Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

There is a plain monument to mark the exact spot where Wolfe fell; the Prince placed a wreath upon it, as he had placed wreaths on the monuments of Champlain and Montcalm earlier, and as he did later at the monument Aux Braves on the field of Foye, which commemorates the dead of both races who fell in the battle when Murray, a year after Wolfe's victory, endeavoured to loosen the grip the French besiegers were tightening round Quebec, and was defeated, though he held the city.

On the Plains of Abraham—it has no romantic significance, Abraham was merely a farmer who owned the land at the time of the battle—French and English were again gathered in force, but in a different manner.

It was a bright and friendly gathering of Canadians, who no longer permitted a difference of tongue to interfere with their amity. It was also a gathering of men and women and children (Quebec is the province of the quiverful), notably vigorous, well-dressed and prosperous.

The thing to remark here, as well as in all the gatherings of the people of this city, was the absence of dinginess and dowdiness that goes with poverty. In the great mass of stone houses, pretty brick and wood villas, and apartment "houses," the upper flats of which are reached by curving iron Jacob stairways, that make habitable Quebec there are patches of cramped wooden houses, each built under the architectural stimulus of the packing-case, though rococo little porches and scalloped roofs add a wedding-cake charm to the poverty of size and design. But though there are these small but not mean houses, there appear to be no poor people.

All those on the Plains had an independent and self-supporting air (as, indeed, every person has in Canada), and they gave the Prince a reception of a hearty and affable kind, as he declared this fine park the property of the city, and made the citizens free of its historic acreage for all time.

From the Plains His Royal Highness went by car to the huge new railway bridge that spans the St. Lawrence a few miles above the town. It was a long ride through comely lanes, by quiet farmsteads and small habitant villages. At all places where there was a nucleus of human life, men and women, but particularly the children, came out to their fences with flags to shout and wave a greeting.

At the bridge station were two open cars, and on to the raised platform of one of these the Prince mounted, while "movie" men stormed the other car, and a number of ordinary human beings joined them. This special train was then passed slowly under the giant steel girders and over the central span, which is longer than any span the Forth Bridge can boast. As the train travelled forward the Prince showed his eagerness for technical detail, and kept the engineers by his side busy with a stream of questions.

The bridge is not only a superb example of the art of the engineer, perhaps the greatest example the twentieth century can yet show, but it is a monument to the courage and tenacity of man. Twice the great central span was floated up-stream from the building yards, only to collapse and sink into the St. Lawrence at the moment it was being lifted into place. Though these failures caused loss of life, the designers persisted, and the third attempt brought success.

There was, one supposes, a ceremonial idea connected with this function. His Royal Highness certainly unveiled two tablets at either end of the bridge by jerking cords that released the covering Union Jack. But this ritual was second to the ceremonial of the "movies."

The "movies" went over the top in a grand attack. They put down a box barrage close up against the Prince's platform, and at a distance of two feet, not an inflection of his face, nor a movement of his head, escaped the unwinking and merciless eye of the camera.