Thomas Conant

“ Canada is truly a land of freedom. Once within her borders the hunted slave, who had committed no crime, could claim the protection of its laws and know that he was a free man. Therefore when ill-treated it is obvious that slaves would escape from slavery and come to Canada—crossing at any part of the three-thousand-mile line boundary between the United States and Canada, and here finding security and freedom.
About Chatham, in the western part of Ontario, there were many such escaped slaves, who had reached there by what was known as the “underground railway.” ”

“ Giving to tramps is fostering a lazy, whiskey-drinking, shiftless class, who beg because it is easier than to work. Indiscriminate giving is worse than not giving at all. Let us generally, throughout rural Ontario, take warning and look closely to our charities, and see that they are rightly bestowed. Let us stamp out this tramp nuisance before it becomes fixed. If there be worthy objects of charity in our midst, I know I am safe in asserting that the big hearts of Canadians will relieve them, and there is always the township council to fall back upon in any event. ”

“ Overoats began to be thrown aside, and also the grip-sacks containing all the patriots’ valuables, until the path was strewn with their effects. Every moment someone would break through the ice. Out of that devoted band of patriots all had gone down and been rescued; and all of the crew, too, except one sailor, who, being lighter than the rest and more cautious where he stepped, alone remained dry. Now the patriots, one after another began to lose all heart and give up. “O God! and must I die here, with the shore and liberty just in sight.” ”

“ But is there in our country any more pleasing example of success than this old couple present? Successful they have been in a most eminent degree. They may not have accumulated any great store of wealth, but they have raised to Canada a family of sons and daughters who are a credit to our beloved country—sons and daughters whose families are working their farms and fields and helping to make our Province what it is to-day. ”

“ There is another class of persons in Canada who are always in search of “the loaves and fishes” in the shape of public offices. At first sight these persons would not appear to be numerous, but there are a very great many of them in various capacities—many offices, no doubt, created for the men, and many of them, too, of no adequate good to the community. As a class these persons will bear well a comparison with the turtle—opening their eyes and sitting in the sun, Micawber-like, “waiting for something to turn up.” Our labors to bring our young country to the fore they do not share in. ”

“ When on the rostrum, making his speech, urging the people to vote for him as councillor, he was dressed in a Canada pepper-and-salt tweed suit, shooting coat, with large lapels to his pockets overhanging them, a red scarf about his neck, and a pair of thick cowhide boots, the tops of which were too large, with the legs of his trousers stretched tightly over them. His tout ensemble would denote a good plain, practical farmer, in fair circumstances, and having a mediocre amount of brain power or gift of penetration. ”

“ The men spend the winters in the woods or timber limits, felling the timber, hewing the great logs or drawing them by the aid of horses or oxen to the surface of the frozen rivers, and the summers in “driving” the logs, enclosing them in the booms (logs with ends{184} fastened together by chains to form a barrier or enclosure for the loose floating logs) , and in taking the great rafts down the St. Lawrence to Quebec. Many a river shore in Upper Canada re-echoes the songs of the French-Canadian lumberman or voyageur in the twilight of a summer evening. ”

“ Old neighbors, as they come to town, call upon them, and their lives are diversified and enlivened two or three times a week by such visits. Their children, most of whom reside within driving distance of their parents, drop in upon them at any time, and thus in perfect happiness and serenity they pass down the sunset slope of life. Their lives and individual characters are towers of strength in the neighborhood for rectitude and uprightness, and the community without a dissent recognizes their true worth. ”

“ This tramp nuisance is one of the growing evils in our Province, and it is just as well to stamp it out now, before it gets greater, by absolutely refusing to give aid. If we build county poor-houses, our poor-rates will go up, and no one ever heard of such rates coming down if once put on. The British farmer to-day is ground down with poor-rates, but perhaps in densely populated England there may be an excuse for such rates.{201} With us there is not, then let us not have them. ”

“ The tedium of a winter’s life therein, snow-bound and with its humdrum, is not an experience to be coveted.
If you like the picture, you can find such a place for a winter’s residence next winter, easily; but I fancy most readers will agree with me in saying that the deacon, the fore-handed citizens and the village generally made a serious mistake in not securing railway communication when it was to be had.
Villages, as well as citizens, to keep up in the race nowadays, must be alive and moving, or both are soon left far behind by their neighbors’ ambitions. ”

“ At last, and not until now, the old couple, who have never yet had a thought separate and apart from the other, realize they are growing old and must soon cease from hard work. To their honor, and to the credit of our country, be it said, in order that their other children may contract good marriage alliances, the family gathering is still kept up, the family board is ever open, and a place always is ready for the worthy neighbors. To the utmost of their physical abilities they perform all the manual labor they can about the farm and homestead. ”

“ There came to Upper Canada about the year 1803 a young American, strong of muscle and cunning of skill as a blacksmith. For a few years he followed his trade and prospered well, for blacksmiths in those days were few and far between, and he, being skilful, soon amassed quite a little property. Just as the war broke out he established a little log hotel on the travelled highway between Kingston and Toronto, where all the military must necessarily pass in those days. As the war went on with its preparations this American did a roaring trade, and became quite a personage in the land. ”

“ For three miles between them and the land was this mass of floating ice, and the little vessel refused to be driven through it.
Backwards and forwards, along its outer edge, they tacked, ever seeking an opening but finding none. Every means possible at their command they tried to force a passage, but all failed. The hearts of the patriots, which a few hours before beat so joyously, now sank within them. “Oh! must we put back again to Canada, and to prison? Never; we will die first!” As the day wore on, finally an athletic sailor declared he could and would force a passage. ”

“ At the close of the war immigration increased, sturdy settlers coming into the country both from the British Isles and the United States. The settlement of the wild lands, the clearing of the forests and the building of roads went on apace; an era of prosperity and wealth succeeded as peace became assured.
The most thriving industry was that of the lumberman, awaiting whose axe lay the magnificent forests of timber which covered so large a portion of Upper Canada. ”

“ Those old institutions that helped very materially to develop the country, but which failed, failed because of making too great loans upon real estate, and having a lot of it thrown on their hands. Banks, however, though in deep water, may keep on for years, until someone expresses fears of their solvency. Said an old manager of the Bank of Upper Canada to me, “A bank is like a woman, all right until someone says something against her character.” ”

“ Its factors, having charge over stores and furs of immense values, away off from white men or the eyes of any who could take an interest in watching them, have always been faithful to their trust. There is no record extant of a dishonest factor. No government, priest or king ever had servants more faithful than have been the directors of this Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company of Fur Traders for the two hundred and twenty-eight years of its existence.
Sugar-making was another pursuit which, if it did not add great wealth to the settler’s pocket, at any rate increased his home comforts. ”

“ This woman’s sudden change from bitter weeping to smiles through her tears was a pleasure to see, and I can fancy something kept rising in the throats of many of the passengers, which it took a good deal of swallowing to keep down. So the world is not so bad after all, and Canadians have hearts and open purses when assured that the need is a true one. ”

“ Perhaps the most affecting sight one could view in these days would be to see the old husband and partner of sixty long years sit hourly and daily by the bedside, disconsolate and lost, as he sadly views the daily emaciating face of her whom he had chosen in the bloom of youth. ”

“ It has been a mooted question in Canada whether we ought to erect county poor-houses for the care{195} and provision of the poor and infirm, or leave such matters to the ordinary township councils to deal with. In a land of plenty like ours, where there is abundance of food and constant demand for work-people, there should be no need for such persons to become a charge upon the bounty of the public; and it is absolutely certain that if we erect poor-houses there will always be poor to fill them. ”

“ Those of us who would voluntarily for patriotism, or even for money, enter upon such a wild heroic life of toil are few, very few indeed. Think of going from Oshawa to Kingston to mill as one of the hardships they had to contend with. Yet they laid the foundation of fortunes for their successors, and those who{50} held on to their inherited lands are to-day among the richest families in Ontario. They, at least, have particular cause to be loyal and faithful for the good they have received at their country’s hands. ”

“ Here is a great danger—greater in fact than the risk which the people ran when the tramp was in the village lock-up all by himself with a red-hot stove. During the summer these idle vagabonds go about the country in twos and threes, and camp at night in barns and stacks. No one ever saw a tramp yet who did not smoke. Lodging in a barn or stack is to him no valid reason why he should not indulge in his pipe. ”

“ Among the stories of my boyhood days is one of an Episcopal Church minister who came out from England to this Province at a very early day, and settled upon a farm a couple of miles from the church. He neither was nor could be much of a farmer, and never at any time let himself down to{82} any abandon, nor did he ever cast off his long clerical coat, even when about his home or when tossing the fly in his trout-stream. A man of cultivated tastes, he seemed literally to love the ease and quiet of a country life. ”

“ As to the patriots, they were all pardoned and invited to come home, as we all know, which they did, many of them rising to high positions in Canada in after years. That this rebellion did great good to Canada neither Tories nor Reformers now deny, but it does seem hard that so many good and true men men had to suffer so much to have the wrongs righted. To-day Canada is as free as any country under the sun. I leave it to you, reader, to say if there could be a more joyful Christmas at any place in America than the portion of it remaining to those patriots after they got on shore. ”