Ancaster Is An Old Place, Outstripped By Towns Of Ten Years' Existence, As
It Has Neither A Port Nor A River.
There was an agricultural show, and
monster pumpkins and overgrown cabbages were displayed to admiring crowds,
under the shadow of a prodigious union jack.
Dundas, a near neighbour of Ancaster, has completely eclipsed it. This
appears to be one of the busiest little places in Canada West. It is a
collection of woollen-mills, grist-mills, and iron-foundries; and though,
in my preformed notions of political economy, I had supposed manufactures
suited exclusively to an old country, in which capital and labour are
alike redundant, the aspect of this place was most thriving. In one of the
flour-mills the machinery seemed as perfect as in the biscuit factory at
Portsmouth - by some ingenious mechanism the flour was cooled, barrelled,
and branded with great celerity. At an iron-foundry I was surprised to
find that steam-engines and flour-mill machinery could not be manufactured
fast enough to meet the demand. In this neighbourhood I heard rather an
interesting anecdote of what steady perseverance can do, in the history of
a Scot from the shores of the Forth.
This young man was a pauper boy, and was apprenticed to the master of an
iron-foundry in Scotland, but ran away before the expiration of his
apprenticeship, and, entering a ship at Glasgow, worked his passage across
to Quebec. Here he gained employment for some months as a porter, and,
having saved a little money, went up to the neighbourhood of Lake Simcoe,
where he became a day labourer. Here he fell in love with his master's
daughter, who returned his affection, but her father scornfully rejected
the humble Scotchman's suit. Love but added an incentive to ambition; and
obtaining work in a neighbouring township, he increased his income by
teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic in the evenings. He lived
penuriously, denied himself even necessaries, and carefully treasured his
hoarded savings. Late one evening, clothed almost in rags, he sought the
house of his lady-love, and told her that within two years he would come
to claim her hand of her father, with a waggon and pair of horses.
Still in his ragged clothing, for it does not appear that he had any
other, he trudged to Toronto, and sought employment, his accumulated
savings sewn up in the lining of his waistcoat. He went about from person
to person, but could not obtain employment, and his waggon and horses
receded further and further in the dim perspective. One day, while walking
along at the unfinished end of King Street West, he saw something
glittering in the mud, and, on taking it up, found it to be the steel snap
of a pocket-book. This pocket-book contained notes to the amount of one
hundred and fifty dollars; and the next day a reward of five-and-twenty
was offered to the finder of them. The Scotchman waited on the owner, who
was a tool manufacturer, and, declining the reward, asked only for work,
for "leave to toil," as Burns has expressed it. This was granted him; and
in less than four months he became a clerk in the establishment. His
salary was gradually raised - in the evenings he obtained employment in
writing for a lawyer, and his savings, judiciously managed, increased to
such an extent, that at the end of eighteen months he purchased a thriving
farm in the neighbourhood of London, and, as there was water-power upon
it, he built a grist-mill. His industry still continued successful, and
just before the two years expired he drove in a light waggon, with two
hardy Canadian horses, to the dwelling of his former master, to claim his
daughter's hand; though, be it remembered, he had never held any
communication with her since he parted from her in rags two years before.
At first they did not recognise the vagrant, ragged Scotch labourer, in
the well-dressed driver and possessor of the "knowing-looking" equipage.
His altered circumstances removed all difficulty on the father's part - the
maiden had been constant - and soon afterwards they were married. He still
continued to prosper, and add land to land; and three years after his
marriage sent twenty pounds to his former master in Scotland, as a
compensation for the loss of his services. Strange to say, the son of that
very master is now employed in the mill of the runaway apprentice. Such
instances as this, while they afford encouragement to honest industry,
show at the same time the great capabilities of Canada West.
At Hamilton, where the stores are excellent, I made several purchases, but
I was extremely puzzled with the Canadian currency. The States money is
very convenient. I soon understood dollars, cents, and dimes; but in the
colonies I never knew what my money was worth. In Prince Edward Island the
sovereign is worth thirty shillings; in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
twenty-five; while in Canada, at the time of my visit, it was worth
twenty-four and four pence. There your shilling is fifteen pence, or a
quarter-dollar; while your quarter-dollar is a shilling. Your sixpence is
seven pence-half-penny, or a "York shilling;" while your penny is a
"copper" of indeterminate value apparently. Comparatively speaking, very
little metallic money is in circulation. You receive bills marked five
shillings, when, to your surprise, you can only change them for four
metallic shillings. Altogether in Canada I had to rely upon people's
honesty, or probably on their ignorance of my ignorance; for any attempts
at explanation only made "confusion worse confounded," and I seldom
comprehended anything of a higher grade than a "York shilling." From my
stupidity about the currency, and my frequent query, "How many dollars or
cents is it?" together with my offering dirty crumpled pieces of paper
bearing such names as Troy, Palmyra, and Geneva, which were in fact notes
of American banks which might have suspended payment, I was constantly
taken, not for an ignoramus from the "Old Country," but for a "genuine
Down-Easter." Canadian credit is excellent; but the banking system of the
States is on a very insecure footing; some bank or other "breaks" every
day, and lists of the defaulters are posted up in the steamboats and
hotels.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 54 of 128
Words from 54210 to 55271
of 129941
