"Finally, every kind of vehicle having disappeared, the house-doors are left ajar; the inmates like to fraternise in the street. On fine evenings the footpath gets strewed with chairs and benches, occupied by men smoking—women chatting al fresco unreservedly—laughing that loud laugh which says, "I don't care who hears me." Passers-by exchange a remark, children play at foot-ball, while the house-dog, exulting in the enjoyment of sweet liberty, gambols in the very midst of the happy crowd. These are good streets. One travels over them cheerfully and gaily. An atmosphere of rowdyism, theft, wantonness, hovers over some thoroughfares. Dread and disgust accompany him who saunters over them. Their gates and doorways seem dark—full of pit- falls. Iron shutters, thick doors with deep gashes, indicate the turbulent nature of their inhabitants. Rude men on the sidepaths stare you out of countenance, or make strange signs—a kind of occult telegraphy, which makes your flesh creep. To guard against an unseen foe, you take to the centre of the street—nasty and muddy though it should be,—for there you fancy yourself safe from the blow of a skull-cracker, hurled by an unseen hand on watch under a gateway. The police make themselves conspicuous here by their absence; 'tis a fit spot for midnight murder and robbery—unprovoked, unpunished. Honest tradesmen may reside here, but not from choice; they are bound to ignore street rows; lending a helping hand to a victim would cause them to receive, on the morrow, a notice to quit.
"Be on your guard, if necessity brings you, after nightfall, to this unhallowed ground. Danger hovers over, under, round your footsteps. If an urchin plays a trick on you at a street corner, heed him not. Try and catch him, he will disappear to return with a reinforcement of roughs, prepared to avenge his pretended wrongs by violence to your person and injury to your purse.
"Should a drunken man hustle you as he passes, do not mind him: it may end in a scuffle, out of which you will emerge bruised and with rifled pockets.
"We dare not tell you to yield to fear, but be prudent. Though prudence may be akin to fear, you never more required all your wits about you. It is very unlikely you will ever select this road again, though it should be a short cut. Such are some of the dangerous streets in their main features. There are thoroughfares, on the other hand, to which fancy lends imaginary charms; the street in which you live, for instance. You think it better, more agreeable. Each object it contains becomes familiar, nay cherished by you—the houses, their doors, their gables. The very air seems more genial. A fellowship springs up between you and your threshold—your land. You get to believe they know you as you know them—softening influences—sweet emanations of 'Home.'"—Translation.
THE UPPER TOWN.
The Upper Town in 1608, with its grand oaks, its walnut trees, its majestic elms, when it formed part of the primeval forest, must have been a locality abounding in game. If Champlain, his brother-in-law, Boullé, as well as his other friends of the Lower Town, [9] had been less eager in hunting other inhabitants of the forest infinitely more dreaded (the Iroquois), instead of simply making mention of the foxes which prowled about the residency (l'abitation), they would have noted down some of the hunting raids which were probably made on the wooded declivities of Cape Diamond and in the thickets of the Coteau Sainte Geneviève, more especially when scurvy or the dearth of provisions rendered indispensable the use of fresh meats. We should have heard of grouse, woodcock, hares, beavers, foxes, caribou, bears, &c., at that period, as the probable denizens of the mounts and valleys of ancient Stadacona.
In 1617 the chase had doubtless to give way to tillage of the soil, when the first resident of the Upper Town, the apothecary Louis Hébert, established his hearth and home there.
"He presently," (1617) says Abbé Ferland, "commenced to grub up and clear the ground on the site on which the Roman Catholic cathedral and the Seminary adjoining now stand, and that portion of the upper town which extends from St. Famille Street up to the Hôtel-Dieu. He constructed a house and a mill near that part of St. Joseph Street where it received St. François and St. Xavier Streets. These edifices appear to have been the first which were erected in the locality now occupied by the upper town."
At that period there could have existed none other than narrow paths, irregular avenues following the sinuosities of the forest. In the course of time these narrow paths were levelled and widened. Champlain and Sir David Kirtk bothered themselves very little with improving highways. Overseers of roads and Grand-Voyers were not then dreamed of in La Nouvelle France: those blessed institutions, macadamized [10] roads, date for us from 1841.
One of the first projects of Governor de Montmagny, after having fortified the place, was to prepare a plan for a city, to lay out, widen and straighten the streets, assuredly not without need. Had he further extended this useful reform, our Municipal Council to-day would have been spared a great amount of vexation, and the public in general much annoyance. On the 17th November, 1623, a roadway or ascent leading to the upper town had been effected, less dangerous than that which had previously existed.