The
Press In Canada Is The Medium Through Which The People Receive, First By
Telegraphic Despatch, And Later In Full, Every Item Of English
Intelligence Brought By The Bi-Weekly Mails.
Taking the newspapers as a
whole, they are far more gentlemanly in their tone than those of the
neighbouring republic, and perhaps are not more abusive and personal than
some of our English provincial papers.
There is, however, very great
room for improvement, and no doubt, as the national palate becomes
improved by education, the morsels presented to it will be more choice.
Quebec, Montreal, and Toronto have each of them several daily papers, but,
as far as I am aware, no paper openly professes republican or
annexationist views, and some of the journals advocate in the strongest
manner an attachment to British institutions. The prices of these papers
vary from a penny to threepence each, and a workman would as soon think of
depriving himself of his breakfast as of his morning journal. It is stated
that thousands of the subscribers to the newspapers are so illiterate as
to depend upon their children for a knowledge of their contents. At
present few people, comparatively speaking, are more than half educated.
The knowledge of this fact lowers the tone of the press, and circumscribes
both authors and speakers, as any allusions to history or general
literature would be very imperfectly, if at all, understood.
The merchants and lawyers of Canada have, if of British extraction,
generally received a sound and useful education, which, together with the
admirable way in which they keep pace with the politics and literature of
Europe, enables them to pass very creditably in any society. There are
very good book-stores in Canada, particularly at Toronto, where the best
English works are to be purchased for little more than half the price
which is paid for them at home, and these are largely read by the educated
Canadians, who frequently possess excellent libraries. Cheap American
novels, often of a very objectionable tendency, are largely circulated
among the lower classes; but to provide them with literature of a better
character, large libraries have been formed by local efforts, assisted by
government grants. Canada as yet possesses no literature of her own, and
the literary man is surrounded by difficulties. Independently of the heavy
task of addressing himself to uneducated minds, unable to appreciate depth
of thought and beauty of language, it is not likely that, where the
absorbing passion is the acquisition of wealth, much encouragement would
be given to the struggles of native talent.
Canada, young as she is, has made great progress in the mechanical arts,
and some of her machinery and productions make a very creditable show at
the Paris Exhibition; but it must be borne in mind that this is due to the
government, rather than to the enterprise of private exhibitors.
Taken altogether, there is perhaps no country in the world so prosperous
or so favoured as Canada, after giving full weight to the disadvantages
which she possesses, in a large Roman Catholic population, an unsettled
state of society, and a mixed and imperfectly educated people.
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