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.
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