The beginning of the performance was heralded by the appearance of a “supe” who amidst cheers lighted with a taper the gas jets which provided the foot-lights. Then, Mrs. Holman, wearing a comfortable white woollen shawl, squeezed through the musicians’ trap door and made the piano lead the modest orchestra in the tunes appropriate to the occasion. Up went the green baize curtain a few minutes later, and the play was on. Applause for Sally and Julia was continuous and well-deserved. Hushed during the intermissions when the male section of the audience adjourned to the nearby bars for the purpose of acquiring fresh inspiration, it broke out with renewed vigor when the performance was resumed.
Old-timers will remember, too, that the celebrated bass singer, Crane, of Robson and Crane, made his début with the Holmans.
Fire brought the business of the Royal to a standstill and the Holmans gave summer performances, either in the pavilion of the Horticultural Gardens, or in a temporary structure on Front street, just west of the Queen’s. Since then the Royal has been rebuilt and burned again. After the second burning it stayed burned, and the business of catering to the public in a dramatic or operatic way passed to the Grand, which was managed for years by Mrs. Morrison, whose husband, Dan Morrison, had edited the Colonist. They had good bills at the Grand. Once when Sir Henry Irving was there it was given out that the distinguished tragedian required the assistance of a body of young men to play the part of soldiers in one of his Shakesperean plays. The boys volunteered by the hundred. They were going to see Sir Henry at close quarters and on the cheap. When the great night came they were assembled in the basement, uniformed, and provided with pikes—machine guns not having been invented at that period in which they were engaging in war.
After a long wait for Act 3, scene something or other, they were marched upstairs and hustled across the stage a few times, yelling as instructed. Then the door of the basement opened and they descended to disrobe and make for the street without once having cast eyes on Sir Henry, and without seeing a fragment of the play.
The contrast between the theatrical equipment of Toronto in my early days and now is really marvellous. Then there was one struggling theatre. Now there are three devoted to the legitimate, four given up to vaudeville, two to burlesque, fifteen huge picture houses, and a host of small moving picture places too numerous to count. The city certainly loves pleasure.
Bonifaces of the Old Days.
The Queen’s and the Rossin were the swagger hotels. The names of McGaw and Winnett are, and have been for years, intimately connected with the former, and the latter is now the Prince George. There were also the Albion, which John Holderness and James Crocker at different times managed; Lemon’s; Palmer’s; the American; the Walker; the Metropolitan, Revere and many others which were comfortable hostelries and also the Temperance Hotel on Bay street, which was not so comfortable nor so clean as those which had bars attached. Then there was the old Bay Horse and Cherry’s beyond the north end of the city—a popular road house.
Eddie Sullivan’s, Fred Mossop’s, the Merchants on Jordan street (first run by Jewell, then by Morgan and till its close by good old John Cochrane) were favorite places of public resort, not only for leading Torontonians, but for people from all parts of Canada. Eddie’s was at the corner of King street and Leader Lane, and has been demolished to be replaced by an annex to the King Edward. Fred’s was the Dog and Duck on Colborne street, and he afterwards ran the Mossop House on Yonge street, until the O.T.A. put him out of business. When these three disappeared it was a distinct loss to the eating public.
Then there was Carlisle & McConkey’s on King street with a huge terrapin shell on the sidewalk as an inviting sign. Other places were Eddie Clancy’s—he’s now running the Wellington Hotel at Guelph; Gus Thomas’ English Chop House; Sam Richardson’s at the corner of King and Spadina, diagonally opposite which was Joe Power’s Power House. When in Toronto in the early 90’s I used to go up to see Sam, and enjoy a good glass of ale, and it was there that a fine body of mechanics nightly gathered. They found pleasure in a glass of bitter, and didn’t argue or discuss revolutionary questions, as too many of them, deprived of their harmless tipple, do now. On Yonge street there were the Athletic, run by John Scholes, the champion boxer; the Trader by Douglas & Chambers; the St. Charles, which was managed by James O’Neil, until the O.T.A. came into force; and on King street was Headquarters run by the Purrse Bros. They all had their convivial patrons.
Of course, I do not pretend to remember all the places or all the changes that have taken place in the Queen City—no person could—but I have a vivid recollection of a ride on the upper deck of a horse-drawn street car; of the Great Western Railway Station at the foot of Yonge street, now converted into a fruit market; of the old St. Lawrence Market with its wonderful display of meats; of the lacrosse grounds, and of the Queen’s Park, where I first played lacrosse with the newly organized Whitby club against the old Ontarios in the early days of that great national game.