An old gentleman in passing from the smoking-car to the first-class coach behind, while the train was under full speed of forty miles an hour or so, had in some way been thrown or blown or jolted from the platform to the ground.
He is injured somewhat badly, but not seriously. In obedience to a telegram an ambulance of the city of Toronto meets the incoming train at the Union Depot, and the injured man is gently raised in a huge blanket from the baggage car, where he had been placed after his fall, and deposited in the ambulance. A doctor gets in and sits by his head. A crowd has gathered, and, seeking to know what the trouble is, I make enquiry of a man standing near me. The man, whose sable complexion plainly betokens his African origin, without any visible admixture of white blood, courteously replies:—“Don’t exazactly know, sah, but ’spects some man fell off de kears.” And the ambulance slowly moves off to the hospital.
Reaching my train, I deposit my things in the first-class coach and make for the “smoker.” About one-half of all the gentlemen do likewise. My observation is that about one-half of all Canadians, taking them “by the large,” as the sailors say, burn the fragrant weed. In Britain three-fourths would, I think, be the proportion; in Holland and Belgium eleven-tenths is, I imagine, almost within the mark. If our medical men can convince us that Sir Walter Raleigh’s tobacco is decimating the human family, we may safely conclude that three-fourths of Canadians will soon pass over to the great silent majority. Well, if our medical men were to tell us so, I don’t believe we would accept their ipse dixit—at any rate, we would go on smoking, regardless of consequences.
To the honor of Canadians be it said, they as a rule do not belong to the light-fingered gentry class, and our grip-sacks and great-coats left unguarded in the car are comparatively safe. It is only around the depot that any real danger of pilfering exists. There one may expect some “artful dodger” lying in wait for just such opportunities. The journey once commenced there’s no danger at all, and “traps” may be left about promiscuously.
But my smoke is done, and I will return to my seat. Ah! I see someone has taken it—a lady. Of course, I cannot ask her to vacate it, although that seat by the ordinary courtesies of travel is mine by right of pre-possession and as the receptacle of my belongings. The next seat behind is occupied by a single lady, and there’s room for another person. “Is this seat occupied, madam?” in as polite a voice and gesture towards the seat as the occasion demands. “I think not, sir,” and I sit by her side. Some one of her “uncles, or her cousins or her aunts” may possibly be known to me. Just how the ice is broken one can scarcely tell, but it is broken, and we chat away as the train clips off the usual thirty miles an hour.
Who, I ask, ever thought of speaking unintroduced to a lady in a first-class car in England? I tried it once when a green boy, and received such a stony stare as froze me for all my subsequent railway journeys in the old land. But we do things differently in Canada. My companion chats, and so do I, and so do all my neighbors, and the car is just an incessant hum of pleasant, softly intoned voices. Such seems to be the almost universal custom in Canada, and the millionaire (we have a few) sits down beside the schoolmaster or the drummer, and it would take a keener eye than Canada has yet produced to tell “which from t’other” without previous knowledge or having been duly informed.
Were I an M.P. or an M.P.P., or possibly a Cabinet Minister (with or without a portfolio), I suppose it would be among my prerogatives not to talk to my seat-mate. But not being so fortunate, I can enjoy my freedom and talk with decent, respectable people, though they are strangers.
Just across the passage are seated an ancient maiden lady and an attenuated, pale, thin-whiskered merchant who has been up the city to make some purchases for his store. Now this ancient maiden lady has seen her fifty-and-two summers at least, and is strong in church government, and church soirees, and church donative entertainments, ostensibly for the benefit of the poor. Just now, however, I must leave her, for the conductor has entered the forward door of the car, wearing his sombre but neat railway uniform, and is shouting out “Tickets!” Without exception everyone in my coach has the required pasteboard, and he has quickly passed us. Conductors evidently can get along well with such a class of passengers, for there’s no quarrelling or unpleasantness, nor questions for him to answer, nor anyone for him to eject from the train. It is manifest from his facial expression that he is in good humor with us, his passengers, and that his dinner likewise has agreed with him.
This lady opens conversation with the merchant sitting near her, and without waiting for a reply to the opinions she expresses, continues an unchecked stream of talk on her favorite subject. Resignedly, patiently, meekly, Christianlike, this helpless merchant submits. And it is poured on, over, twisted, every side brought forth, while he calmly folds his long white wasted hands over his breast. Some young city men are coming down to a country town to attend a ball, and they make a lively party of themselves. Their fun and mirth and overflowing spirits do not annoy us, but we cannot help catching the contagious infection of mirth, and we are all goodnatured
