Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarianHaight, Canniff
History
Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarian
Haight, Canniff
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Ontario -- Social life and customs
his might, and would sometimes be away a week or more at a time,
stumping--as they used to term it--the district. In politics he was a
Reformer, and under the then existing circumstances I think I should
have been one too. But the vexed questions that agitated the public mind
then, and against which he fought and wrote, have been adjusted. An old
co-worker of his said to me many years after at an election: "What a
pity your father could not have seen that you would oppose the party he
laboured so hard to build up. If a son of mine did it I would disinherit
him as quick as I would shove a toad off a stick." I said to my old
friend that I supposed the son had quite as good a right to form his
opinions on certain matters as his father had. Political and religious
prejudices are hard things to remove. I remember a deputation waiting on
my father to get him to consent to be a candidate for an election which
was on the eve of taking place, but he declined, on the ground that he
was not prepared to assume so important a position then, nor did he feel
that he had reached a point which would warrant him in leaving his
business. He added that after a while, if his friends were disposed to
confer such an honour upon him, he might consider it more favourably.
Peter Perry was chosen, and I know my father worked hard for him, and
the Tory candidate, Cartwright, was defeated. This reminds me of a
little bit of banking history, which created some noise in the district
at the time, but which is quite forgotten now. A number of leading
farmers, of whom my father was one, conceived the idea of establishing a
"Farmers' Joint Stock Bank," which was subsequently carried out, and a
bank bearing that name was started in Bath. John S. Cartwright, the then
member, through whom they expected to get a charter, and who was
interested in the Commercial Bank at Kingston, failed to realize their
expectations in that particular, and the new bank had to close its
doors. The opening was premature, and cost the stockholders a
considerable sum of money. This little banking episode helped to defeat
Mr. Cartwright at the next election.
Over thirty years have passed since I left my old home, and change after
change has occurred as the years rolled along, until I have become a
stranger to nearly all the people of the neighbourhood, and feel strange
where I used to romp and play in boyhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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