Among the aphorisms given is this one: "Issuers of paper-change, are entitled to thanks from the public for the great accommodation such change affords. They might render the accommodation more extensive were they to emit a proportionate number of half-penny bills." At one place the query is put, "When will the beard be worn, and man allowed to appear with it in native dignity? And if so, how long before it will become fashionable to have it greased and powdered?" In the almanac for 1815, towards the end, the following paragraph appears:—"York supernatural prices current: Turnips 1 dollar per bushel; Potatoes, long, at 2 ditto; Salt 20 ditto; Butter per lb. 1 ditto; Indifferent bread 1 shilling N. Y. cy. per lb.; Conscience, a contraband article."
In Bennett's time the Government press was, as we have seen, set up in Mr. Cameron's house on King Street. But at the period of the war in 1812 Mr. Cameron's printing office was in a building which still exists, viz., the house on Bay Street associated with the name of Mr. Andrew Mercer. During the occupation of York by the United States force, the press was broken up and the type dispersed. Mr. Mercer once exhibited to ourselves a portion of the press which on that occasion was made useless. For a short period Mr. Mercer himself had charge of the publication of the York Gazette.
In 1817 Dr. Horne became the editor and publisher. On coming into his hands the paper resumed the name of Upper Canada Gazette, but the old secondary title of American Oracle was dropped. To the official portion of the paper there was, nevertheless, still appended abstracts of news from the United States and Europe, summaries of the proceedings in the Parliaments of Upper and Lower Canada, and much well-selected miscellaneous matter. The shape continued to be that of a small folio, and the terms were four dollars per annum in advance; and if sent by mail, four dollars and a half.
In 1821 Mr. Charles Fothergill (of whom we have already spoken) became the Editor and Publisher of the Gazette. Mr. Fothergill revived the practice of having a secondary title, which was now The Weekly Register; a singular choice, by the way, that being very nearly the name of Cobbett's celebrated democratic publication in London. After Mr. Fothergill came Mr. Robert Stanton, who changed the name of the private portion of the Gazette sheet, styling it "The U. E. Loyalist."
In 1820 Mr. John Carey had established the Observer at York. The Gazette of May 11, 1820, contains the announcement of his design; and he therein speaks of himself as "the person who gave the Debates" recently in another paper. To have the debates in Parliament reported with any fulness was then a novelty. The Observer was a folio of rustic, unkempt aspect, the paper and typography and matter being all somewhat inferior. It gave in its adherence to the government of the day, generally: at a later period it wavered. Mr. Carey was a tall, portly personage who, from his bearing and costume might readily have been mistaken for a non-conformist minister of local importance. The Observer existed down to about the year 1830. Between the Weekly Register and the Observer the usual journalistic feud sprung up, which so often renders rival village newspapers ridiculous. With the Register a favourite sobriquet for the Observer is "Mother C——y." Once a correspondent is permitted to style it "The Political Weathercock and Slang Gazetteer." Mr. Carey ended his days in Springfield on the River Credit, where he possessed property.
The Canadian Freeman, established in 1825 by Mr. Francis Collins was a sheet remarkable for the neatness of its arrangement and execution, and also for the talent exhibited in its editorials. The type was evidently new and carefully handled. Mr. Collins was his own principal compositor. He is said to have transferred to type many of his editorials without the intervention of pen and paper, composing directly from copy mentally furnished. Mr. Collins was a man of pronounced Celtic features, roughish in outline, and plentifully garnished with hair of a sandy or reddish hue.
Notwithstanding the colourless character of the motto at the head of its columns "Est natura hominum novitatis avida"—"Human nature is fond of news," the Freeman was a strong party paper. The hard measure dealt out to him in 1828 at the hands of the legal authorities, according to the prevailing spirit of the day, with the revenge that he was moved to take—and to take successfully—we shall not here detail. Mr. Collins died of cholera in the year 1834. We have understood that he was once employed in the office of the Gazette; and that when Dr. Horne resigned, he was an applicant for the position of Government Printer.
The Canadian Freeman joined for a time in the general opposition clamour against Dr. Strachan,—against the influence, real or supposed, exercised by him over successive lieutenant-governors. But on discovering the good-humoured way in which its fulminations were received by their object, the Freeman dropped its strictures. It happened that Mr. Collins had a brother in business in the town with whom Dr. Strachan had dealings. This brother on some occasion thought it becoming to make some faint apology for the Freeman's diatribes. "O don't let them trouble you," the Doctor replied, "they do not trouble me; but by the way, tell your brother," he laughingly continued, "I shall claim a share in the proceeds." This, when reported to the Editor, was considered a good joke, and the diatribes ceased; a proceeding that was tantamount to Peter Pindar's confession, when some one charged him with being too hard on the King: "I confess there exists a difference between the King and me," said Peter; "the King has been a good subject to me; and I have been a bad subject to his Majesty."—During Mr. Collins' imprisonment in 1828 for the application of the afterwards famous expression "native malignity" to the Attorney-General of the day, the Freeman still continued to appear weekly, the editorials, set up in type in the manner spoken of above, being supplied to the office from his room in the jail.
In the early stages of society in Upper Canada the Government authorities appear not only to have possessed but to have exercised the power of handling political writers pretty sharply. In the Kingston Chronicle of December 10th, 1820, we have recorded the sentence pronounced on Barnabas Ferguson, Editor of the Niagara Spectator, for "a libel on the Government." Mr. Ferguson was condemned to be imprisoned eighteen months; to stand in the pillory once during his confinement; to pay a fine of £50, and remain in prison till paid; and on his liberation to find security for seven years, himself in £500, and two sureties in £250 each. No comment is made by the Chronicle on the sentence, and the libel is not described.