Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

He drove through the beautiful avenues of Rosedale, and through the not so beautiful but more eclectic area of The Hill. He went through the suburbs of charming, well-designed houses where the professional classes have their homes, and into the big, comely residential areas where the working people live. These areas are places of attractive homes. The instinct for good building which is the gift of the whole of America makes each house distinctive. There is never the hint of slum ugliness or slum congestion about them. The houses merely differ from the houses of the better-to-do in size, but, though they are smaller, they have the same pleasant features, neat colonial-style architecture, broad porches, unrailed lawns, and the rest. Inside they have central heating, electric light (the Niagara hydro-power makes lighting ridiculously cheap), baths, hardwood floors, and the other labour-saving devices of modern construction. Most of the houses are owned by the people who live in them, for the impulse towards purchase by deferred payments is very strong in the Canadian.

One of the brightest of the suburbs was built up almost entirely through the energy of the British emigrant. These men working in the city did not mind the "long hike" out into the country, to an area where the street cars were not known. From farming lots they built up a charming district where, now that street cars are more reasonable, the Canadian is also anxious to live—when he can find a householder willing to sell.

The Prince's route also lay through the big shopping streets such as Yonge ("street" is dropped in the West) and King. Here are the great and brilliant stores, and here the thrusting, purposeful Canadian crowd does its trading. There is a touch of determination in the Canadian on the sidewalk which seems ruthlessness to the more easy-going Britisher, yet it is not rudeness, and the Canadian is an extraordinarily orderly person, with a discipline that springs from self rather than from obedience to by-laws. It may be this that makes a Canadian crowd so decorous, even at the moment when it seems defying the policemen.

The Prince began his ride in the wonderful High Park, where Nature has had very little coddling from man, and the results of such non-interference are admirable, and in that park he at once entered into the avenue of people that was to border the way for twenty miles.

Again this crowd thickened at certain focal points. At the entrances of different districts, in the streets of heavily populated areas, about the cemetery where he planted a tree, it gathered in astonishing mass, but the amazing thing was that no place on that twenty-mile run was without a crowd.

The whole of the city appeared to have come in to the street to cheer and wave flags or handkerchiefs as he passed, just as the whole of the little boy population appeared to have made up its mind to run or cycle beside him for the whole of the journey despite all risks of cars behind.

The automobileocracy of the wealthy districts made grandstands of their cars at every cross-road (and the Correspondents don't thank them for this, for they tried to cut into the procession of cars after the Prince had passed). The suburbans made their lawns into vantage points, and grouped themselves on the curb edge, and the working classes simply overflowed the road in solid masses of attractively dressed women and children and Canadianly-dressed men. "Attractively dressed" is a phrase to note; there are no rags or dowdiness in Canada.

There was a carnival air in the greeting of that multitude on that long ride, and the laughing and cheering affection of the crowds would have called forth a like response even in a personality less sympathetic than the Prince. It captured him completely. The formal salute never had a chance. First his answer to the cheering was an affectionate flag-waving, then the flag was not good enough and his hat came into play, then he was standing up and waving, and finally he again climbed on to the seat, and half standing, half sitting on the folded hood, rode through the delighted crowds. With members of his Staff holding on to him, he did practically the whole of the journey in this manner, sitting reasonably only at quiet spots, only changing his hat from right to left hand when one arm had become utterly exhausted. And all the way the crowds lined the route and cheered.

It was an astonishing spectacle, an amazing experience. It was the just culmination of the three full days of profound and moving emotion in which Toronto had shown how intense was its affection.

The effect of such a demonstration on the Prince himself was equally profound. One of the Canadian Generals who had been driving with His Royal Highness on one of these occasions, told us that in the midst of such a scene as this the Prince had turned to him and said, "Can you wonder that my heart is full?"