Westminster also boasts a fine University, a College of Physicians
and a Sanitarium; the two latter cause the city to be the resort of
invalids from far and near. No diseases are here called incurable.
At Mingan harbour, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, are situated the
great works where all the rocket-cars for the Dominion are built.
The site was chosen on account of the large tract of desolate
country to the north of it. The cars as soon as built are tested,
first at short flights, then at longer ones, and conductors are
trained to manage them. There are no regular lines of cars through
or over Labrador, and so there is no risk of collision in the trial
trips. Considerable difficulty is experienced at first in taking a
car a flight of 100 miles, but by practice flights of over 1,000
miles are managed with perfect safety.
The contrast between the present and past might be drawn out to
any extent, but enough has been said to enable the dullest mind
to realize the truly marvellous development of our great Dominion.
And if the development and advance have been great industrially
and commercially, so have they been great, almost greater,
socially; for socially we have set examples which the whole
world has not been slow to follow.
III.
"But Heaven hath a hand in these events."
--Richard II, Act V.
The state of society in the nineteenth century would have but few
attractions for us of the twentieth, were we able to return along
the vista of a hundred years. Our manners and customs are so vastly
different from those of our great-grandfathers that we should feel
out of place indeed had we to go back, even for a short time, to
their uncouth and imperfect ways. Their extraordinarily complex
method of governing themselves, and their intricate political
machinery would be very distressing to us, and are calculated
to make one think that a keen pleasure in governing or in being
overgoverned--not a special aptitude or genius for governing--must
have been very common among them. From the alarming blunders
made in directing public affairs, and from the manner in which
beneficial measures were opposed by the party out of office, it
appears quite certain that the instincts of true statesmanship did
not animate all classes then as now. Nevertheless our forefathers
went into the work of governing themselves and each other with
a great deal of vim. They had no well drawn out formulae to
work upon as we have, but they went at things in a sort of
rule-of-thumb, rough-and-ready style, and when one party had
dragged the country into the mire, the other dragged it out again.
It was customary for the party that was out of office to say that
the party that was in was corrupt and venal--that every man of it
was a liar, was a thief, was taking bribes, would soon be kicked
out, etc. Then the party that was in had to say that the party that
was out should look to its own sins and remember that everyone of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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