Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City: As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News"Toronto News
History
Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City: As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News"
Toronto News
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel
for about a year. But the evil righted itself, as the boys grew up
and found employment. They and their sisters supported the family by
their earnings, an act of self-denial which, I have no doubt, was of
the greatest possible moral benefit to themselves. After a time Mr. A.
found occupation not wholly incompatible with his dignity, as caretaker
in a furniture factory, became a most regular attendant at church and
a communicant. This is the history of many of these English arrivals
in Toronto, more especially of those who come from London. They are
generally fairly well-educated, are respectably connected, and in most
cases, I believe, are “assisted” to this country by relations anxious
to shift from their shoulders the burdens of directing or aiding their
course. The parents are people trained to earn money, if at all, in a
single groove, seldom in one available in Canada. They cannot, like
our people, turn their hand to anything that presents itself. But for
all that they form a valuable element in our city population, for
their children soon get Canadianized, imbibe the Canadian idea of
being self-dependent and form the best possible addition to our vastly
increasing numbers. One of the greatest evils I have to contend against
in dealing with this class is an absurd and bastard pride and love of
keeping up appearances. A woman living in a rented room on Sackville
street lost a child by death. I provided her out of the poor fund with a
plain black coffin as the means of conveyance to the place of interment.
Soon afterwards another woman lodging in the same house lost a child. I
offered to do the same for her that I had done in the former case. The
woman indignantly refused, but begged me to give her money to get a more
expensive coffin. Now, I had in my pocket a small sum of money from the
poor fund, which I had intended to give her, but which I felt compelled
to withhold when I found it would but be spent superfluously on “the
trappings and the suits of woe.” Still I felt sorry for the poor mother,
in her desire to give a handsome funeral to her dead darling, though
I could not conscientiously gratify her at the expense of those of my
poor who needed food, not sentimental gratification. But when I came to
officiate at the funeral I found she had provided a rosewood casket with
white metal plate, a hearse and a carriage. Among my saddest experiences
here are my visits to
THE NUMEROUS BABY FARMS,
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