The Personality of American CitiesHungerford, Edward
History
The Personality of American Cities
Hungerford, Edward
Cities and towns -- United States; United States -- Description and travel; United States -- Social life and customs -- 1865-1918
Just how this invasion will affect the Toronto of tomorrow no one seems
willing to prophesy. The men from Glasgow and from Manchester are used
to municipal street railroads and such schemes and the New England
town-meeting ideas, which were the products of Anglo-Saxon spirit, come
home to rest in English hearts. The street railroad system of Toronto
may groan under its burden--it is paying over a million dollars this
year to the city and is constantly threatened with extinction as a
private corporation. But the Englishman of that city merely grunts at
the bargains it offers--six tickets for a quarter; eight in rush-hours,
ten for school children and seven for Sabbath riding, all at the same
price--and wonders "why the nawsty trams canna' do better by a codger
that's workin' like a navvie all the day?"
Toronto will see that they do better--that is her vision into the
future. But just how the new blood is to infuse into some of the Puritan
ideas of the town--there is another question. Here is a single one of
the new puzzling points--the temperance problem. It was not so very long
ago that Canada's chief claim for fame rested in the excellence of her
whiskey--and that despite the fact that the Canadian climate is
ill-adapted to whiskey drinking. The twelfth of July--which you will
probably recall as the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne--used to
be marked by famous fights, which invariably had marine foundations in
Canadian rye. However, during the past quarter of a century, the
temperance movement has waxed strong throughout Ontario. Many cities
have become "dry" and it is possible that Toronto herself might have
been without saloons today--if it had not been for the English invasion.
For your Englishman regards his beer as food--"skittles and beer" is
something more than merely proverbial--and he must have it. He looks
complacently upon the stern Sabbath in Toronto--Sunday in an English
city is rarely a hilarious occasion--but he must have his beer. Up to
the present time he has had it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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