V.
KING STREET, FROM JOHN STREET TO YONGE STREET.
fter our long stroll westward, we had purposed returning to the place of beginning by the route which constitutes the principal thoroughfare of the modern Toronto; but the associations connected with the primitive pathway on the cliff overlooking the harbour, led us insensibly back along the track by which we came.
In order that we may execute our original design, we now transport ourselves at once to the point where we had intended to begin our descent of King Street. That point was the site of a building now wholly taken out of the way—the old General Hospital. Farther west on this line of road there was no object possessing any archæological interest.
The old Hospital was a spacious, unadorned, matter-of-fact, two-storey structure, of red brick, one hundred and seven feet long, and sixty-six feet wide. It had, by the direction of Dr. Grant Powell, as we have heard, the peculiarity of standing with its sides precisely east and west, north and south. At a subsequent period, it consequently had the appearance of having being jerked round bodily, the streets in the neighbourhood not being laid out with the same precise regard to the cardinal points. The building exhibited recessed galleries on the north and south sides, and a flattish hipped roof. The interior was conveniently designed.
In the fever wards here, during the terrible season of 1847, frightful scenes of suffering and death were witnessed among the newly-arrived emigrants; here it was that, in ministering to them in their distress, so many were struck down, some all but fatally, others wholly so; amongst the latter several leading medical men, and the Roman Catholic Bishop, Power.
When the Houses of Parliament, at the east end of the town, were destroyed by fire in 1824, the Legislature assembled for several sessions in the General Hospital.