Observatory, Quebec, Feb. 23rd, 1876.
OUR CITY BELLS - THEIR NAMES.
1st. Bell, Louise; 2nd, Olivier Genevieve; 3rd, Pierre Marie; 4th, Marie-
Joseph-Louise-Marguerite; 5th, Jean-Olivier, &c.
"Now, on the gentle breath of morn,
Once more I hear that chiming bell,
As onward, slow, each note is borne,
Like echo's lingering, last farewell."
(The Evening Bells, of the General Hospitals:
by ADAM KIDD. - 1829.)
"Quebec Bells are an institution of the present and of the past:" so says
every Tourist. To the weary and drowsy traveller, steeped at dawn in that
"sweet restorer, balmy sleep," under the silent eaves of the St. Louis or
Stadacona hotel, this is one of the features of our city life, at times
unwelcome. We once heard a hardened old tourist savagely exclaim,
"Preserve me against the silvery voice of Quebec Evening Belles, I
rather like your early Morning Bells." Another tourist, however, in one of
our periodicals closes a lament over Quebec "Bell Ringing," with the
caustic enquiry "Should not Bell Bingers be punished?"
Being more cosmopolitan in our tastes, we like the music of our City Bells
in the dewy morn, without fearing the merry tones of our City Belles,
when the silent shades of evening lends them its witchery. There is
certainly as much variety in the names as there is in the chimes of our
Quebec Bells.
Though the Bells of the "ancient capital" are famous in history and song,
Quebec cannot boast of any such monsters of sound as the "Gros Bourdon" of
Montreal - weighing 29,400 lbs., dating from 1847, "the largest bell in
America." The R. C. Cathedral in the upper town, raised in 1874, by His
Holiness, Pius IX to the high position of Basilica Minor, the only one
on the continent - owns two bells of antique origin; the Parish Register
traces as follows, their birth and christening.
