To illustrate the peculiar change of town values to which I allude, I may give an instance coming under my own knowledge. One of my forbears bought, about the year 1815, a large building tract situated on King Street, Toronto, very near the market. For many years after the purchase this property was wholly unsalable. Taxes were put upon it, and yearly it became a burden. Somehow, in Canada we are not very careful, as a community, of the rights in property of the individual. Accordingly, in this instance, taxes for street improvements, with gas, water, sewers and other special levies, were put upon this land. A day finally came, about the year 1845, when to own property in Toronto meant either disaster or a very large income from without to retain it. A purchaser coming along at about that year, his offer was taken with avidity. My people were glad to get it off their hands, and thus was closed a history, so far as they were concerned, which was a fair sample of city property in Canada and its mutations for more than thirty years. Since that time the property in question rose to enormous value, but has again fallen on account of trade to some extent deserting the locality. Another feature of city and town life we must notice, viz., the constant interchange of views among the inhabitants as to business and politics on account of their close proximity to each other. An instance occurring in one of our Canadian towns will illustrate what I mean. In this town some few moneyed men gathered nightly and exchanged views on stocks and the like. Some of them had speculated in this way to the extent of a few hundred dollars and had been moderately successful. At one of their meetings some one introduced the subject of lard. Lard became the topic. Others came, heard and pondered. Small lots of lard were then bought in Chicago, and in a few weeks sold, and some ready profits realized. “If a little capital will win money in lard in Chicago, a large capital will yield much more” was the reasoning, so they joined forces and got nearly every man with ready cash in that town to put money into the joint fund for lard. Again they bought in Chicago--this time largely--and the commodity began to rise in price. Moreover it kept on rising, and never seemed to recede a point. These operators began to reason that if they held all the lard, they could dictate prices and could control the article. They put more money into it and bought more lard, for they considered it to be what is called “a dead certainty.” Days and weeks passed and lard still held on. Fortunes truly seemed to be within the grasp of our group of townsmen. There could be no mistake about it, for they had, as they considered, all the lard in America cornered, so that no one could beat them. One day, however, some persons in Chicago offered an immense quantity of lard from some unknown source. So great was the amount that our townsmen could not tackle it.