In An Open Calash I Drove To Russell's Hotel, Along Streets Steeper,
Narrower, And Dirtier Than Any I Had Ever Seen.
Arrived within two hundred
yards of the hotel, we were set down in the mud.
On alighting, a gentleman
who had been my fellow-traveller politely offered to guide me, and soon
after addressed me by name. "Who can you possibly be?" I asked - so
completely had a beard metamorphosed an acquaintance of five years'
standing.
Once within the hotel, I had the greatest difficulty in finding my way
about. It is composed of three of the oldest houses in Quebec, and has no
end of long passages, dark winding staircases, and queer little rooms. It
is haunted to a fearful extent by rats; and direful stories, "horrible, if
true," were related in the parlour of personal mutilations sustained by
visitors. My room was by no means in the oldest part of the house, yet I
used to hear nightly sorties made in a very systematic manner by these
quadruped intruders. The waiters at Russell's are complained of for their
incivility, but we thought them most profuse both in their civility and
attentions. Nevertheless, with all its disagreeables, Russell's is the
best hotel in Quebec; and, as a number of the members of the Legislative
Assembly live there while Parliament meets in that city, it is very lively
and amusing.
When my English friends Mr. and Mrs. Alderson arrived, we saw a good deal
of the town; but it has been so often described, that I may as well pass
on to other subjects. The glowing descriptions given of it by the author
of 'Hochelaga' must be familiar to many of my readers. They leave
nothing to be desired, except the genial glow of enthusiasm and kindliness
of heart which threw a couleur de rose over everything he saw.
There are some notions which must be unlearned in Canada, or temporarily
laid aside. At the beginning of winter, which is the gay season in this
Paris of the New World, every unmarried gentleman, who chooses to do so,
selects a young lady to be his companion in the numerous amusements of the
time. It does not seem that anything more is needed than the consent of
the maiden, who, when she acquiesces in the arrangement, is called a
"muffin" - for the mammas were "muffins" themselves in their day, and
cannot refuse their daughters the same privilege. The gentleman is
privileged to take the young lady about in his sleigh, to ride with her,
to walk with her, to dance with her a whole evening without any remark, to
escort her to parties, and be her attendant on all occasions. When the
spring arrives, the arrangement is at an end, and I did not hear that an
engagement is frequently the result, or that the same couple enter into
this agreement for two successive winters. Probably the reason may be,
that they see too much of each other.
This practice is almost universal at Montreal and Quebec.
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