CHAPTER X.

“I’ve hoed in fields of cotton,I’ve worked along the river,I thought if I got awayI’d ne’er go back any longer;But times have changed the old man,And his head is bending low,For my heart’s turned back to Dixie,And I must go.”

The late Mrs. F. W. Glen had a water-color drawing of old Jeff’s hut, which was prized highly for its faithful reproduction of the picturesque but rude dwelling. Poor old Jeff! the remains of his hut are still standing in the thicket.

My father, in his earlier years, had a black man as a general servant. He lived so long in Canada that his story may be included in this sketch.

He was born about the year 1814 in one of the counties in Virginia, which was so storm-swept during the great rebellion from 1861 to 1865. His home was in the track which Gen. Sheridan despoiled so effectually that he was able to boast, “Even a crow flying over must carry its own rations.” But during the first forty years of this poor slave’s life it smiled and produced grains and grasses and cattle in abundance. There his home was on the farm, where the system of agriculture is more like ours. The “plantations” proper are farther south, and the negroes employed on them are looked upon by the farmer slaves as belonging to an inferior race. “Only a plantation nigger” is a common saying among those employed on the Virginia farms. Owned by the head of one of the first families of Virginia, he had to thank him, too, for being the author of his existence. There were other sons born to this proud first family of Virginia. As they grew up they became sensitive of their slave half-brother, and induced their father to sell him.

His new master farmed one thousand acres of land, but only about one-half of this was arable, the rest being broken and used mainly for sporting in the scrub. On this one-thousand-acre farm sixty slaves, male and female, were kept, and the new master thought seriously of making his new slaveforeman. The old overseer, however, strongly resisted being put under a “nigger,” and his opposition, when putting it in such light in that day, was sufficient to keep the new slave out of the position.

Digressing here just a little, we can discover what would be the wealth of one of the first families of Virginia, who as fire-eaters made such boasts afterwards. The one thousand acres could then be bought for $15,000, as they may be now; sixty slaves, at an average of $500, some being old and decrepit and others young, would be worth $30,000; stock and farming implements, say, $5,000. Total, $50,000. It is interesting to know what the capital of one of those great men who talked so much at the time of the war would be.

The slave whose fortunes we are following was made a teamster and given a six-horse team to make one trip per week with a large canvas-covered waggon to Fredericksburg and home again. He sold the grain and brought the money home to his master at the end of every trip. On setting out on his journey he was always given fifteen bushels of oats for his six horses on the trip. The jealous overseer, trying to find a pretext to whip the new slave, stole two bags of oats from his load before he set out. This he did two weeks in succession. The consequence was thatthe horses came home on the second trip looking somewhat gaunt and not quite up to the mark.

Next morning after returning he was awakened by the overseer, carrying a big whip and some ropes, and ordered to go with him to his master. Arriving at the master’s house, the overseer charged him with having sold the oats and starved the team.

The accused protested his innocence, and established it beyond doubt. “A black girl has told me,” he said, “where the overseer has hidden the oats, over the back part of the granary, between the ceiling and the outside boards.” His master at once forbade the whipping, and told him to go and find the trap, which he did straightway.

He always asserted that while his master was at home he got on well enough, for he was a kindly-disposed man. But in an evil day for the poor slave the master went away “to the Springs” for his health, ordering him to continue teaming, and instructing him to hand the money to a near neighbor, not to the foreman.

As soon as the overseer returned he, however, demanded the cash, but the man refused, and paid it over according to his master’s orders.

Then the overseer took the slave off the road and put him ploughing with a three-horse team. After he had ploughed a few days, he came to him one dayon horseback, just after dinner, carrying a bundle of gads. On riding up to him he dismounted, and ordered him to “haul off.” For the first time in his life this poor slave asserted his manhood, and refused, declaring that “he had done nothing, and would not be whipped.” At this juncture the overseer pulled out a pistol, and placed it to the breast of the slave, who looked the overseer steadily in the eye, and said, “That’s the death I want to die, and not be killed by inches, as you have killed many hereabout.”

It was too much even for the brutal overseer, who remounted and threatened he “would have satisfaction from him before sundown, if it cost him his life”; and so rode away, leaving him to go on with his ploughing.

The overseer returned at nightfall with his brother and brother-in-law, and ropes enough “to tie down a horse,” as the old ex-slave expressed it, and a big whip. “Now, haul off, will you?” and the overseer made an effort to catch his victim, who dropped his reins and bolted from the plough handles for the woods, with the three in full chase after him. He was too fleet for them, however, and gained the shelter of the woods. For three weeks he hung about the neighborhood, fed by the other slaves, and waiting for his master to come home. Then the overseer

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advertised him as a runaway slave, and offered $100 for his arrest.

“Any mean, poor white man, I knew, now might take me,” the old man said, “and so I walked to London during the night.” How pathetically the humble old ex-slave described his aversion to leave home and his friends! He stopped at London a week, working for wages. Being once more frightened, and not hearing that his master had returned home, he “followed the north star by night” and slept during the day, until he came to Harrisburg, Pa. From Harrisburg to Charlotte, N.Y., he walked during the day-time, boldly inquiring his way to Canada, but always careful to keep going north. He says he always had heard of Canada among the slaves, but thought it was “a land where the wild geese go to, and was covered over with feathers.” Liberty, the old man said, was sweet, and he had made up his mind to risk making a living in Canada, even if it might be a poor one.

At Charlotte, N.Y., he found a small vessel about to sail for Colborne, Ont., and he bargained for his passage by working at loading before they set out, and was to help unload on getting over. It was late in the fall, he said, and when he once set foot in Canada he did not wait to help unload the boat for fear they might take him back to Charlotte, as they wished him to go for another trip. This was in 1854, whenthe Grand Trunk Railroad was under construction, and things were booming in Ontario. He quickly got a job as teamster, and worked at that until the road was completed.

About this time (1856) he became a servant of my father’s and lived with the family many years, and it was from his own lips I gathered the story of his life as I have told it. Only about three weeks before his death he induced the writer to communicate with his friends in Virginia, giving his assumed name, James King, by which he always had been known here. A reply came at once, telling his real name, (which the old man confessed was right), and asking him to come back and see his friends, intimating, too, that he might be profited by his visit. His dread of slavery was too great, however, and he absolutely refused to go, but enquired most earnestly for his white half-brother, whom, the writer suspects, would now be glad, seeing that the great battle of slavery had been fought, to aid him. But it was not to be. James King, the slave, in whose veins flowed Virginia’s best blood, died of inflammation on the 20th day of October, 1895, in the land where he had sought and found freedom.

After a silence of thirty-eight years it seemed hard that the poor old ex-slave could not have gone to see his friends, and thus had a few bright days at the close of his long and lonely life.

Civil war in the United States—Large bounties paid Canadian recruits—Prices of produce go up—More than two million men under arms—I make a trip to Washington—Visiting the military hospitals—I am offered $800 to enlist—Brief interview with President Lincoln—A pass secured—I visit the Army of the Potomac—90,000 men under canvas—Washington threatened by the Confederates—Military prison at Elmira, N.Y.—Cheap greenbacks—A chance to become a multi-millionaire.

“I looked, and thought the quiet of the sceneAn emblem of the peace that yet shall be,When o’er earth’s continents and isles betweenThe noise of war shall cease from sea to sea,And married nations dwell in harmony;When millions, crouching in the dust to one,No more shall beg their lives on bended knee,Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sunThe o’er labor’d captive toil, and wish his life were done.”

THE civil war in the United States broke out in April, 1861, and indirectly exerted much influence on Canada. From 80,000 to 100,000 of our young men, who were sympathizers with the North, went from Ontario and Quebec to join theNorthern army. These Canadian recruits all received bounties—at first, usually $800 on enlisting, and then, as the struggle went on, receiving as high as $1,600.

The war created a large demand for produce of all kinds, and the Northern States bought everything we had to sell, giving high prices; the farmer and other producers became wealthy, and, to quote the usual expression, “the times were good.”

This fratricidal war had more men engaged in it, more horses, more ships, more mules, and more money than any war the world had yet ever known. As to numbers, Xerxes is allowed to have had the greatest army hitherto known, his force numbering one million of men when he crossed the Hellespont to conquer Greece. But when the North disbanded its armies at the termination of the war, in 1865, they had 1,250,000 men of all kinds under arms or on the roll. The South had 800,000 men.

We do not compare their navies of that day, of course, with the peerless navy of Her Majesty. By their fight of ironclads at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1864, however, they revolutionized the naval architecture of the world.

When the war was at its height I visited the armies. Gold had been bounding upwards week by week as the protracted struggle went on. Its daily rise whetted the edge of our appetites, keen to the mainchance of money-making. I was then just a young man fresh from college, but I felt that a truly “golden” opportunity was passing by us.

Day after day we read of the advance of the Federal army, and of its repulse by the Confederates (more especially in Virginia) and then again of its successes, and likewise the talk of Louis Napoleon being about to recognize the belligerency of the South.

We who were that day upon the scene, as it were, even if not in the actual conflict, felt the blows as they were struck with all the terrible force of war’s ravages, and honestly did not know how to make up our minds as to the final success of either side. I resolved to see for myself the contending armies, and then judge as well as I could from a ramble among both parties as to the ultimate result.

Well, about June 18th, 1864, having secured my father’s consent, I set out to inspect for myself. Down to New York I made my way, and looked about the great metropolis of America to find some signs of the depression of war upon the North; but I saw nothing to lead me to suppose for an instant that the drain upon the country was at all severe. In those days there was no Coney Island as we now know it. Indeed, I recollect going down there upon the sand dunes and finding only a board shantyof a restaurant where they served baked clams. And these were only forty cents per plate in those days of inflations. That price was no kind of bar to me, with plenty of British and American gold in my pockets, for even then, before the premium had got to bounding up, my greenbacks only cost me about thirty-eight cents on the dollar. So, you see, even baked clams and the best hotels in New York of that day were at my command for a very small outlay.

At Philadelphia I encountered no sign of war, but the great city on the Schuylkill was booming on its way. Baltimore seemed just a little off, and many of the people appeared to be rather sulky. Still, there were no signs of reverses or oppressions, and so far war had not, to outward appearances, seriously hurt the North.

Washington I found during the last days of June the gayest of the gay. What struck me most forcibly was the extreme freedom in and about the city. Go anywhere I could and did, and no one seemed disposed to say me nay. In and out of Congress I went at will, as well as into the departments of the Secretaries. More than that, I rode on horseback some three or four miles south-easterly from the city to the great military hospitals.

Some of these were mere structures of boards; others large field tents; others, again, had board tops and tent sides. I walked at will among the rows of cots, and there saw suffering in its acutest forms. Soften the heart? Aye, the quest of gold upon which I first set out from my Canadian home was forgotten for the time in the presence of this suffering. Young fellows many of them were lying there by the hundreds, so pallid and wan, and scarcely lifting eyes to look at the passer-by. Even after this lapse of time, I vividly remember thinking of the mothers of these young lads in far-off homes in the north, waiting so hopefully and wistfully for their sons’ return.

In addition to the wounded in battle, many of the poor fellows were suffering from fevers. But to me it was all suffering. And this at last was war! Such scenes as these, harrowing though they are, mark the great distinction between the savage and the civilized. Civilized, we care for our wounded and sick; savage, the infirm and helpless are left to die. Board shanties, and with board roofs, mean as they were architecturally:

“I know they were holy thingsThat from a roof so sacred shine,Where sounds the beat of angels’ wings,And footsteps echo all divine.Their mysteries I never sought,Nor hearken to what science tells;For, oh, in childhood I was taughtThat God amid them dwells.”

“I know they were holy thingsThat from a roof so sacred shine,Where sounds the beat of angels’ wings,And footsteps echo all divine.

Their mysteries I never sought,Nor hearken to what science tells;For, oh, in childhood I was taughtThat God amid them dwells.”

Naturally, serviceable material for army recruits was looked after most keenly in Washington at this time. Walking along the new asphalt sidewalk, in heat so great as to melt the asphalt so that it left the print of my footsteps upon it, an officer wanted to know if I would like to enlist. His first offer was $800 in money down, and I have no doubt the offer would have gone up to $1,600 quite if I had been so disposed, but my quest was gold and not military glory, and consequently I declined the offer.

I made, too, a visit to Lincoln, at the White House, during the last days of June, 1864. No one for a moment questioned my right to enter. A challenge I did not hear. Within the doors of the White House, at the foot of the main stair, sat an attendant upon a plebeian three-legged stool reading a novel. Not a soldier nor a policeman in sight, and I was free, apparently, to go where I chose.

“In which room is the President?” I asked of the novel-reading attendant.

“First room upstairs to the right.”

I went up, and saw the great man in the roomindicated. Feeling that I had no kind of right to intrude upon a man so weighted down with cares as President Lincoln was at that period of the war, I remained long enough to allow his image, as he sat facing me, to be imprinted on my memory, never to be obliterated. My first thought was, “What a tall, awkward man and how badly his clothes fit.” One arm lay upon the table beside which he sat, and the other upon the arm of his chair.

I could not, however, bring myself to leave without an interview with the President. On my card being handed him he ceased talking for a moment with his visitor, some man from Missouri, and through the open door asked me in and told me to be seated, and he would soon be through with the business on hand. Thus involuntarily I learned the nature of the business of the gentleman from Missouri, which seemed to be to importune the President to order the release of a number of guerillas who had been committing depredations in the south-west.

After a lot of words from the Missourian, Mr. Lincoln said if he would give him “any real good reason why these men should be liberated” it would be done. The conversation continuing, I thought it my part to retire. As I left the room, the President sat with fixed gaze, apparently absorbed in thought, and so preoccupied as not to notice my departure. While disappointed of my interview, I had seen and spokenwith the man whose figure stands out in clear and massive outline on the canvas of American history, and I remember this with pardonable pride and satisfaction.

A pass was granted me to go wherever I chose in Virginia or about the vicinity of Washington. How I got this pass I cannot even now, after thirty-two years, tell. Some of the persons who assisted me to obtain this great favor are yet alive—not all of them, it is true, but I would be manifestly unwise to tell any more on this point. Being a Canadian, I may freely say, gained me the coveted pass when backed up with some seals of officialdom from our own Canada. More I cannot, dare not say, only that this pass lies on my writing desk beside me as I write these lines.

Without delay I set out to cross the Potomac, mounted upon a horse hired from a Washington livery stable. It was when entering the Long Bridge, as the wooden structure of two miles in length over the Potomac then was called, that I first showed my pass. My first thought upon gaining the Virginia shore was of the terrible barrenness and bleakness of the country about. There were no roads, no fences, no buildings, no woods, but just a mass of the lightest and meanest red dust one ever could conceive of—dust quite four inches deep, so that of necessity I rode

WORLD TO COME TO AN END. STARS FALLING, 1833.BARCLAY, CLARK & CO. LITHO. TORONTO

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in a perfect cloud and had to canter sharply to get away from it.

To describe the ride to the Army of the Potomac would take too long, and there is really nothing worthy of much note until I got to the army itself. At the camp every courtesy was shown me, and then I saw what few persons now alive at this time ever saw, and that was 90,000 men encamped in tents and under arms. It would be useless for me to try to describe this vast army. Its very magnitude was too great for the mind to grasp.

Men I saw, and men, and still men, everywhere and all about. There literally seemed to be no end of them, and the idea then formed itself in my mind that this great armed mass of humanity must and would conquer the South.

I prize my visit to the Army of the Potomac under General Grant as one of the greatest and most interesting experiences in my life. As to the army, I cannot well speak from the knowledge I then had, but I certainly got the impression when walking along the miles and miles of streets with canvas houses at the sides that there was no want, that everything needful was served to these men in the fullest extent and of the best. The cavalry, I remember lay off some little distance from the infantry, and such a mass of horse and mule flesh it has been thelot of but few to see. Some 12,000 horses, I think, were in the camp.

Not the least restraint was placed upon me, but I was free to go where and when I listed, while at almost every officer’s mess I was a welcome guest. Great good-nature was the order of the day, and it was indeed a gay scene, with the regimental bands and bright colors and the pomp and panoply of war.

As to visiting the Confederates, I was assured that a flag of truce would easily put me over, but I began to think I had seen as much of the military as my brain, uneducated in military matters, could take in, and consequently not wishing to stay my welcome out too far, and fearing a movement on the part of the army, I began the ride back to Washington.

When within a few miles of Long Bridge, and in plain sight of the Capitol and Washington itself, on looking back, a great cloud of dust seemed to be coming up, as if trying to overtake me, from the direction I had come. I was startled, of course, but I halted, and before half an hour had elapsed along came the most confused mass of humanity one could think of—men on foot, on cannons, on mules, on horses, some with guns, some without, but all bowling along for Washington in the fastest possible time.

I found they were going into Washington to defend it, having heard that General Jubal Early, of the Confederates, had crossed the Potomac at Williamsburg, above the city, and was about to make an effort to cut off communication with the north. It would perhaps be superfluous to add that after this information my horse sped as fast as any of them, and over Long Bridge the rescuers and I went pell mell into Washington. This was on the 6th of July, 1864. The city naturally was all excitement; men and cannon, horses and ambulances, seemed to be moving along all the streets. Washington at this turn of affairs had the appearance of a huge military camp.

On returning my horse to the livery stable my first thought was for food and a bath. Both of these I obtained at the hotel, the landlord of which informed me that I could not get out of the city by the trains, they being closely guarded. At four o’clock I came with my grip to the Baltimore Depot, and did indeed find it guarded by bluecoats. Stepping up to one of the men I asked for the captain of the guard. He came. When I asked him to let me get on the Baltimore train, he quietly shook his head and turned away. Then, and not till then, I called him back to look at my pass. A wonderful change instantly followed. His hand came to the salute, the necessary order was given the guard, their bayonets were raised to the salute, and I walkedthrough a row of glittering steel to the railway platform.

This, as I have said, was at four in the afternoon. The next train left at six for Baltimore. General Franklin was on the latter train, when General Early’s scouts stopped it and took him off. On my train there was no trouble. I easily got to Baltimore, and for these thirty-two years I have been curious to know what the Confederates would have done with me had they caught me on the train with General Franklin. The conclusion I have arrived at is that they would have taken my money if they had had time (for the Union cavalry was after them hot), and then let me go.

To pursue this narrative a little further, I at length arrived at Elmira, N.Y., and saw the Confederate prisoners in a camp about a couple of miles south of the town. Their prison was only a field of some ten acres, surrounded by a tight board fence about ten feet high, on which guards were placed at intervals. Within were houses for the prisoners. Without any difficulty I was allowed to walk upon the platforms at the fence top and see the prisoners as long as I would. The same freedom was given me here as I had enjoyed in the White House, in the army, in the great hospitals, and in fact, everywhere—and this,too, during one of the most terrible wars the world has ever seen.

As to the prisoners, there were some two hundred of them standing about in groups, many of them smoking, listening to some talker in each group spinning yarns. To my astonishment, they did not all wear the Confederate grey, but many had butternut-colored jeans, and among the lot there was scarcely a well-dressed man. So far as I could judge, they were not feeling their imprisonment very badly, and I noticed that when the officer of the guard was absent they talked and joked quite freely with the guards upon the fence. Keen-eyed, sharp-looking fellows they were, and generally quite young men.

At this time in my life I had not seen Europe with its fuss and feathers, and could not draw the comparison which I now can; but I can conscientiously say now, having been under almost every flag in the world, that America (Canada of course, as well, being the greater part of America) is pre-eminently a land of freedom, first, last and always.

Going on to Chicago I remember I sold gold to pay my expenses; one dollar for $2.86 in greenbacks. Think of $2.86 for one of our dollars! Now was the time, I felt, to buy the bonds, and I was fully alive to the opportunity. My father and I, on looking over the situation, concluded we could put $200,000of our money into United States currency. Now this sum at the premium of $2.86 would have given me, at a jump, $572,000. Yes, but again the 7-30’s and 5-20’s, as the bonds of those days were called, were sold so low and so much depreciated that one dollar of greenbacks would buy three dollars in bonds, or thereabout, as I now remember. Thus my $572,000 would have given me in bonds $1,716,000, which is another jump so big as to almost take one’s breath.

There is yet more to tell, for after the war was done those very same bonds soon sold at an average of thirty per cent. premium. Of course, I am justified in adding this premium (that would amount to $515,800) to my bonds in calculation, which would give me $2,131,800. These are the millions I had in view all the time I was in Grant’s army when looking about to form an opinion.

I never wavered for an instant in my faith, and I knew all the time that the North would conquer, if Louis Napoleon but kept his hands off and did not aid the South.

Of the pluck of the South and their heroic efforts, which only Anglo-Saxons can and will make, it is not for me to speak in this article. Older men, and men educated in military affairs, told me as I met them in Washington, attached to the embassies, that the North must and would win, and that the God ofbattles would be on the side of the heaviest ordnance. Why I did not buy the bonds it is now necessary for me to tell to complete this tale.

My paternal great-uncle lived in our family home, he having been born in Massachusetts in 1786, and, coming away with my own forefathers from that State to Upper Canada before things got quieted in New England after the war of the Revolution, he had retained a most vivid recollection of every turn of that most unfortunate struggle, as told him at his mother’s knee.

Among the relics which my forefather brought from Massachusetts was a deerskin-covered saddle-bag, with a brass ring in each end to fasten to the horse. This old saddle-bag was octagonal in shape, and was made in London, England, in 1719. It was used as a receptacle for papers from New England, dating mainly before the Revolution, and as far back as 1720. Within this pile of papers in a roll was a large quantity of money, paper money of different denominations, and made at the various periods of the war. First, I remember, were shilling notes, then notes for pounds, and as the war went on, notes for dollars.

From my earliest boyhood I had fingered these notes, and played with them, but never until this year (1864) did I realize that at one time they meant just that much money to my forefather.

To our scheme the paternal uncle listened, and took it all in. Yes, he understood about buying the bonds just as well as I did, and freely admitted the opportunity to be a good one. Then, arousing himself as if from a fright, he asked me to go and get the Continental money, which I quickly did. Fondly he looked it over, and passed the notes between his fingers, soliloquizing to himself. “No, boy,” he said presently; “they didn’t pay these, and they may not pay their bonds now, and better let well enough alone and not touch them.”

My uncle’s decision settled the matter. The bonds were not bought, and thus I lost the chance of becoming a multi-millionaire at a bound, a chance the like of which never may occur again.

DANIEL CONANT.THE AUTHOR’S FATHER.

DANIEL CONANT.

THE AUTHOR’S FATHER.

MARY ELIZA CONANT.THE AUTHOR’S MOTHER.

MARY ELIZA CONANT.

THE AUTHOR’S MOTHER.

The “Trentaffair”—Excitement in Canada—Bombastic “fire-eaters”—Thriving banks—High rates of interest—Railway building—The bonus system—A sequestered hamlet—A “psychologist” and his entertainment—A mock duel—A tragic page of family history.

“There is no other land like thee,No dearer shore;Thou art the shelter of the free;The home, the port of libertyThou hast been and shalt ever beTill time is o’er.Ere I forget to think uponMy land, shall mother curse the sonShe bore!”

THE event known as the “Trentaffair,” November 8th, 1861, when the American man-of-warSan Jacinto, commanded by Captain Wilkes, stopped the British mail steamshipTrentin the open sea, boarded her, and arrested the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, then on their way to England to plead the cause of the South and seek its recognition as a belligerent power, caused considerable excitement in Canada. The Northern States were much elated over this grave breach of the law of nations, but Great Britain was indignant, and demanded the instant release of the captives, a declaration of war as the alternative. Troops were sent to Halifax and Quebec, one regiment riding from Halifax to Quebec in the midst of winter, there being no Intercolonial Railway at that date. All Canadians of military age were enrolled, and the excitement caused thereby seemed almost to deprive many of their reasoning powers.

There was much bombastic talk, and it certainly appeared as if a lot of our fire-eaters wanted war and a chance to distinguish themselves, and in no instance did this class of the community suppose that the United States could or would strike back. No, they evidently believed we were simply to band together and “eat up” the people of the Northern States. A well-known practising physician of Oshawa boasted that he with ten thousand men could march right through to Washington.

However, Lincoln’s firm wisdom prevailed, the American Government, quietly acquiescing in Great Britain’s demand, gave up the captives, and the war-cloud passed.

Among the many who had enlisted in the Northern army were several from Oshawa. Robert Warren,son of John B. Warren, died from exposure, and his body was found after an engagement, begrimed with dust and smoke, by his schoolmate, Dr. John Wall, who was serving as surgeon in the army in Virginia. John cared for the body of his friend, and brought it home to Oshawa for burial. Ah, how many of our poor fellows were buried where they fell!

“On fame’s eternal camping-groundTheir silent tents are spread,Which glory with solemn roundThe bivouac of the dead.”

The Grand Trunk Railway carried military equipments from Quebec and Montreal to Toronto that winter and did a thriving business. Officers guarded these stores on the cars. One cold day one of these officers fell out of the Grand Trunk car, going up Scarboro’ Heights, and landed in the snow. Making his way, bareheaded, to Jerry Annis’s house, it being the nearest, he got him to drive him to Toronto, eleven miles away.

At this period in Canada very many of the industries were carried on by bank capital. That is to say, endorsed notes were made for three months, discounted, and renewed from quarter to quarter. By the capital thus raised manufacturing, lumbering, tanning, and like industries, were carried on.

At this time of writing, when loans are current atfive per cent., it seems almost incredible that only thirty years ago business men and manufacturers depended upon chartered banks for their capital—renewing their notes quarterly—and by so doing paid the interest quarterly in advance, making interest at ten and one-half to eleven per cent. per annum. Such, however, was the case, and the banks throve by that manner of doing business.

Banks usually succeed in Canada. Those old institutions that helped very materially to develop the country, but which failed, failed because of making too great loans upon real estate, and having a lot of it thrown on their hands. Banks, however, though in deep water, may keep on for years, until someone expresses fears of their solvency. Said an old manager of the Bank of Upper Canada to me, “A bank is like a woman, all right until someone says something against her character.”

From my earliest recollection, the general saying to express soundness emphatically was “As good as the Bank of Upper Canada.” The old Bank, however, kept on taking over real estate, distilleries, sawmills, foundries and such, until they had to liquidate at, I think, about thirty cents on the dollar. During the excitement caused by theTrentaffair, A. S. Whiting and E. C. Tuttle, who just previously had started a large and important manufactory of hand harvesttools, such as scythes, forks, hoes and rakes, were succeeding nicely. William L. Gilbert, of Winsted, Conn., was endorsing their notes. They applied to the Ontario Bank for twenty thousand dollars as a part of their capital. Gilbert’s credit was above suspicion—he was a millionaire—but the prospect of war from theTrentaffair frightened the Ontario Bank people, and Whiting and Tuttle had to arrange with my father to make the endorsation until people got rid of their temporary madness. This is an instance of the peculiar state of affairs in Upper Canada, financially, during 1862. Some of our branch lines of railways, too, were in part built by using bank capital and discounted notes.

The Grand Trunk Railway, in the first instance, was built by British capital and the loans (which afterwards became gifts) of the millions of the Government of Canada. The great Canadian Pacific Railway, too, was built by capitalists, with generous aid from the Government, but the branch lines asked for bonuses from the different municipalities which they touched. Townships, villages and cities issued bonds, borrowed the money, and gradually provided a sinking fund from the taxes received, by which in time to pay off the bonds.

In the abstract it seems unfair and uncalled for that a township had to pay for the railway in advance inorder to get it to touch that township, and then, when it came, be charged stiff freight and passenger rates by the same grateful railway. It was “a bitter pill to swallow,” but it had to be taken. Those municipalities which did not “swallow the pill” are to-day “in the lurch,” as we say in Canada. I paid one of them a visit a little time ago, and I give herewith a sketch of my experiences:

The long, uninterrupted winter was dragging its slow length along without a break. Even the January thaw, as always foretold by the oldest inhabitant, had not come to the hamlet during that winter. Snow fell once or twice during the week with unerring regularity. Roadways had been beaten and tracked in the snow, and the faithful villagers had tramped through it from day to day. Nothing, in fact, had happened to break the monotony of this quiet village hamlet for the entire winter season. Perhaps the last noted occurrence was just as the snow came, when the deacon’s horse ran away and came bounding back into the village without the deacon or anyone else holding the lines, and the robes partly in and partly out of the cutter. That occurrence for a time had been food for gossip among the quiet villagers, some stoutly averring that the deacon was drunk, while others, putting it mildly, said, “The deacon was took bad in his head suddenly, as he sometimes was wont tobe, and couldn’t guide his horse.” Just how it was was still a mooted point, even as late as the dreaded Ides of March—the time of my visit to this quiet place. It seems no one had died, there were but few births, and only one or two young fellows had spunk enough to do any right-down earnest courting for the whole live-long stormy winter. Happenings there were none. Well, business called me to this little rural hamlet in the gusty month of March—this peaceful village, removed from the path of the iron horse, an out-of-the way place altogether. During the general upheaval of things in Ontario, when most towns and villages were up and about to secure railway communication, the deacon of this little place and a few other fore-handed citizens strongly objected to giving “any bonus for any number of railways, be they one or more,” so the village has gone without a railway. Excellent people they are indeed, and they change so very slowly and deliberately that old Rip Van Winkle could not possibly have found a better place wherein or whereabout to take that long memorable nap of his.

Even were Rip to change, his neighbors would not, for in the twenty years, while he calmly slumbered, the weekly “sewing circles” would infallibly be held; and around and about the sewing circles everything in this wayside, or rather out-of-the-way-side, hamlet revolved. When Mrs. Dobson put on her new stripedstuff dress for the first time, and came down to the “circle,” every eye was upon her, and she had no rest until she told where she obtained it, how much it cost per yard, and how many yards it took for the dress. Particularly is this worthy of mention to enable those remote from this village of snow-trodden paths to realize fully its unchangeableness, and its hunger for something out of the ordinary to give food for talk and thought. A boy of fourteen had driven me from the railway station, twelve miles away, as he carried the meagre leather bag, denominated by grace Her Majesty’s Mail, in a square-boxed sleigh drawn by one horse—such a sleigh as in New England they term a “pung.”

At the village hostelry I am domiciled within four wooden-sided, clap-boarded, white-painted walls, where I am “ated and slaped,” and all for $1.00 per day. After the ample evening tea, and over a quiet pipe in the corner of the bar, while conning a paper two days old, the voluble and voluminous landlady asks if I will not “go and hear the professor to-night?”

Not having been at the weekly sewing circle for that week, I am not posted, and in my innocence ask of the professor, “And what’s to be heard from him?”

“He’s a psychologist, sir, and they all say he can make people do just what he chooses to make them do. He’s going to speak to-night in the Temperance

AUTHOR’S FATHER LOADING HIS SCHOONERS WITH LUMBER BY RAFTING, ON LAKE ONTARIO.BARCLAY, CLARK & CO. LITHO. TORONTO

AUTHOR’S FATHER LOADING HIS SCHOONERS WITH LUMBER BY RAFTING, ON LAKE ONTARIO.

BARCLAY, CLARK & CO. LITHO. TORONTO

Hall, just across the way; all the village will be there, and I think you would be amused, sir, if you chose to go.”

“Thanks, madam, for the information, and I’ll certainly go.”

The Temperance Hall is jammed—well, that’s the ordinary way of putting it; but in this case it is pressed in full much the same as they press cotton in the rude bales on the home plantations down south, before they are sent away to the big cotton presses in the cities.

“A stranger? Well, we must let him in, for perhaps he’s a friend of the prof.”

“Can’t quite claim the honor, but would like to get in.”

Stepping over the tops of the long seats, I get in, and make my way up near the professor.

Now, this professor is one of those nondescripts who comes from nowhere in particular. He opens his mouth and gives vent to sound in a steady volume, but says nothing in particular. His speech is all about psychology and its wonders and what he proposes to do. Some ten minutes of this, then he invites up half a dozen young men from the gathering for experiments. Applicants for experiment are seated on chairs on the platform before the professor. The latter looks one of these steadily in the eye fora couple of minutes and then makes a few undulatory motions back and forth before his eyes with his right hand and touches his forehead with his fingers. Already he has the spell, and sits staring into vacancy as if he were about to have an extra large photograph taken. All in turn are “spelled,” and all are a success save one, who is requested to take his seat again among the people. And now the fun commences. One fellow the professor assures is hunting, and he hands him his cane for a gun. A flock of ducks!—down the fellow goes and crawls on hands and knees. He fires, and the recoil of the gun throws him prostrate on the stage. Up he gets and at it he goes again. During the half hour I sat there, I think the fellow bagged as big a bag of ducks as usually falls to the lot of a sportsman nowadays. Another youth sees an excellent opportunity for a swim, and quickly doffs coat, vest, and would doff more if not quickly stopped by the wonderful professor. Prostrate he falls on the platform and goes through all the motions of a genuine swim, with feet drawn up, again extended, and the long drawn stroke of the arms regularly and in natural order repeated—a perfect fac-simile of a swim. The “spelled” No. 3 came next, and fancied that the glass of water which the professor extended to him contained excellent port wine; his lips smacked and his eyes sparkled. Buthe must propose a toast, which was something about Johnny Jones’ girl, and young Mac cutting Jones out. This local hit brought down the house, and it was fully five minutes before the audience could be got into quiet again. Now Jones and Mac were the other two “spelled” subjects on the platform, and of course a duel had to be fought. The far-seeing professor, smelling such duels from afar, had provided two huge corn-stalks, which he handed to the duellists for swords. Each one feels carefully the keen edge of the lethal weapons, and prepares himself for the fray. Seconds are chosen from the other “spelled” ones on the platform, who for the moment leave their ducks, their swimming and their glasses of port wine to see that the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules are faithfully carried out.

“No thrusts below the belt, and on no account any hits below the belt”

And Jones’ girl all this time is looking on. She had gotten herself up elaborately for the occasion; without a doubt her wardrobe had been duly dissected and priced and deplored and praised at the last “circle.” Jones’ girl’s mother is there, too, sitting just behind her.

“The low, mean fellow, to make such an exhibition of himself! I would never let him go home with me again! Send back his ring, Mirandy. The idea!—to get up before all the people here and fight with corn-stalks!”

The laughter before pent up, controlled, held in, kept down, now bursts the bonds. Human nature in this village of snow-paths could hold in no longer. It’s just a broad ha! ha!! ha!!! and for the girls (all except Jones’ girl) a te! he!! he!!! The old deacon joins in—it’s even too much for his gravity. In the deacon’s case the explosion was rather serious. He began with a cough and a sneeze, got red in the face—got redder—his sides shook—a blast from his nose—then the explosion, ho! ho!! ho!!! ho!!!!

If the house was brought down before, it was “fetched” now—the fun was so hilarious—for those people hadn’t had a good laugh that winter. Some of the other girls, whose beaux are yet to be found, are heard to exclaim: “The absurd fellow! I wonder that she can countenance him at all!”

But the duel—“Three paces. Now at the word, one—two—three,” and the whacks of the corn-stalks resound. It is a spectacle to arouse laughter from even a hypochondriac.

“Time!—first round, no blood; well, seconds, look after your principals.”

While the duellists are resting the professor goes on to speak his piece. He has been “a close student of human nature. It’s mental alchemy, stored awayin the great human store-house. An observer like me can bring it out—a great science, ladies and gentlemen—and I shall give one more exhibition before this highly intelligent community to-morrow evening.”

And well he may, for the house this evening has paid him seventy dollars at least.

While this speech is going on, the professor keeps hold of one of the hands of Jones’ opponent in the duel, and manages to rub some red paint or pigment on his wrist while he is talking.

“Take your places, gentlemen! All ready at the word. One—two—three,” and such a pounding of corn-stalks—pounded so effectually that they fly in fragments all over the hall.

“Blood!—first blood! Honor is satisfied, gentlemen; Jones is the winner. Shake hands, gentlemen—that’s according to the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules—yes, that’s it! Seconds, take care of your principals.”

And Jones’ girl is all smiles, and will evidently allow the hero to see her home to-night.

More applicants for the “spell” come up as I walk over the seat-backs to the door, making my way back to mine hostelry and to bed.

This is a faithful picture of life as I saw it in a remote Ontario village—a village too mean to pay a single dollar to get a railway, and which thereforewas beaten in the race. The tedium of a winter’s life therein, snow-bound and with its humdrum, is not an experience to be coveted.

If you like the picture, you can find such a place for a winter’s residence next winter, easily; but I fancy most readers will agree with me in saying that the deacon, the fore-handed citizens and the village generally made a serious mistake in not securing railway communication when it was to be had.

Villages, as well as citizens, to keep up in the race nowadays, must be alive and moving, or both are soon left far behind by their neighbors’ ambitions.

There came to the Whitbies from one of the Midland counties of England a bachelor accompanied by his widowed sister and her little girl. Possessing capital, he bought one of the best farms of these favored townships. It was a glebe of about one hundred and fifty acres, without any waste land within its borders, and was nicely built upon. Here the bachelor brother farmed thoroughly and well, while the sister presided over the household and looked after the education and care of her growing daughter. Of their former history no one knew aught.

The man was a jolly good fellow, open-handed, freeand hospitable. They used to say that no visitor ever came to the home and went away dry unless he chose to. Not that I mean to say this English gentleman bachelor was a drinker, only that, according to the light of those days, the rites of hospitality were administered when the tankard kept pace with the choicest dishes of the table.

There are probably few living now who were alive and partakers of this bachelor’s kindnesses. The farm was bought in the late forties, and he and his sister left it for their English home once more about 1863.

But to follow more intimately their fortunes in Ontario, we must speak now of the young daughter. Admirers of this English-Canadian belle will even to this day aver that she was surpassingly beautiful. None of that day had more to be thankful for in this particular, while her charm of manner was even in excess of her beauty. Naturally, suitors came. Among those who were truly fascinated was a young English barrister, even then known as a pushing, rising fellow. Indeed, he has risen by sheer downright hard work, as well as ability, till to-day he is one of the high officials of our Canadian courts, and pre-eminently a successful man. This man proposed duly, and after mature deliberation and consultation with the mother, was accepted. Before the knot wastied, however, he said to the beautiful girl that he would immediately after marriage expect to receive full control of her property. Once more the affianced girl and her mother consulted, and their conclusion was that he had come courting the $8,000 which she possessed in her own right, and not her particularly, but only as an accessory, so he was jilted. Next came a long-haired, tall minister, who pressed his suit with all the ardor his glib tongue was capable of, and he won.

They were married and lived together a couple of years, and two children were born to them. The minister went on with his duties, and, outwardly, all seemed to go fairly well, but those most intimate with the family always felt that there was some mystery connected with him; yet, suspect as much as they might, they could not charge him with any irregularities. A perfect specimen of a man he was, endowed with high social qualities, and capable of taking a high place in the ministry.

One fine day, however, he went out from the ministerial home for a morning walk, leaving the young wife and two babes to await his coming to dinner. Dinner that day waited and continued to wait, and is still waiting after the lapse of thirty-four years, for it is a literal fact that no one, so far as is known on earth, ever saw the minister and husbandafter he crossed the threshold that morning in 1863 for a walk.

Back to the mother and uncle on the farm went the young mother. A few months in silence, then came the record of a criminal trial for murder in a neighboring state, where a minister had been tried for his life, but by some technical legal flaw got off. Reading the trial record it was clearly brought out that this fiend had cut his wife’s throat from ear to ear, as she lay in bed, and in such a manner as to make it thought she had committed suicide. In refutation of that theory, it was most clearly shown that the former wife could not, no matter how much disposed, do the deed herself, but that the fiend of a husband did it, and that he afterwards fled to Ontario and to the Whitbies, and married our most beautiful maid. This was too much for the mother and uncle. Their beautiful farm was sold, and back to the Midland counties of England again they went, taking the young deserted wife and the two fatherless babes with them.

The bachelor brother has lately been gathered to his fathers, and the sister has become a very old woman. The deserted wife, now the mother of a young man and a young woman, is in her early old age, retaining still much of the beauty of her earlier years, while she learns to grow old gracefully. Indeeds of charity and kindnesses to her neighbors her time is occupied, and she is seemingly happy in the love of her children. Her home-life in the Whitbies is never thought of. Lately, however, a resident near her Canadian home called upon her, and found that she had kept her property intact from her graceless minister-husband, and was surrounded by such outward comfort and even splendor as grand old England alone can give.

Even surrounded with these pleasant accessories, she is said to have inquired very minutely about her home across the water, and of those who were once her friends and neighbors, while a sigh escaped her as she sat and gazed as if looking far across the broad Atlantic, where she had spent so many happy, as well as unhappy, days in her home in Ontario.

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