Doesn't This Remind One Of Some People In
Our Own Country?
Radicals are called "grits" here, and they say you can
recognize a "grit" when you see him, for though they are not at all from
one class or one industry, they have heads that might betoken a sojourn
in a penitentiary!
_Monday, September 8th_. - We did not go anywhere last evening but
strolled about the garden. Mr. Brand, son of the late Speaker, Mr.
Morris, member of the Senate, and another man, dined. Mr. Morris was
Governor of Manitoba. He said in the year 1870 Winnipeg was a little
wild village. Now, when I asked him about buying a few things at Toronto
for the Rocky Mountains expedition, he exclaimed "Oh! wait until you get
to Winnipeg, you can get everything there!" He described a ball he had
given to some royalties (I forget which) and how he had to scour the
country for three hundred miles round to get provisions enough for the
supper, in the year 1874. In my youth I remember reading of Winnipeg,
Fort William and Lake Superior as the outposts of the Hudson Bay
Company, and how travellers, trappers, &c., endured all manner of
hardships, and crossed hikes with Indians carrying the canoes from lake
to lake, and guiding them through endless swamps and rocky bills, until
half-frozen and starved they arrived quite exhausted at these distant
forts. Now we travel by rail in a private car, and Mr. Donald Smith has
a country house near Winnipeg, to which he invited us, and all along
there are "rising cities" which did not exist in any shape five years
ago. When this Canadian Pacific Railway is finished to British Columbia,
and the Atlantic and Pacific are united by it in one, our "Dominion"
then ought to have a splendid future. I don't think I told you about Mr.
Tan Horn's conversation with me at Montreal he said "we are a great deal
too quiet in Canada; we don't puff ourselves enough or make enough of
our advantages and our doings. Why, we live next door to fifty millions
of liars and we must brag or we shall be talked out."
_Monday, later_. - I have just returned from a drive with Miss M - -
and Hedley to Toronto, and I am surprised at its size and importance,
and busy look and general air of English prosperity and neatness. Though
Montreal is very pretty, the town is too French and idle-looking to be
impressive - there are numbers of well-kept villas and gardens here. We
are now going out to see a regatta on Lake Ontario and to the island.
Lady M - - said last night, when making arrangements, "I think this will
suit the young people," and I exclaimed "Don't put me among the old
ones, please," so I am going. Sir D - - has gone to Ottawa on Ministerial
business.
Letter No. 5.
_September 12th, Niagara Falls._
On Tuesday we drove with John, and Dr. Wilson showed us over the
University and some pretty sketches he had taken.
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