But to this day, the paragraph, neatly framed in becoming black, lies before me on my office desk, and when anything goes wrong, and I feel down in the mouth, I pick it up and read it and say to myself: “Oh, well, things could easily be worse; this might have been true.” Which is some consolation. A Brief Summary After a brief newspaper experience in Guelph, Uxbridge, and as correspondent of the Toronto press, I started out in May, 1875, for some western point not then definitely determined on. Prince Arthur’s Landing offered no particular attraction for a rambling reporter in those days, so I headed for Winnipeg, and reached there—after experiencing the first steamboat collision in the Red River—with four dollars in pocket, ten of which I owed. Being a practical printer, I was offered a position on the _Free Press_, after besieging the office for a week. Then I rose to the dignity of city editor, and in less than four years published a paper of my own—the _Tribune_—which was afterwards amalgamated with the _Times_, of which I became managing editor. Then ill-health caused my retirement, and a beneficent Government made me registrar of deeds for the county of Selkirk. The introduction of the Torrens system, which required the registrar to be a barrister of ten years’ standing, knocked me out of the position, although I produced any number of witnesses that I had a longer standing than that at the bar (now abolished) and so I returned to newspaper work. After sixteen years of constant work in the bustling city, I was sent for by Mr. (Sir William) Van Horne, who kindly added my name to the pay-roll of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Now, in 1921, having passed the allotted three score and ten of the Scriptures and the regulated three score and five of the C.P.R., I plug away at my desk or on the trains just as cheerfully and as hopefully as I did in my younger days—crossing the continent at least twice or more times every year and sometimes visiting nearly every state in the Union, with an occasional odd trip once in an age to the Old Country, Cuba, Mexico, Bahama Islands or Newfoundland. The rest of my time is spent at home. CHAPTER III Winnipeg a City of Live Wires—Three Outstanding Figures—Rivalry Between Donald A. and Dr. Schultz—Early Political Leaders—When Winnipeg was Putting on its First Pants—Pioneer Hotels—The Trials of a Reporter—Not Exactly an Angelic City—The First Iron Horse—Opening of the Pembina Branch—Profanity by Proxy—The Republic of Manitoba—The Plot to Secede.