No
Effort That A Man Can Make Is Better Than A True Effort At
Independence.
But this insolence is a false effort, it will be
said.
It should rather be called a false accompaniment to a life-
long true effort. The man probably is not dishonest, does not
desire to shirk any service which is due from him, is not even
inclined to insolence. Accept his first declaration of equality
for that which it is intended to represent, and the man afterward
will be found obliging and communicative. If occasion offer he
will sit down in the room with you, and will talk with you on any
subject that he may choose; but having once ascertained that you
show no resentment for this assertion of equality, he will do
pretty nearly all that is asked. He will at any rate do as much in
that way as an Englishman. I say thus much on this subject now
especially, because I was quite as much struck by the feeling in
Canada as I was within the States.
From Prescott we went on by the Grand Trunk Railway to Toronto, and
stayed there for a few days. Toronto is the capital of the
province of Upper Canada, and I presume will in some degree remain
so, in spite of Ottawa and its pretensions. That is, the law
courts will still be held there. I do not know that it will enjoy
any other supremacy unless it be that of trade and population.
Some few years ago Toronto was advancing with rapid strides, and
was bidding fair to rival Quebec, or even perhaps Montreal.
Hamilton also, another town of Upper Canada, was going ahead in the
true American style; but then reverses came in trade, and the towns
were checked for awhile. Toronto, with a neighboring suburb which
is a part of it, as Southwark is of London, contains now over
50,000 inhabitants. The streets are all parallelogramical, and
there is not a single curvature to rest the eye. It is built down
close upon Lake Ontario; and as it is also on the Grand Trunk
Railway, it has all the aid which facility of traffic can give it.
The two sights of Toronto are the Osgoode Hall and the University.
The Osgoode Hall is to Upper Canada what the Four Courts are to
Ireland. The law courts are all held there. Exteriorly, little
can be said for Osgoode Hall, whereas the exterior of the Four
Courts in Dublin is very fine; but as an interior, the temple of
Themis at Toronto beats hollow that which the goddess owns in
Dublin. In Dublin the courts themselves are shabby, and the space
under the dome is not so fine as the exterior seems to promise that
it should be. In Toronto the courts themselves are, I think, the
most commodious that I ever saw, and the passages, vestibules, and
hall are very handsome. In Upper Canada the common-law judges and
those in chancery are divided as they are in England; but it is, as
I was told, the opinion of Canadian lawyers that the work may be
thrown together. Appeal is allowed in criminal cases; but as far
as I could learn such power of appeal is held to be both
troublesome and useless. In Lower Canada the old French laws are
still administered.
But the University is the glory of Toronto. This is a Gothic
building, and will take rank after, but next to, the buildings at
Ottawa. It will be the second piece of noble architecture in
Canada, and as far as I know on the American continent. It is, I
believe, intended to be purely Norman, though I doubt whether the
received types of Norman architecture have not been departed from
in many of the windows. Be this as it may, the college is a manly,
noble structure, free from false decoration, and infinitely
creditable to those who projected it. I was informed by the head
of the college that it has been open only two years; and here also
I fancy that the colony has been much indebted to the taste of the
late Governor, Sir Edmund Head.
Toronto as a city is not generally attractive to a traveler. The
country around it is flat; and, though it stands on a lake, that
lake has no attributes of beauty. Large inland seas, such as are
these great Northern lakes of America, never have such attributes.
Picturesque mountains rise from narrow valleys, such as form the
beds of lakes in Switzerland, Scotland, and Northern Italy; but
from such broad waters as those of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and
Lake Michigan, the shores shelve very gradually, and have none of
the materials of lovely scenery.
The streets in Toronto are framed with wood, or rather planked, as
are those of Montreal and Quebec; but they are kept in better
order. I should say that the planks are first used at Toronto,
then sent down by the lake to Montreal, and when all but rotted out
there, are again floated off by the St. Lawrence to be used in the
thoroughfares of the old French capital. But if the streets of
Toronto are better than those of the other towns, the roads around
it are worse. I had the honor of meeting two distinguished members
of the Provincial Parliament at dinner some few miles out of town,
and, returning back a short while after they had left our host's
house, was glad to be of use in picking them up from a ditch into
which their carriage had been upset. To me it appeared all but
miraculous that any carriage should make its way over that road
without such misadventure. I may perhaps be allowed to hope that
the discomfiture of these worthy legislators may lead to some
improvement in the thoroughfare.
I had on a previous occasion gone down the St. Lawrence, through
the Thousand Isles and over the Rapids, in one of those large
summer steamboats which ply upon the lake and river.
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