The people dispense hospitality with a lavish hand so far as they are able. The accounts of toasting and drinking in India in the early days remind me of a dance I attended near Strathclair, where the host, having lost the use of his legs, lay propped up in his bed (his bedroom being used by the men for their wraps and coats), with a keg of whisky on a chair by his side. There he lay in state, not too far gone still to dispense his hospitality and drink with every one who came into the room. After a few weeks’ stay I left Manitoba and returned to the college at Guelph. In the spring of 1893 I started for Chicago, really to begin the earning of my own living. The expression “batching,” mentioned before, means men doing for themselves—a rough business out West. Exhausted with labour, the man comes in, has a wash, cuts and toasts some rashers, prepares scones, half-burnt, half-raw, from the barrel of flour in the corner, and brews coffee. He had no time in the morning to sweep or to make his bed. There it is, some tumbled blankets in a box of straw; and after a pipe he rolls into it, to sleep like a log till habit wakes him an hour before dawn to split wood, fetch water, light a fire, and prepare his meal as before. Such was the _ménage_ of the young Lincolnshire men referred to in the first of these experiences. Such was the life which awaited myself but for the fire which destroyed, not my trunk only, but my farming outfit, and made me abandon the idea of exploiting my land in Strathclair. But if Western farming life is hard for men, what is it for women who are not to the manner born? The natives can stand it, also the Russian, Scandinavian, and German immigrants, all of the labouring classes. But “back to the land” is madness for well-nurtured Englishwomen; better the shop, or even domestic service. CHAPTER V Chicago—American Business Methods—Work as a Carbonator—Chicago Fair—“Hard-luck” Stories—Remittance-men. Chicago, which lays claim to having the largest in everything, whether it be drainage canals, skyscrapers, slaughter-houses, or the amount of railroad traffic, is certainly a wonderful city.