Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences. James Ewing Ritchie
authorities for the speedy transfer from the steamer to the train.] The more I see of matters, the clearer it seems to me that large parties of emigrants should not be sent out by themselves, but that they should be under the care of some one who knows the country and the railway officials.
I am sorry to say, as regards some of the better class of emigrants, the long delay at Quebec gave them an opportunity of getting drunk, of which they seemed gladly to have availed themselves. The future of some of these young fellows it is not difficult to predict. In a little while they will have exhausted their resources, and will return home disgusted with Canada, and swearing that it is impossible to get a living there. There was no need for them to go to an hotel at all. In the yard there was a capital shed fitted up for refreshments. I had there a plate of good ham, bread-and-butter and jam, and as much good tea as I wanted – all for a shilling. It was a boon indeed to the emigrants we had landed from the Sarnia to find such a place at their disposal.
As to myself, I need not assure you I was glad enough to find myself in a Pullman car, bound for Montreal. I shed no tears as we left Quebec far behind, and glided on under a cloudless, moonlit sky, serenaded by those Canadian nightingales, the frogs. At first I felt a little difficulty in retiring to rest. As a modest man, I was inclined to object to the presence of so many ladies, although we had been on the best of terms during our voyage out. It is true that they had their husbands with them, but nevertheless I felt uncomfortable, and vowed I would retreat to the smoking-room. However, I was over-persuaded, and lay down with the rest; though more than once that eventful night I was awoke by awful sounds, reminding me rather of the hoarse roar of the Atlantic in a storm than of the peaceful slumbers of a Pullman car.
CHAPTER IV.
AT MONTREAL, AND ON TO OTTAWA – INTERVIEWING AND INTERVIEWED
One discovery I have made since I have been here is that Canada has its clouded skies and its rainy days, and that a Canadian spring may be quite as ungenial as an English one. Yet it is, I still see, the country for a working man. And I write this in full knowledge of the fact that here at Montreal the charitable, on whom the poor depend – for there is no poor-law in this country, and let us hope, seeing what mischief has been done by poor-laws, there may never be one – have been sorely exercised this winter how to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked, and to find the outcast a home. But, mind you, I only recommend the place for the poor agricultural labourer or artisan; and already I find the larger portion of such who have come out with me are in full work, and are thankful that they have come, but they had to take anything that was offered. It is clear this is not the country for clerks and shop-lads, and the secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association – which I find here to be a flourishing institution – writes:
‘Young men are coming by each steamer. Many of them are introduced to us with excellent recommendations, and have occupied good positions in England. Some have left their situations on the representation of railway and steamboat agents as to the opportunities in this country. We find it absolutely impossible to secure employment for them in many cases, business in every department has been so dull. Almost all the houses have been employing hands that they could dispense with. Reports from the West show the market glutted as bad as in Montreal.’ And I fear things have not improved since.
It is cruel to get such young men out of England. They are worse off here than they would be at home. It is curious to note, in connection with emigration, the evident desire of the educated mechanic to keep his rivals out. ‘By all means bid them stop at home,’ he cries, ‘or wages will be lower in the colonies.’ Already I have been interviewed by a working-class official here, and that is his cry. And I give it for what it may be worth, merely remarking that such illustrations as he gave in support of his views turned out to be the merest moonshine.
Now let me speak of Montreal, which I entered with pleasure, and leave with regret. It is the chief city of Canada, and is built on the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, where the muddy Ottawa, after a course of 600 miles, debouches into it. You arrive by a grand railway bridge, which is one of the wonders of this part of the world. The population is nearly 200,000, of which two-thirds are French or Irish, and Roman Catholic. It abounds with every sign of prosperity, and, as a city, would be a credit to the old country. The river front is lined with steamers loading for England. The principal thoroughfares contain lofty buildings, and shops as spacious as any of our best, whilst its hotels altogether throw ours into the shade; and then, in the suburbs the merchants live in palaces, whilst handsome churches attest the wealth, if not the piety, of all classes of the population. I fear Mammon worship is the prevailing form of idolatry, yet I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that the early settlement of the place was the result of religious enthusiasm, and that it was an attempt to found in America a veritable kingdom of God as understood by the Roman Catholics; but all that is past, and the chief topics of interest are the prices of pork, or the state of the market as regards butter and cheese. Let me remind you that such is the goodness of the cheese of Canada, all made in factories, that nearly as much cheese finds its way into the English market from Montreal as from New York.
One thing especially strikes me, and that is the muscular character of the young men. Montreal is a great place for athletes. Montreal has hundreds of such, as it is not only a centre of commerce, but the most important manufacturing city in the Dominion – 3,000 hands are employed in the manufacture of boots and shoes. Then there are here the largest sugar refineries and cotton mills and silk and cloth factories in Canada, and the result is that, as these factories are nursed by Protection, the towns are unnaturally crowded, and the people all over the country have to pay high prices for inferior articles, and the Canadians, who ought to be making cheese and butter, and growing corn for the artisans of Lancashire, are doing all they can to reduce their best and most natural customers to a state of starvation. ‘It is a shame,’ said a Canadian manufacturer to me, only in language a little more emphatic, ‘that England allows any of her colonies to put prohibitory duties on British products.’ And I quite agree with my friend that it is a shame. However, as long as the present Canadian Government are in power, there is no chance of Free Trade. It was the Protection cry that placed the Conservatives in power. With so many French as there are in Canada, vainly dreaming of a restoration of French rule, it is idle to talk of the interests of the mother country. Nor does Great Britain deserve very well of the Canadians. Up to almost the present time it has held them to be of little account, and, as we all know, it is not so very long since it suffered Brother Jonathan to annex that part of Maine in which Portland is situated, and thus to deprive Canada of its only winter harbour.
For one thing Montreal is to be highly commended, and that is on account of its hotels. The Windsor Hotel, in Dominion Square, is one of the finest hotels in America, and as you enter you are quite bewildered at the magnificence of the entrance-hall. A curious thing happened to me there. Mr. Hoyle and Mr. Barker, of the U.K. Alliance, had come there after a pilgrimage in the States, and it was determined to give them a reception. I had a ticket, and went for about an hour, chatting pleasantly with readers, who had known me by repute, and were glad to shake hands with me. Imagine my horror when, in the next morning’s paper, I read that the reception had been got up by Temperance friends for me, as well as Messrs. Hoyle and Barker, and that my humble name figured first on the list. Perhaps this was meant as a consolation to me. I had been interviewed on the previous day, and the papers had spoken of me in such complimentary terms that I felt almost a lion.
Alas! in America interviewing is quite a common-place affair, and it gives no éclat to be interviewed. People sat smoking in the hall as I passed, utterly unconscious of the fact. Yet the reporters did their best. One of them called after I was gone to bed. He said he was not going to be scooped out by the other fellow, whatever that may mean. Virtue in his case was not rewarded. I kept to my bed, and left the enterprising reporter to do the best he could.
I ought to say a word of the hotel at which I stopped – the Lawrence Hall, in James’s Street – which I strongly recommend to all, especially to such of my friends as may be contemplating a visit to Montreal. The bedrooms are beautifully clean, the cooking is excellent, and the service is admirable. It enjoys a tremendous amount of support. I was there just forty-eight hours, and I counted as many as two hundred names of arrivals after me, and yet, in spite of the crowd, there was ample accommodation for all, and I and my friends dined