[Illustration: RASCO’S HOTEL OPENED IN 1836, ST. PAUL STREET The leading hotel in the ’30s, standing on site of former palace of Gov. Gen. Vaudreuil. This building, with original name on it, can be seen today although changed on lower floors.] [Illustration: THEATRE ROYAL, AT EASTERN EXTREMITY OF ST. PAUL STREET Built by subscription in 1825, afterwards owned by Mr. John Molson.] [Illustration: PROGRAMME OF DICKENS’ PLAYS GIVEN AT THEATRE ROYAL DURING THE AUTHOR’S VISIT.] [Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS] Dickens visited the Bonsecours Church hard by, and met the leading citizens in the News Room on St. Sulpice Street, and cantered with the officers over the mountain or rode out to Lachine and the Back River. “All the rides in the vicinity,” he says in his American Notes, “were made doubly interesting by the bursting out of spring which is here so rapid that it is but a day’s leap from barren winter to the blooming youth of summer.” In the same recollections he refers to the quiet manners of the Canadian people, their self-respect, their hospitality in Montreal and the unassuming manners of their life. He notes the modernizing spirit even of that day. “There is a very large cathedral here, recently erected with two small spires, of which one is as yet unfinished. In the open space in front of this edifice stands a solitary, grim-looking square brick tower which has a quaint and remarkable appearance and which the wiseacres of this place have consequently determined to pull down immediately.” This the vandals did in 1843. Walking along the quays he admired “the granite quays” which are remarkable for their beauty, solidity and extent. Referring to his walk here and his interest in the immigrants, he says: “In the spring time of the year vast numbers of emigrants who have newly arrived from England or from Ireland pass between Quebec and Montreal on their way to the back woods and new settlements of Canada. If it be an entertaining lounge, as I have found it, to take a morning stroll upon the quays of Montreal and see the groups in hundreds on the public wharfs about their chests and boxes, it is matter of deep interest to be their fellow passenger on one of these steamboats and, mingling with the concourse, see and hear them unobserved.” Then follows a characteristic digression of the Master’s sympathetic pleading for the poor.