It was in 1830 that the name of Robert Baldwin first appeared in the list of members, and of the forty-five persons who represented the Province at that time I do not know that one survives. The death of George IV. brought about a dissolution, and an election took place in October. There was considerable excitement, and a good many seats changed occupants, but the Family Compact party were returned to power.
A general election in those days was a weighty matter, because of the large extent of the constituencies, and the distance the widely- scattered electors had to travel—often over roads that were almost impassable—to exercise their franchise. There was but one polling place in each county, and that was made as central as possible for the convenience of the people. Often two weeks elapsed before all the votes could be got in, and during the contest it was not an uncommon thing for one side or the other to make an effort to get possession of the poll, and keep their opponents from voting. This frequently led to disgraceful fights, when sticks and stones were used with a freedom that would have done no discredit to Irish faction fights in their palmiest days. Happily, this is all changed now. The numerous polling places prevent a crowd of excited men from collecting together. Voters have but a short distance to go, and the whole thing is accomplished with ease in a day. Our representation, both for the Dominion and Provincial Parliaments, is now based upon population, and the older and more densely-populated counties are divided into ridings, so that the forty-eight counties and some cities and towns return to the Ontario Government eighty-eight members.
Fifty years ago the Post Office Department was under the control of the British Government, and Thomas A. Stayner was Deputy Postmaster General of British North America. Whatever else the Deputy may have had to complain of, he certainly could not grumble at the extent of territory under his jurisdiction. The gross receipts of the Department were L8,029 2s 6d. [Footnote: I am indebted to W.H. Griffin, Esq., Deputy Postmaster General, for information, kindly furnished, respecting the Post Office Department, &c.] There were ninety-one post offices in Upper Canada. On the main line between York and Montreal the mails were carried by a public stage, and in spring and fall, owing to the bad roads, and even in winter, with its storms and snow-drifts, its progress was slow, and often difficult. There are persons still living who remember many a weary hour and trying adventure between these points. Passengers, almost perished with cold or famished with hunger, were often forced to trudge through mud and slush up to their knees, because the jaded horses could barely pull the empty vehicle through the mire or up the weary hill. They were frequently compelled to alight and grope around in impenetrable darkness and beating storm for rails from a neighbouring fence, with which to pry the wheels out of a mud-hole, into which they had, to all appearance, hopelessly sunk, or to dig themselves out of snow banks in which both horses and stage were firmly wedged. If they were so fortunate as to escape these mishaps, the deep ruts and corduroy bridges tried their powers of endurance to the utmost, and made the old coach creak and groan under the strain. Sometimes it toppled over with a crash, leaving the worried passengers to find shelter, if they could, in the nearest farm-house, until the damage was repaired. But with good roads and no break-downs they were enabled to spank along at the rate of seventy-five miles in a day, which was considered rapid travelling. Four-and-a-half days were required, and often more; to reach Montreal from York. A merchant posting a letter from the latter place, under the most favourable circumstances, could not get a reply from Montreal in less than ten days, or sometimes fifteen; and from Quebec the time required was from three weeks to a month. The English mails were brought by sailing vessels. Everything moved in those days with slow and uneven pace. The other parts of the Province were served by couriers on horseback, who announced their approach with blast of tin horn. That the offices were widely separated in most cases may be judged from their number. I recently came upon an entry made by my father in an old account book against his father's estate: "To one day going to the post office, 3s 9d." The charge, looked at in the light of these days, certainly is not large, but the idea of taking a day to go to and from a post office struck me as a good illustration of the inconveniences endured in those days. The correspondent, at that time, had never been blessed with a vision of the coming envelope, but carefully folded his sheet of paper into the desired shape, pushed one end of the fold into the other, and secured it with a wafer or sealing-wax. Envelopes, now universally used, were not introduced until about 1845-50, and even blotting paper, that indispensable requisite on every writing-table, was unknown. Every desk had its sand-box, filled with fine dry sand, which the writer sprinkled over his sheet to absorb the ink. Sometimes, at a pinch, ashes were used. Goose quill was the only pen. There was not such a thing, I suppose, as a steel pen in the Province. Gillott and Perry had invented them in 1828; but they were sold at $36 a gross, and were too expensive to come into general use. Neither was there such a thing as a bit of india rubber, so very common now. Erasures had to be made with a knife. Single rates of letter postage were, for distances not exceeding 60 miles, 4 1/2 d; not exceeding 100 miles, 7d; and not over 200 miles, 9d, increasing 2 1/4 d on every additional 100 miles. Letters weighing less than one ounce were rated as single, double or treble, as they consisted of one, two or more sheets. If weighing an ounce, or over, the charge was a single rate for every quarter of an ounce in weight.
How is it now? The Post Office Department has been for many years under the control of our Government. There are in Ontario 2,353 Post-Offices, with a revenue of $914,382. The mails are carried by rail to all the principal points, and to outlying places and country villages by stage, and by couriers in light vehicles, with much greater despatch, owing to the improved condition of the highways. A letter of not over half an ounce in weight can be sent from Halifax to Vancouver for three cents. A book weighing five pounds can be sent the same distance for twenty cents, and parcels and samples at equally low rates. To England the rate for half an ounce is five cents, and for every additional half-ounce a single rate is added. Postage stamps and cards, the money order system, and Post Office savings banks have all been added since 1851. The merchant of Toronto can post a letter to-day, and get a reply from London; England, in less time than he could in the old days from Quebec. In 1830 correspondence was expensive and tedious. Letters were written only under the pressure of necessity. Now every one writes, and the number of letters and the revenue have increased a thousand fold. The steamship, locomotive and telegraph, all the growth of the last half century, have not only almost annihilated time and space, but have changed the face of the world. It is true there were steamboats running between York and Kingston on the Bay of Quinte and the St. Lawrence prior to 1830; but after that date they increased rapidly in number, and were greatly improved. It was on the 15th of September of that year that George Stephenson ran the first locomotive over the line between Liverpool and Manchester—a distance of thirty miles—so that fifty years ago this was the only railway with a locomotive in the world—a fact that can hardly be realised when the number of miles now in operation, and the vast sums of money expended in their construction, are considered. What have these agents done for us, apart from the wonderful impetus given to trade and commerce? You can post to your correspondent at Montreal at 6 p.m., and your letter is delivered at 11 a.m., and the next day at noon you have your answer. You take up your morning's paper, and you have the news from the very antipodes every day. The merchant has quotations placed before him, daily and hourly, from every great commercial centre in the world; and even the sporting man can deposit his money here, and have his bet booked in London the day before.
From the first discovery of the country up to 1800, a period of about three hundred years, the bark canoe was the only mode of conveyance for long distances. Governor Simcoe made his journeys from Kingston to Detroit in a large bark canoe, rowed by twelve chasseurs, followed by another containing the tents and provisions. The cost of conveying merchandise between Kingston and Montreal before the Rideau and St. Lawrence canals were built is hardly credible to people of this day. Sir J. Murray stated in the House of Commons, in 1828, that the carriage of a twenty-four pound cannon cost between L150 and L200 sterling. In the early days of the Talbot Settlement (about 1817), Mr. Ermatinger states that eighteen bushels of wheat were required to pay for one barrel of salt, and that one bushel of wheat would no more than pay for one yard of cotton.
Our fathers did not travel much, and there was a good reason, as we have seen, why they did not. The ordinary means of transit was the stage, which Mrs. Jameson describes as a "heavy lumbering vehicle, well calculated to live in roads where any decent carriage must needs founder." Another kind, used on rougher roads, consisted of "large oblong wooden boxes, formed of a few planks nailed together, and placed on wheels, in which you enter by the window, there being no door to open or shut, and no springs." On two or three wooden seats, suspended in leather straps, the passengers were perched. The behaviour of the better sort, in a journey from Niagara to Hamilton, is described by this writer as consisting of a "rolling and tumbling along the detestable road, pitching like a scow among the breakers of a lake storm." The road was knee-deep in mud, the "forest on either side dark, grim, and impenetrable." There were but three or four steamboats in existence, and these were not much more expeditious. Fares were high. The rate from York to Montreal was about $24. Nearly the only people who travelled were the merchants and officials, and they were not numerous. The former often took passage on sailing vessels or batteaux, and if engaged in the lumber trade, as many of them were, they went down on board their rafts and returned in the batteaux. "These boats were flat-bottomed, and made of pine boards, narrowed at bow and stern, forty feet by six, with a crew of four men and a pilot, provided with oars, sails, and iron-shod poles for pushing. They continued to carry, in cargoes of five tons, all the merchandise that passed to Upper Canada. Sometimes these boats were provided with a makeshift upper cabin, which consisted of an awning of oilcloth, supported on hoops like the roof of an American, Quaker, or gipsy waggon. If further provided with half a dozen chairs and a table, this cabin was deemed the height of primitive luxury. The batteaux went in brigades, which generally consisted of five boats. Against the swiftest currents and rapids the men poled their way up; and when the resisting element was too much for their strength, they fastened a rope to the bow, and, plunging into the water, dragged her by main strength up the boiling cataract. From Lachine to Kingston, the average voyage was ten to twelve days, though it was occasionally made in seven; an average as long as a voyage across the Atlantic now. The Durham boat, also then doing duty on this route, was a flat-bottomed barge, but it differed from the batteaux in having a slip-keel and nearly twice its capacity. This primitive mode of travelling had its poetic side. Amid all the hardships of their vocation, the French Canadian boatmen were ever light of spirit, and they enlivened the passage by carolling their boat songs; one of which inspired Moore to write his immortal ballad." [Footnote: Trout's Railways of Canada, 1870-1.]
The country squire, if he had occasion to go from home, mounted his horse, and, with his saddle-bags strapped behind him, jogged along the highway or through the bush at the rate of forty or fifty miles a day. I remember my father going to New York in 1839. He crossed by steamboat from Kingston to Oswego; thence to Rome, in New York State, by canal- boat, and thence by rail and steamer to New York.
CHAPTER VI.
ROAD-MAKING—WELLER'S LINE OF STAGES AND STEAMBOATS—MY TRIP FROM HAMILTON TO NIAGARA—SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES—PIONEER METHODIST PREACHERS —SOLEMNIZATION OF MATRIMONY—LITERATURE AND LIBRARIES—WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS —PRIMITIVE EDITORIAL ARTICLES.
The people were alive at a very early date to the importance of improving the roads; and as far back as 1793 an Act was passed at Niagara, then the seat of government, placing the roads under overseers or road-masters, as they were called, appointed by the ratepaying inhabitants at their annual town meetings. Every man was required to bring tools, and to work from three to twelve days. There was no property distinction, and the time was at the discretion of the roadmaster. This soon gave cause for dissatisfaction, and reasonably, for it was hardly fair to expect a poor man to contribute as much toward the improvement of highways as his rich neighbour. The Act was amended, and the number of days' work determined by the assessment roll. The power of opening new roads, or altering the course of old ones, was vested in the Quarter Sessions. This matter is now under the control of the County Councils. The first government appropriation for roads was made in 1804, when L1,000 was granted; but between 1830-33, $512,000 was provided for the improvement and opening up of new roads. The road from Kingston to York was contracted for by Dantford, an American, in 1800, at $90 per mile, two rods wide. The first Act required that every man should clear a road across his own lot, but it made no provision for the Clergy Reserves and Crown Lands, and hence the crooked roads that existed at one time in the Province. Originally the roads were marked out by blazing the trees through the woods as a guide for the pedestrian. Then the boughs were cut away, so that a man could ride through on horseback. Then followed the sleighs; and finally the trees were cleared off, so that a waggon could pass. "The great leading roads of the Province had received little improvement beyond being graded, and the swamps [had been] made passable by laying the round trunks of trees side by side across the roadway. Their supposed resemblance to the king's corduroy cloth gained for these crossways the name of corduroy roads. The earth roads were passably good when covered with the snows of winter, or when dried up in the summer sun; but even then a thaw or rain made them all but impassable. The rains of autumn and the thaws of spring converted them into a mass of liquid mud, such as amphibious animals might delight to revel in. Except an occasional legislative grant of a few thousand pounds for the whole Province, which was ill- expended, and often not accounted for at all, the great leading roads, as well as all other roads, depended, in Upper Canada, for their improvement on statute labour." [Footnote: II.]