“Few will be dogmatical enough to deny that when the navigation is free, ships descending the river may avoid the use of steam tugs; and if we calculate the saving thus effected upon 200 vessels annually at £30 each, the amount thus realized would suffice to pay the interest on a loan at 6 per cent.
“A brisk, fair, and continuous breeze would ensure the speedy, safe and cheap progress of ships up the St. Lawrence, and augment the extent of our commercial marine.”
Referring, in another part of the paper, to the actual commencement of the work of deepening Lake St. Peter, which only gave eleven feet of water, the Times says:
“Improvements thus disseminating the germs of future wealth and prosperity command the applause of every colonist. The spirit of patriotism must be dormant, indeed, in the breasts of those who would thwart the efforts of a governor, who has thus identified himself with the system of internal navigation.
“The repose of the colony has been too long disturbed by those theoretical revolutions which sprang from the fluctuating councils of the late Viceroy. A healthier tone of feeling has been produced; and the practical labours of Sir Charles Bagot bid fair to soothe the asperities of political warfare. Under his auspices the deepening of Lake St. Peter has been commenced and ere his departure, we trust the undertaking will be brought to maturity.”
Since then something in the neighborhood of $20,000,000 have been spent between the work of deepening and lighting and buoying the channel, and the extension and improvement of the port of Montreal.
The editors of these days had to burn the midnight oil or tallow candle, for then gas was not general. As for matches, the old tinder chips dipped in sulphur ind ignited by use of the flint still prevailed. The rich used wax candles or lamps, but the poor made their own “dips,” or for the nonce, even small improvised lamps out of spoons filled with oil. Tallow candle moulds were the prized possession of many poor houses before the manufactured candles became cheap on the market. When coal oil came, it was looked on as a miracle.
The town was inadequately provided with water works, as it was not till 1845 that the municipality took over the old-fashioned plant in Montreal, and the old puncheons, driven by horses still went from door to door distributing the water taken from the river.
Place d’Armes was still a poor straggling square, though it was faced by the handsome new Notre Dame Church, opened in 1829. At this time there still stood the bell tower of the old Parish Church, standing solitary like a lighthouse till 1843. Crossing the square the genteel folk, the wives of doctors, lawyers, and merchants, would come from their residences on St. James and Craig streets to the Bonsecours Market, not ashamed to carry their baskets. There the “habitants” from the country could be seen dressed in blue or gray homespun cloth suits, with their picturesque, heavy knitted sashes and wearing the tuque and moccasins in winter.
For as yet, the city was in truth of small size. A four-paged, demi-zinc copy of the Times and Commercial Advertiser, the first daily to be printed in Montreal, of the issue of March 3, 1842, gives a glimpse of this. An advertisement announces that a three-storey stone house at the head of Coté Street, “enjoys a commanding situation in a most quiet and healthy part of Montreal and which nevertheless is within five minutes walk of the business part of the city.” Splendid dwelling houses are for rent on Great St. James Street suitable for genteel families.