The Englishwoman In America By Isabella Lucy Bird
























































































































 -  Through the
kindness of the Bishop, I saw everything of any interest in the town. The
first thing which attracted - Page 137
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Through The Kindness Of The Bishop, I Saw Everything Of Any Interest In The Town.

The first thing which attracted my attention was the magnificent view from the windows of the See-house, over the wide St. Lawrence and the green mountains of Vermont; the next, an immense pair of elaborately-worked bronze gates, at a villa opposite, large enough for a royal residence.

The side-walks in the outskirts of the town were still of the villanous wood, but in the streets they were very substantial, and, like the massive stone houses, look as if they had lasted for two hundred years, and might last for a thousand more. We visited, among other things, some schools - one, the Normal School, an extremely interesting one, where it is intended to train teachers, on Church-of-England principles. I was very much surprised and pleased with the amount of solid information and high attainments of the children, as evidenced by their composition, and answers to the Bishop of Montreal's very difficult questions. They looked sallow and emaciated, and, contrary to what I have observed in England, the girls seemed the most intelligent. The Bishop has also established a library, where, for the small sum of four shillings a year, people can regale themselves upon a variety of works, from the volumes of Alison, not more ponderous in appearance than matter, to the newspaper literature of the day.

The furriers' shops are by no means to be overlooked. There were sleigh- robes of buffalo, bear, fox, wolf, and racoon, varying in price from six to thirty guineas; and coats, leggings, gloves, and caps, rendered necessary by the severity of a winter in which the thermometer often stands at thirty degrees below zero. People vie with each other in the costliness of their furs and sleigh equipments; a complete set sometimes costing as much as a hundred guineas.

I went into the Romish cathedral, which is the largest Gothic building in the New World. It was intended to be very imposing - it has succeeded in being very extravagant; and if the architects intended that their work should live in the admiration of succeeding generations, like York Minster, Cologne, or Rouen, they have signally failed. Internally, the effect of its vast size is totally destroyed by pews and galleries which accommodate ten thousand people. There are some very large and very hideous paintings in it, in a very inferior style of sign-painting. The ceiling is painted bright blue, and the high altar was one mass of gaudy tinsel decoration. In one corner there was a picture of babies being devoured by pigs, and trampled upon by horses, and underneath it was a box for offerings, with "This is the fate of the children of China" upon it. By it was a wooden box, hung with faded pink calico, containing small wooden representations, in the Noah's-ark style, of dogs, horses, and pigs, and a tall man holding up a little dog by its hind legs.

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