Life in the Clearings versus the BushMoodie, Susanna
History
Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
Moodie, Susanna
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Moodie, Susannah, 1803-1885; Ontario -- Description and travel
The show opens at two o'clock, P.M., and again at half-past seven in the
evening. The people from a distance, and the young children, visit the
exciting scene during the day; the town's-people at night, as it is less
crowded, cooler, and the company more select. Persons of all ranks are
there; and the variety of faces and characters that nature exhibits
gratis, are far more amusing to watch than the feats of the Athletes.
Then there is Barnham's travelling menagerie of wild animals, and of
tame darkie melodists, who occupy a tent by themselves, and a _white
nigger_ whom the boys look upon with the same wonder they would do at a
white rat or mouse. Everybody goes to see the wild beasts, and to poke
fun at the elephants. One man who, born and brought up in the Backwoods,
had never seen an elephant before, nor even a picture of one, ran half
frightened home to his master, exclaiming as he bolted into the room,
"Oh, sir! sir! you must let the childer go to the munjery. Shure there's
six huge critters to be seen, with no eyes, and a tail before and
behind."
The celebrated General Tom Thumb paid the town a visit last summer.
His presence was hailed with enthusiastic delight, and people crowded
from the most remote settlements to gaze upon the tiny man. One poor
Irishwoman insisted "that he was not a human crathur, but a poor fairy
changeling, and that he would vanish away some day, and never be heard
of again." Signor Blitz, the great conjuror, occasionally pays us a
visit, but his visits are like angel visits, few and far between. His
performance never fails in filling the large room in the court-house for
several successive nights, and his own purse. Then we have lecturers
from the United States on all subjects, who commonly content themselves
with hiring the room belonging to the Mechanics' Institute, where
they hold forth, for the moderate sum of a York shilling a head, on
mesmerism, phrenology, biology, phonography, spiritual communications,
etc.
These wandering lectures are often very well attended, and their
performance is highly entertaining. Imagine a tall, thin, bearded
American, exhibiting himself at a small wooden desk between two dingy
tallow candles, and holding forth in the genuine nasal twang on these
half-supernatural sciences on which so much is advanced, and of which so
little is at present understood. Our lecturer, however, expresses no
doubts upon the subject of which he treats. He proves on the persons of
his audience the truth of phrenology, biology, and mesmerism, and the
individuals he pitches upon to illustrate his facts perform their parts
remarkably well, and often leave the spectators in a maze of doubt,
astonishment, and admiration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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