Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years: An AutobiographyThompson, Samuel
History
Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years: An Autobiography
Thompson, Samuel
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Thompson, Samuel, 1810-1886; Toronto (Ont.) -- Biography; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
The _Herald_ was the organ, and Mr. Rogers an active member, of the
Orange body in Toronto. I had no previous knowledge of the peculiar
features of Orangeism, and it took me some months to acquire an insight
into the ways of thinking and acting of the order. I busied myself
chiefly in the practical work of the office, such as type-setting and
press-work, and took no part in editorials, except to write an
occasional paragraph or musical notice.
The first book I undertook to print, and the first law book published in
Canada, was my young friend Alpheus Todd's "Parliamentary Law," a volume
of 400 pages, which was a creditable achievement for an office which
could boast but two or three hundred dollars worth of type in all. With
this book is connected an anecdote which I cannot refrain from
relating:
I had removed my office to a small frame building on Church Street, next
door south of C. Clinkinbroomer, the watchmaker's, at the south-west
corner of King and Church Streets. One day, a strange-looking youth of
fourteen or fifteen entered the office. He had in his hand a roll of
manuscript, soiled and dog's-eared, which he asked me to look at. I did
so, expecting to find verses intended for publication. It consisted
indeed of a number of poems, extending to thirty or forty pages or more,
defective in grammar and spelling, and in some parts not very legible.
Feeling interested in the lad, I enquired where he came from, what he
could do, and what he wanted. It appeared that his father held some
subordinate position in the English House of Commons; that, being put to
a trade that he disliked, the boy ran away to Canada, where he verbally
apprenticed himself to a shoemaker in Toronto, whom he quitted because
his master wanted him to mend shoes, while he wished to spend his time
in writing poetry; and that for the last year or so he had been working
on a farm. He begged me to give him a trial as an apprentice to the
printing business. I had known a fellow-apprentice of my own, who was
first taken in as an office-boy, subsequently acquired a little
education, became a printer's-devil, and when last I heard of him, was
King's printer in Australia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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