LIFE IN CANADA.

Southland Times, Issue 2316, 16 March 1876, Page 2

LIFE IN CANADA.

All Canadian towns are much alike. The approach to Kisawlee is by a long, straight, dusty road, lined on each side by rows of little painted frame-houses, standing vrithin wooden railings, separated only from each other by a few yards of burnUup grass, or a feeble attempt at a flower-bed, and fronted by a plank sidewalk raised high above the road, a trap for the unwary on dark nights. Gradually the long, straight suburban road merges into a street — the street of the town — a ghastly array of hideous brick houses, every one of tbem crammed from cellar to garret with merchandise, the names, of thejr owners painted in gaming characters on boards of all shapes and sizes, a l'Americaine. Cross streets run in at intervals, up which are to be found the churches, with tin spires gleaming in the sun, hotels and taverns, banks, post-office, and town-hall, fading away into private residences, the sainelittle red and white villas, and so on, till we get to country road once more, and wind about the snake fences, brown fields, and grasshoppers! Let us glance at the principal hotel. The bar of course is full, for the Canadians cjrink in summer oa amount of the heati, winter to keep "out the cold. We enter our name and place of residence in Ihe book, as the custom is ; the landlord reads it, and is at once all civility. He sees vfe are English, thinjp? of course we

are grejn, and sniffs -the spoils of war afar. Presently he lifts -ono finger and " be'ckoD3 with bis head, j This I afterwards team is, the Canadian! fashion of asking you to~;drink, or in their own parlance, "to have a hqrfl." / If you are passing through as strangers, and more especially Englishmen, he will charge iyou 3dol. a day. -If afriend introduces you, winka one eye, andgiyes him a dig inthe: -rib's, or some other familiar sign, you will only be Idol, per diem the poorer for your sojourn in his establishment, and if you board there for six months y oa will get off far cheaper even than that. Such are the anomalies of the charges in Canadian and American hotels ! Of what does the upper-crust of society consist in KisawleeP Let us try and define it. Four or five half-pay officers with their wives and families, the managers and clerks of three - banks (bank clerks in Canada, by the way, hold a higher position in society than their confreres in the old country, from the fact of its being a profession worth entering from a pecuniary point of view, and consequently much sought after by the most influential families in the country for their sons), several lawyers, most of whom are in society, a judge, a parson or two, three or four doctors, and a miscellaneous bevy of people, many of them English, attracted by the cheapness of living. The rear is brought up by a phalanx of bachelors, a large proportion of them young Englishmen, some farming, and, more who have made a hash of it, afld quietly subsided into being pursers on lake steamboats, or clerks in stores and lumber shanties. It is no uncommon thing in Kisawlee to find a clerk Jin a store with 20dol. a month going everywhere and made much of in society, while his chief, who lives in a fine stone house, with an annual income of 5,000d015, would knock in vain for admission at houses where his poorly-paid clerk reigna supreme. Greatly to the credit of the Canadians generally, it may be said that, let a man be a gentleman, no occupation, so long as it be honest, will at all affect his place in society ; while at the sacne time there are many men retaining their places there, and even courted as favorites who in England would long ago have been consigned to inebriate asylums, or at all events care would have been taken that their faces should live only in the memory of their acquaintances. There is probably neither a greater nor a less consumption of spirits in Eisawlee than throughout the rest of Canada ; that, however, is not saying much. Rye whiskey is cheap, and fortunately rather mild. Almost all liquors are retailed over the bar at five cents (2£d), a drink, while the decanter each time is handed over, American fashion, fco the discretion of the drinker. The temptation is too strong for about one- third of the male population ; another third, we will say, steady themselves down to about half a dozen " horns " a day ; while, for courtesy, we will suppose that the remainder take refuge in total abstinence, although I am afraid it is making rather a rash statement to say so.— Macmillan's Magazine.