Whiskey was plentiful in the good old days, but the drinking of it was not looked upon with such horror, nor attended with such disastrous consequences as in our day. This difference was probably due both to the drink and the drinker. Some people will not admit that any whiskey is bad, while others deny that any can be good; but the whiskey of a hundred years ago does not appear to have had as fierce a serpent in it as the highly-advertised brands of the present day. It possessed one virtue, and that was its cheapness. When a quart could be purchased for sixpence, a man could hardly be charged with rash extravagance in buying enough whiskey to produce the desired effect. It was considered quite the proper thing to drink upon almost any occasion, and upon the slightest provocation; and, if a member of a company received an overdose and glided under the table, it created no more sensation than if he had fallen asleep. As the population increased, taverns were set up at nearly every crossing of the roads. Some of these, especially the recognized stopping-places of the stage coaches, were quite imposing hostelries; and as the guests gathered about the huge fire-place on a winter’s evening and smoked their pipes, drank their toddy, and exchanged their tales of adventure and travel, the scene was one that has no counterpart in our day. It was a form of sociability and entertainment that departed with the passing of the stage coach. In this age of railroads and motor cars we have no conception of the discomforts of travel eighty or a hundred or more years ago. The Loyalists clung for many years to the bateaux, the flat-bottomed boats, which conveyed them over the last stage of their journey to their new homes. These boats were very popular upon the Bay of Quinte. In going west they were carried across the Carrying Place at the head of the bay by a man named Asa Weller, who kept a low wagon and a yoke of oxen ready at hand to transport the travellers from the bay to the lake and back again upon the return trip. It is needless to add that Weller’s Bay was named after this enterprising teamster. In 1816 the first stage line in Upper Canada was inaugurated between Kingston and Bath by Samuel Purdy, of Bath, and in the following year he opened a line from Kingston to York. The roads were wretched, and the fare was eighteen dollars. Fourteen years later William Weller, a son of Asa, whose business of transporting the bateaux from one body of water to the other had brought him in contact with the travelling public and acquainted him with their needs, established a bi-weekly service between the Carrying Place and York, in connection with the steamer _Sir James Kempt_, which carried the passengers on to Prescott. The fare from York to Prescott was £2 10s. ($10). The stage left York at four o’clock in the morning, arriving at the Carrying Place the same evening.