mad or so unpatriotic, as to throw away the very key of the world's commerce, by neglecting or surrendering British interests in the North-West; or that Manchester and Birmingham—Sheffield and Glasgow—should sustain for a moment any government that could dream of so doing. I firmly believe, in fine, that either by the St. Lawrence or the Hudson's Bay route, or both, British connexion with Canada is destined to endure, all prognostications to the contrary notwithstanding. England may afford to be shut out of the Suez canal, or the Panama canal, or the entire of her South African colonies, better than she can afford to part with the Dominion, and notably the Canadian North-West. If there be any two countries in the world whose interests are inseparable, they are the British Isles and North-Western Canada—the former being constrained by her food necessities, the latter by her want of a secure grain market. Old Canada, some say, has her natural outlet in the United States—which is only very partially true, as the reverse might be asserted with equal force. Not so the North-West. She has her natural market in Great Britain; and Great Britain, in turn, will find in the near future her best customer in Manitoba and the North-Western prairies.
So mote it be!
The following account of the rise and progress of this institution, has been obligingly furnished me by one of its earliest and best friends, Mr. William Edwards, to whom, undoubtedly, more than to any other man, it has been indebted for its past success and usefulness:
The Toronto Mechanics' Institute was established in January, 1831, at a meeting of influential citizens called together by James Lesslie, Esq., now of Eglinton. Its first quarterly meeting of members was held in Mr. Thompson's school-room; the report being read by Mr. Bates, and the number of enrolled members being fifty-six. Dr. W. W. Baldwin (father of the Hon. Robert Baldwin), Dr. Dunlop, Capt. Fitzgibbon, John Ewart, Wm. Lawson, Dr. Rolph, James Cockshutt, James and James G. Worts, John Harper, E. R. Denham, W. Musson, J. M. Murchison, W. B. Jarvis, T. Carfrae, T. F. (the late Rev. Dr.) Caldicott, James Cull, Dr. Dunscombe, C. C. Small, J. H. Price, Timothy Parsons, A. Thomson, and others, were active workers in promoting the organization and progress of the Institute.Where the institute was at first located, the writer has not been able to ascertain; but meetings were held in the "Masonic Lodge" rooms in Market (now Colborne) Street, a wooden building, on the ground floor of which was the common school taught by Thomas Appleton. A library and museum were formed, lectures delivered, and evening classes of instruction carried on for the improvement of its members.During the year 1835, a grant of £200 was made by the legislature, for the purchase of apparatus. The amount was entrusted to Dr. Birkbeck, of London, and the purchases were made by him or by those to whom he committed the trust. The apparatus was of an expensive character, and very incomplete, and was never of much value to the Institute.The outbreak of the rebellion of Upper Canada in December, 1837, and the excitement incident thereto, checked the progress of the Institute for awhile; but in 1838, the directors reported they had secured from the city corporation a suite of rooms for the accommodation of the Institute, in the south-east corner of the Market Buildings—the site of the present St. Lawrence Market.In the year 1844, the Institute surrendered the rooms in the Market Buildings, and occupied others above the store No. 12 Wellington Buildings, just east of the Wesleyan Book-room; and, through the kindness of the late sheriff, W. B. Jarvis, had the use of the county court-room for its winter lectures. During this year the city corporation contracted to erect a two-story fire-hall on the site of the present fire-hall and police-court buildings. On the memorial of the Institute, the council extended its ground plan, so as to give all necessary accommodation to the fire department in the lower story, and the Institute continued the building of the second story for its accommodation, and paid to the contractors the difference between the cost of the extended building and the building first contracted for, which amounted to £465 5s. 6d.—this sum being raised by voluntary subscriptions of from 1s. to £1 each.The foundation stone of the building was laid on the 27th of August, 1845, and the opening of the rooms took place (John Ewart, Esq., in the chair), on the 12th of February, 1846; when the annual meeting of the Institute was held, and the Hon. R. B. Sullivan delivered an eloquent address, congratulatory to the Institute on its possession of a building so convenient for its purposes.The statute for the incorporation of the Institute was assented to on the 28th July, 1847, and a legislative grant of money was made to the Institute during the same year.In 1848, the Institute inaugurated the first of a series, of exhibitions of works of art and mechanism, ladies' work, antiquities, curiosities, &c. This was kept open for two weeks, and was a means of instruction and amusement to the public, and of profit to the Institute funds. Similar exhibitions were repeated in 1849, 1850, 1851, 1861, and 1866; and in 1868 an exclusively fine arts exhibition was held, of upwards of 700 paintings and drawings—many of them being copies of the old masters. In obtaining specimens for, and in the management of nearly all these exhibitions, as well as in several other departments of the Institute's operations, Mr. J. E. Pell was always an indefatigable worker.In 1851, the members of the Institute began to realize the fact that their hall accommodation was too limited; and in September, 1853, the site at the corner of Church and Adelaide Streets was purchased by public auction, for £1,632 5s. 0d., and plans for a new building were at once prepared, and committees were appointed to canvas for subscriptions. The appeal to the citizens was nobly responded to, and before the close of the year the sum of £1,200 was contributed. The president of the Institute, the late F. W. Cumberland, Esq., generously presented the plans and specifications and superintendence, free of charge. A contract for the erection of the new building was entered into in November, and the chief corner stone was laid with Masonic honours on the 17th of April, 1854.During the year 1855, the Provincial Government leased the unfinished building for four years, for departmental purposes, the Government paying at the time $5,283.20 to enable the Institute to discharge its then liabilities thereon. At the expiration of the lease, the Government paid to the Institute the sum of $16,000, to cover the expense of making the necessary changes in the building, and to finish it as nearly as possible in accordance with the original plans. The building had a frontage of eighty feet on Church Street, and of 104 feet on Adelaide Street, and its cost to the Institute when finished was $48,380.78. The amount received by subscription was $8,190.49; sale of old hall, $2,000; sale of old building on the new site, $14.50; from Government, to meet building fund liabilities, $5,283.20; by loans from the U. C. College funds, $18,400; and from the Government for completion of the building, $16,000; leaving a balance to be expended for general purposes of $1,507.41. This commodious building was finished and occupied during the year 1861. A soiree was held as a suitable entertainment for the inauguration; and this was followed by a bazaar—the two resulting in a profit of about $400 to the funds of the Institute.During the year 1862, the very successful annual series of literary and musical entertainments was instituted. From the first organization of the Institute, evening class instruction, in the rudimentary and more advanced studies, had been a special feature of its operations; but the session of 1861-2 inaugurated a more complete system than had before been carried out. These classes were continued annually with marked success until the winter of 1879-80; when the Institute gave up this portion of its work in consequence of the Public School Board establishing evening classes in three of its best city schoolhouses.In 1868, the Institute purchased a vacant lot on the east of its building, on Adelaide Street, with the intention of erecting thereon a larger music hall than it possessed. The contemplated improvement was not carried out by the Institute; but the Free Library Board has now made the extension very much as at first intended, but for library purposes only.In the year 1871, the Ontario Government purchased the property from the Institute for the sum of $36,500, for the purposes of a School of Technology, then being established. The sale left in the Institute treasury upwards of $11,000, after paying off all its liabilities; and owing to the liberality of the Government in allowing the Institute to occupy the library, reading-room, and boardroom free of rent during its tenancy, it was placed in a very favourable position, and considerably improved its finances. In 1876, the Government resolved to erect a more suitable building for the School of Technology (then named "School of Science"), in the University Park, and re-sold the property it had purchased to the Institute for $28,000. Many alterations were made in the building when the Institute got possession. A ladies' reading-room was established, the music hall was made a recreation-room, with eleven billiard tables, chess-boards, &c., for the use of the members. This latter feature was a success, both financially and otherwise.In the year 1882, the "Free Libraries Act" was passed, which provided that if adopted in any municipality, the Mechanics' Institute situated therein may transfer to such municipality all its property for the purposes of the Act. The ratepayers of Toronto having, by a large majority, decided to establish a Free Library, the members of the Institute in special general meeting held on 29th March, 1883, by an almost unanimous vote, resolved to make over all its property, with its assets and liabilities, to the City Corporation of Toronto for such library purposes; and both the parties having agreed thereto, the transfer deed giving legal effect to the same, was executed on the 30th day of June, in the said year 1883.With the adoption of the Free Library system in this city, the usefulness of the Institute as an educator would have passed away. It was better for it to go honourably out of existence, than to die a lingering death, of debt and starvation. During its fifty-three years of existence it had done a good work. Thousands of the young men of this city, by its refining and educating influences, had their thoughts and resolves turned into channels of industry and usefulness, that might otherwise have run in directions far less beneficial to themselves and to society. Its courses off winter lectures in philosophy, mechanics, and historical and literary subjects, inaugurated with its earliest life and provided year by year in the face of great difficulties until the year 1875, led many of its members to study the useful books in the library, to join with their fellows in the class-rooms, and in after years to take responsible positions in the professions and in the workshops, that only for the Institute they would not have attained to.Until the Canadian Institute—which was nursed into existence in the Mechanics' Institute, through the energy and activity of Sandford A. Fleming, Esq., one of its members—the Institute had the lecture field in Toronto to itself. Next came the Young Men's Christian Association, with its lectures, and free reading-room and library. In the face of all these noble and better sustained associations, it would have been but folly to have endeavoured to keep the Mechanics' Institute in existence.This notice of the Institute in some of the leading events in its history, is necessarily brief; but it would be unjust to close without noticing some of those who have for extended periods been its active workers. They have been so many, that I fear to name any when I cannot name them all. I give, however, the names of those who served the Institute in the various positions of president, vice-presidents, treasurer, secretaries, librarians and directors, for periods of from eight to thirty years in all, as follows:—W. Edwards (30 years consecutively), W. Atkinson (17), J. E. Pell (15), Hiram Piper, R. Edwards, Thos. Davison (each 13), John Harrington, M. Sweetnam (each 12), Francis Thomas, W. H. Sheppard, Charles Sewell (each 11), F. W. Cumberland, R. H. Ramsay, J. J. Withrow, John Taylor, Lewis Samuel, Walter S. Lee (each 10), Daniel Spry, Prof. Croft, Patrick Freeland, Rice Lewis (each 9), James Lesslie, H. E. Clarke, Dr. Trotter (each 8 years).Except for the years 1833, 5, 8, 9 and 1840, of which no records have been found, the successive presidents of the Institute have been as follows: John Ewart, (1831, 1844), Dr. Baldwin (1832, 4, 7), Dr. Rolph (1836), R. S. Jameson (1841), Rev. W. T. Leach (1842), W. B. Jarvis (1843), T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8), R. B. Sullivan (1847), Professor Croft (1849, 1850), F. W. Cumberland (1851, 2, 1865, 6), T. J. Robertson, (1853), Patrick Freeland (1854, 9), Hon. G. W. Allan (1855, 1868, 9), E. F. Whittemore (1856), J. E. Pell (1857), John Harrington (1858), J. D. Ridout (1860), Rice Lewis (1861, 2), W. Edwards (1863), F. W. Coate (1864), J. J. Withrow (1867), James McLennan (part of 1870), John Turner (part of 1870), M. Sweetnam (1871, 2, 3, 4), Thos. Davison (1875, 6, 8), Lewis Samuel (1877), Donald C. Ridout (1879), W. S. Lee (1880, 1), James Mason (1882, 3).The recording secretaries have been in the following order and number of years' service: Jos. Bates (1831), T. Parson (1832, 3, 4, 5, 6), C. Sewell (1837, 8 and 1841), J. F. Westland (1840 and 1842), W. Edwards (1843, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1850, 1859, 1860), R. Edwards (1851, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), G. Longman (1861, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Moss (1867), Richard Lewis (1868), Samuel Brodie (1869, 1870, 1), John Davy (1872, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1880, 1, 2, 3).The corresponding secretaries have been A. T. McCord (1836), C. Sewell (1842, 3, 4, 5), J. F. Westland (1841), W. Steward (1846), Alex. Christie (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 3), Patrick Freeland (1851, 2), M. Sweetnam (1854, 5), J. J. Woodhouse (1856), John Elliott (1857), J. H. Mason (1858, 9, 1860). From this date the office was not continued.The treasurers have been, James Lesslie (1831, 4, 5, 6), H. M. Mosley (1832), T. Carfrae (1833), W. Atkinson (1840, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Harrington (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Paterson (1857, 8, 9, 1860, 1, 2), John Cowan (1863), W. Edwards (1864, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1870), John Hallam (1871), Thos. Maclear (1872, 3, 4, 5), W. B. Hartill (1876), R. H. Ramsay (1877, 1881, 2, 3), G. B. Morris (1878, 9), John Taylor (1880).
The Toronto Mechanics' Institute was established in January, 1831, at a meeting of influential citizens called together by James Lesslie, Esq., now of Eglinton. Its first quarterly meeting of members was held in Mr. Thompson's school-room; the report being read by Mr. Bates, and the number of enrolled members being fifty-six. Dr. W. W. Baldwin (father of the Hon. Robert Baldwin), Dr. Dunlop, Capt. Fitzgibbon, John Ewart, Wm. Lawson, Dr. Rolph, James Cockshutt, James and James G. Worts, John Harper, E. R. Denham, W. Musson, J. M. Murchison, W. B. Jarvis, T. Carfrae, T. F. (the late Rev. Dr.) Caldicott, James Cull, Dr. Dunscombe, C. C. Small, J. H. Price, Timothy Parsons, A. Thomson, and others, were active workers in promoting the organization and progress of the Institute.
Where the institute was at first located, the writer has not been able to ascertain; but meetings were held in the "Masonic Lodge" rooms in Market (now Colborne) Street, a wooden building, on the ground floor of which was the common school taught by Thomas Appleton. A library and museum were formed, lectures delivered, and evening classes of instruction carried on for the improvement of its members.
During the year 1835, a grant of £200 was made by the legislature, for the purchase of apparatus. The amount was entrusted to Dr. Birkbeck, of London, and the purchases were made by him or by those to whom he committed the trust. The apparatus was of an expensive character, and very incomplete, and was never of much value to the Institute.
The outbreak of the rebellion of Upper Canada in December, 1837, and the excitement incident thereto, checked the progress of the Institute for awhile; but in 1838, the directors reported they had secured from the city corporation a suite of rooms for the accommodation of the Institute, in the south-east corner of the Market Buildings—the site of the present St. Lawrence Market.
In the year 1844, the Institute surrendered the rooms in the Market Buildings, and occupied others above the store No. 12 Wellington Buildings, just east of the Wesleyan Book-room; and, through the kindness of the late sheriff, W. B. Jarvis, had the use of the county court-room for its winter lectures. During this year the city corporation contracted to erect a two-story fire-hall on the site of the present fire-hall and police-court buildings. On the memorial of the Institute, the council extended its ground plan, so as to give all necessary accommodation to the fire department in the lower story, and the Institute continued the building of the second story for its accommodation, and paid to the contractors the difference between the cost of the extended building and the building first contracted for, which amounted to £465 5s. 6d.—this sum being raised by voluntary subscriptions of from 1s. to £1 each.
The foundation stone of the building was laid on the 27th of August, 1845, and the opening of the rooms took place (John Ewart, Esq., in the chair), on the 12th of February, 1846; when the annual meeting of the Institute was held, and the Hon. R. B. Sullivan delivered an eloquent address, congratulatory to the Institute on its possession of a building so convenient for its purposes.
The statute for the incorporation of the Institute was assented to on the 28th July, 1847, and a legislative grant of money was made to the Institute during the same year.
In 1848, the Institute inaugurated the first of a series, of exhibitions of works of art and mechanism, ladies' work, antiquities, curiosities, &c. This was kept open for two weeks, and was a means of instruction and amusement to the public, and of profit to the Institute funds. Similar exhibitions were repeated in 1849, 1850, 1851, 1861, and 1866; and in 1868 an exclusively fine arts exhibition was held, of upwards of 700 paintings and drawings—many of them being copies of the old masters. In obtaining specimens for, and in the management of nearly all these exhibitions, as well as in several other departments of the Institute's operations, Mr. J. E. Pell was always an indefatigable worker.
In 1851, the members of the Institute began to realize the fact that their hall accommodation was too limited; and in September, 1853, the site at the corner of Church and Adelaide Streets was purchased by public auction, for £1,632 5s. 0d., and plans for a new building were at once prepared, and committees were appointed to canvas for subscriptions. The appeal to the citizens was nobly responded to, and before the close of the year the sum of £1,200 was contributed. The president of the Institute, the late F. W. Cumberland, Esq., generously presented the plans and specifications and superintendence, free of charge. A contract for the erection of the new building was entered into in November, and the chief corner stone was laid with Masonic honours on the 17th of April, 1854.
During the year 1855, the Provincial Government leased the unfinished building for four years, for departmental purposes, the Government paying at the time $5,283.20 to enable the Institute to discharge its then liabilities thereon. At the expiration of the lease, the Government paid to the Institute the sum of $16,000, to cover the expense of making the necessary changes in the building, and to finish it as nearly as possible in accordance with the original plans. The building had a frontage of eighty feet on Church Street, and of 104 feet on Adelaide Street, and its cost to the Institute when finished was $48,380.78. The amount received by subscription was $8,190.49; sale of old hall, $2,000; sale of old building on the new site, $14.50; from Government, to meet building fund liabilities, $5,283.20; by loans from the U. C. College funds, $18,400; and from the Government for completion of the building, $16,000; leaving a balance to be expended for general purposes of $1,507.41. This commodious building was finished and occupied during the year 1861. A soiree was held as a suitable entertainment for the inauguration; and this was followed by a bazaar—the two resulting in a profit of about $400 to the funds of the Institute.
During the year 1862, the very successful annual series of literary and musical entertainments was instituted. From the first organization of the Institute, evening class instruction, in the rudimentary and more advanced studies, had been a special feature of its operations; but the session of 1861-2 inaugurated a more complete system than had before been carried out. These classes were continued annually with marked success until the winter of 1879-80; when the Institute gave up this portion of its work in consequence of the Public School Board establishing evening classes in three of its best city schoolhouses.
In 1868, the Institute purchased a vacant lot on the east of its building, on Adelaide Street, with the intention of erecting thereon a larger music hall than it possessed. The contemplated improvement was not carried out by the Institute; but the Free Library Board has now made the extension very much as at first intended, but for library purposes only.
In the year 1871, the Ontario Government purchased the property from the Institute for the sum of $36,500, for the purposes of a School of Technology, then being established. The sale left in the Institute treasury upwards of $11,000, after paying off all its liabilities; and owing to the liberality of the Government in allowing the Institute to occupy the library, reading-room, and boardroom free of rent during its tenancy, it was placed in a very favourable position, and considerably improved its finances. In 1876, the Government resolved to erect a more suitable building for the School of Technology (then named "School of Science"), in the University Park, and re-sold the property it had purchased to the Institute for $28,000. Many alterations were made in the building when the Institute got possession. A ladies' reading-room was established, the music hall was made a recreation-room, with eleven billiard tables, chess-boards, &c., for the use of the members. This latter feature was a success, both financially and otherwise.
In the year 1882, the "Free Libraries Act" was passed, which provided that if adopted in any municipality, the Mechanics' Institute situated therein may transfer to such municipality all its property for the purposes of the Act. The ratepayers of Toronto having, by a large majority, decided to establish a Free Library, the members of the Institute in special general meeting held on 29th March, 1883, by an almost unanimous vote, resolved to make over all its property, with its assets and liabilities, to the City Corporation of Toronto for such library purposes; and both the parties having agreed thereto, the transfer deed giving legal effect to the same, was executed on the 30th day of June, in the said year 1883.
With the adoption of the Free Library system in this city, the usefulness of the Institute as an educator would have passed away. It was better for it to go honourably out of existence, than to die a lingering death, of debt and starvation. During its fifty-three years of existence it had done a good work. Thousands of the young men of this city, by its refining and educating influences, had their thoughts and resolves turned into channels of industry and usefulness, that might otherwise have run in directions far less beneficial to themselves and to society. Its courses off winter lectures in philosophy, mechanics, and historical and literary subjects, inaugurated with its earliest life and provided year by year in the face of great difficulties until the year 1875, led many of its members to study the useful books in the library, to join with their fellows in the class-rooms, and in after years to take responsible positions in the professions and in the workshops, that only for the Institute they would not have attained to.
Until the Canadian Institute—which was nursed into existence in the Mechanics' Institute, through the energy and activity of Sandford A. Fleming, Esq., one of its members—the Institute had the lecture field in Toronto to itself. Next came the Young Men's Christian Association, with its lectures, and free reading-room and library. In the face of all these noble and better sustained associations, it would have been but folly to have endeavoured to keep the Mechanics' Institute in existence.
This notice of the Institute in some of the leading events in its history, is necessarily brief; but it would be unjust to close without noticing some of those who have for extended periods been its active workers. They have been so many, that I fear to name any when I cannot name them all. I give, however, the names of those who served the Institute in the various positions of president, vice-presidents, treasurer, secretaries, librarians and directors, for periods of from eight to thirty years in all, as follows:—
W. Edwards (30 years consecutively), W. Atkinson (17), J. E. Pell (15), Hiram Piper, R. Edwards, Thos. Davison (each 13), John Harrington, M. Sweetnam (each 12), Francis Thomas, W. H. Sheppard, Charles Sewell (each 11), F. W. Cumberland, R. H. Ramsay, J. J. Withrow, John Taylor, Lewis Samuel, Walter S. Lee (each 10), Daniel Spry, Prof. Croft, Patrick Freeland, Rice Lewis (each 9), James Lesslie, H. E. Clarke, Dr. Trotter (each 8 years).
Except for the years 1833, 5, 8, 9 and 1840, of which no records have been found, the successive presidents of the Institute have been as follows: John Ewart, (1831, 1844), Dr. Baldwin (1832, 4, 7), Dr. Rolph (1836), R. S. Jameson (1841), Rev. W. T. Leach (1842), W. B. Jarvis (1843), T. G. Ridout, (1845, 6, 8), R. B. Sullivan (1847), Professor Croft (1849, 1850), F. W. Cumberland (1851, 2, 1865, 6), T. J. Robertson, (1853), Patrick Freeland (1854, 9), Hon. G. W. Allan (1855, 1868, 9), E. F. Whittemore (1856), J. E. Pell (1857), John Harrington (1858), J. D. Ridout (1860), Rice Lewis (1861, 2), W. Edwards (1863), F. W. Coate (1864), J. J. Withrow (1867), James McLennan (part of 1870), John Turner (part of 1870), M. Sweetnam (1871, 2, 3, 4), Thos. Davison (1875, 6, 8), Lewis Samuel (1877), Donald C. Ridout (1879), W. S. Lee (1880, 1), James Mason (1882, 3).
The recording secretaries have been in the following order and number of years' service: Jos. Bates (1831), T. Parson (1832, 3, 4, 5, 6), C. Sewell (1837, 8 and 1841), J. F. Westland (1840 and 1842), W. Edwards (1843, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1850, 1859, 1860), R. Edwards (1851, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), G. Longman (1861, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Moss (1867), Richard Lewis (1868), Samuel Brodie (1869, 1870, 1), John Davy (1872, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1880, 1, 2, 3).
The corresponding secretaries have been A. T. McCord (1836), C. Sewell (1842, 3, 4, 5), J. F. Westland (1841), W. Steward (1846), Alex. Christie (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 3), Patrick Freeland (1851, 2), M. Sweetnam (1854, 5), J. J. Woodhouse (1856), John Elliott (1857), J. H. Mason (1858, 9, 1860). From this date the office was not continued.
The treasurers have been, James Lesslie (1831, 4, 5, 6), H. M. Mosley (1832), T. Carfrae (1833), W. Atkinson (1840, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Harrington (1847, 8, 9, 1850, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), John Paterson (1857, 8, 9, 1860, 1, 2), John Cowan (1863), W. Edwards (1864, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1870), John Hallam (1871), Thos. Maclear (1872, 3, 4, 5), W. B. Hartill (1876), R. H. Ramsay (1877, 1881, 2, 3), G. B. Morris (1878, 9), John Taylor (1880).