Transcriber’s Note

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The TRAIL
of the
Swinging
Lanterns

A Racy, Railroading Review
of
Transportation Matters, Methods and Men

By John Morison Copeland

For additional copies of this book, or duplicate prints of the illustrations for office, den or mailing communicate with

J. M. COPELAND
5 Dalton Road, Toronto

Telephone, College 185

TORONTO, CANADA
ADDISON & MAINPRICE
1918

FOREWORD

In compiling the miscellaneous array of facts embodied in the pen sketches arranged within the covers of this book, the principal object striven for has been to seek out, set down and thereby rescue from forgetfulness and the danger of extinction, a grist of information pertaining to local railway life in Canada and to men identified with international railway affairs.

The data is necessarily incomplete, owing to the embarrassment of available material clamoring for place and because the railways’ numerous departments harbor scores of brilliant officials and a host of yet undecorated aides, but the biographies, particularly, have revived some interesting early history which was the parent and foundation of present-day conditions.

The concentrated effort and predominant characteristics which eventually won prominence for the gentlemen herein featured may be an incentive and safeguard to young men and the journal is deferentially submitted for perusal to all readers who appreciate how paramount among vital essentials to progress and comfort are the railroads, but it is especially dedicated to those cosmopolitans whose duties are so closely interwoven with the daily transport of people and their natural and manufactured products.

In no other fields of endeavor does the spirit of genuine cameraderie and the bonds of unconventional fraternity exist more generally than among railway men in all branches—among allies and competitors alike—and it is hoped the work will prove to this irregular army of “thoroughbreds” a book of reference, a reminder later on of former devotees of the magnetic game and also perpetuate those splendid standards, enjoyable gatherings and ever changing activities of their day.

For the courtesy of reprinting privileges, where my earlier articles are concerned, I am indebted to “Busy Man’s Magazine,” “Canadian Century,” “McLean’s Magazine,” “Canada Monthly,” etc., etc., and gratefully acknowledge the voluntary kindness of friends who unlocked the storehouses of memory or cheerfully furnished desired photographs and engravings.

The indulgence of the reader is requested should he observe a discrepancy affecting the title, employer or location of any individual, resulting from change or promotion between the time of preparation and publication of these papers.

J. M. C.

To My Brother,
Whose Encouragement and Confidence Made Lighter the Task
of Writing These Manuscripts and Preparing
the Illustrations Herein.

CONTENTS

NAVIGATORS OF THE BLUE
Carrier pigeons—pioneers in aerial transportation

Decoration by Alberta L. Tory

Aloft in the frigid lanes they soar,

High over dormant farm and city’s roar:

Their tireless pinions wrestle with the breeze

That wails athwart the solemn, leafless trees.

Above the brooks asleep ’neath crystal shrouds,

And o’er white winter’s mantle from the clouds,

Swift pigeons wheel and spiral t’wards the sun,

Exultant in new triumphs daily won.

Atoms these—of pulsating life on wing,

Each flouts the sordid earth and ether’s sting:

Unconsciously, they realize a Plan

Which mortals match with faulty ships of Man.

A DECEASED CANADIAN RAILWAY
The Sheriff Runs Away From His Spoils

S. E. MacKechnie

Mayor of Cobourg, 1853.

When Sir John Franklin, arctic navigator, with canoe crews of Indians and voyageurs, eastbound after exploring the Great Lakes, pitched wigwams in the summer of 1839 at the confluence of stream and lake where the nucleus of present Cobourg, Canada, was taking root, little did these adventurous and actual forerunners of easy steam locomotion think that from a point where they camped a railroad would thirteen years later bisect the unbroken forest. Yet, it is so, and the whirligig of time has, likewise, seen recorded the obituary of that railway—has witnessed the effacement of the name of those early laid metal ribbons from the time tables of a young country which still hungers and lobbies for more and more tracks and trams.

Cobourg and thereabouts, is ancient territory as settlements go nowadays. In 1796 the district was surveyed. Eluid Nickerson, who espoused the United Empire Loyalist cause, took out the first patent in 1802 during the reign of King George III., but in spite of its monarchial predilections, the locality has long been of interest to our cousins of high and low degree living south of Lake Ontario, and a few years after the construction of Cobourg and Peterborough Railway, of which I speak, several iron masters and capitalists from Pittsburg acquired the property, altering somewhat its original mission.

The prospectus of this pioneer Canadian line was mooted in 1851 by local promoters: it took definite form in 1852 and on February 7th, 1853, Lady Mayoress, Mrs. S. E. MacKechnie, officiated in the ceremony of turning the first sod amidst tremendous public enthusiasm. As early as 1844 a daily stage ran in winter from Peterborough to Cobourg and Port Hope, and in summer the steamboat “Forrester” plied to Harwood and connected with the stage coaches. Close in the wake of this propitious beginning construction advanced, while feathered and furry prowlers of the virgin woods had their curiosity piqued by strange sights and sounds. Under the supervision of chief engineer Ira Spaulding, contractors Zimmerman and Balch pushed the line through valley and glade to Rice Lake’s fertile, sloping shores at Harwood where, later, sawmills sawed the stately pines that arrived in drives from Otonabee. During the following year Mr. Zimmerman collaborated in the extension as far as Peterborough, his tragic death in the des Jardins Canal disaster at Hamilton, March, 1857, terminating a useful life. Steel rails were an experimental luxury, iron scarce and expensive and timber often replaced them. Antique locomotives with impossible superstructures coughed and squeaked along, meanwhile eating a mighty hole in the wood pile, for coal and oil burners were not contrived, and what a risk it was to venture between the oscillating cars. Though crudely equipped, the road was nevertheless, a startling and welcome innovation for abbreviating space. The Grand Trunk Railway had not yet been built and the saddle horse and coach were the only substitutes for pedestrianism. Picture, if you can, a journey inside a two teamed springless stage, tediously winding westward past bear haunt, swamp and river; for instance, over the historic, old military road from Kingston. It must have been a hunter’s paradise.

The bridging of Rice Lake was a large undertaking at the period and proved a burden from which the management never recovered. This structure became notorious later for several reasons. From Harwood to Tick Island, some distance off shore, a filling was made and the bridge trestles were projected two miles across the westerly loop of the lake to where Hiawatha Indian settlement still harbors the fishing and rice gathering sons and daughters of sires long since passed to the happy hunting grounds. You may see them any summer day vieing with “Alderville” redskins from near Roseneath, in deftly wielding the paddle, as of yore when their forebears fought fiercely all around that favored camping place.

In winter of 1857, when the frost and ice heaved the bridge, four-horse sleighs transported passengers inland between Harwood, the Indian village and station at Ashburnham, seven miles north. To take charge of this old depot, which afterwards became a canoe factory, Donald Sutherland was the first appointed and Mr. Roe Buck became the Cobourg representative. William Von Ingen, now collector of His Majesty’s Customs levy at Woodstock, Ont., collected tickets covering the run of about twenty-five miles which cost $1.00 per capital and entitled one to all privileges save the compartment sleeper and electric fans, which had not yet been adopted.

It is said that John Fowler, charter corporation member and first manager, whose regime did not fill the company’s coffers, made towards the close of his term, a financial coup d’etat with the Midland, Port Perry, Lindsay & Beaverton Railway. He was succeeded by Lieut.-Colonel D’Arcy E. Boulton, a Cobourg aristocrat who rented the “C. & P.” property in 1857 and battled valiantly against odds in an endeavor to place the road on a paying basis. This railway’s legitimate traffic—forest products and lumber—were hauled for several years from the interior to the docks at Cobourg, thence by schooner to various lake ports, but time wrought changes and debt became the most formidable obstacle to progress.

Lady Dufferin.

A distinguished passenger who rode over the C.P. & M. Ry., 1874.

It is recounted that one forenoon long ago the sheriff unexpectedly boarded a northbound “C. & P.” train on which the superintendent was also travelling. Although the latter was not a mind reader he had a presentment that the sheriff’s presence might not auger well for his particular department. Everything was as placid as the lake itself until the train approached the height of land at Summit, nine miles up from Cobourg, when the brakes controlling rear car in which the court official sat in tranquil state, were locked and the coupling pin withdrawn. A retrograde movement quickly followed and the sheriff was powerless to stem the progress of his unwilling hurry. As though the evil one was after him, down grade rolled the flustered occupant of the flying carriage to where it started. Nothing daunting, the sheriff procured a team and drove thirteen miles back to Harwood, but found on arrival that everything not nailed down, including attachable railway equipment, etc., had forsaken Northumberland and was transferred across the bridge to the next county.

Early in the day of September 7th, 1860, a “special” moved over the “C. & P.” conveying Edward, Prince of Wales and suite from Cobourg to Harwood en route Peterborough. As the old bridge was considered unsafe for this precious young patron and entourage, they were much interested in being ferried across Rice Lake to the Mississauga Indian settlement near the mouth of the winding Otonabee River, from which point the late Robert White, highly respected for leagues around, enjoyed the honor and privilege of driving Royalty and his retinue to Peterborough.

After the Civil War the road came into possession of a genial Virgianian, Colonel William Chambliss and his confreres, Messrs. Schoenburg and Fitzhugh from the South, with interests in Pennsylvania. Colonel Chambliss was elected managing director, the title was changed to Cobourg, Peterborough & Marmora Railway & Mining Company, and its new purpose was hauling iron ore destined Cleveland from Marmora mines to vessels at Cobourg. This ore was moved on scows from Blairton to Harwood.

The old Parliament of Upper Canada had incorporated the earlier organization and in 1869 an Act was passed legalizing the amalgamation of railway and mining company.

During the summer of 1874 the Vice-Regal couple, Lord and Lady Dufferin, participated in an eleven hour outing from Cobourg via C.P. & M.R. & M. Co., Harwood, Rice Lake steamer and Hastings, and extracts from the Countess’ description of their ore mine inspection and experiences, as set down in Her Ladyship’s diary at the time, reads as follows:—

“I did not expect to care the least about it as we had seen so many untidy, stoney, barren places called mines, but this one was really an interesting sight. We found ourselves at the top of an enormous hole or cavern, 140 feet deep, large in proportion, perfectly open and light as day. The men looked like imps as they worked below and it was the sort of thing one sees represented, in miniature, in a fairy play. The sides were walls of iron: but, alas, coal is found only in the States....

“When we returned to the steamer we found a barge tied to its side covered in with green—a floating arbor—in which lunch was laid: and very glad we were of it, as we had breakfasted at 7.30 a.m. and it was now 2.00 p.m. The managers of the mines, the steamers, etc., are Americans, and we were their guests. Colonel Chambliss and General Fitzhugh, with their wives (two sisters), were our hosts. They lived in the hotel at which we stayed and are charming Southerners.”

It would appear that the bridging of Rice Lake was costly, but on account of engineering difficulties, not permanent. The alternate rigors of winter and spring reaction upset calculations as well as the bridge’s equilibrium. Those piles which had no foundation in fact—in the lake bottom, to be more exact—dangled from the upper work, an encumbrance instead of a support and many of the bolts disappeared, some claim by design of wrongly disposed persons. One autumn night, after a southbound train from Peterborough had passed over, the shivering spans succumbed to a gale and disappeared. To-day they remain the abode of lunge, bass and other amphibious denizens of the waters.

When the G.T.R. failed to popularize the line to Harwood for excursions, several rearrangements of the railway’s name and financial status subsequently occurred. Acts were passed by the Ontario Legislature and in 1887, after the sale of the Company’s bonds under an order of the Chancery Court the Federal Parliament incorporated the Cobourg, Blairton & Marmora Railway & Mining Co. to take over the property. The Municipality of Cobourg became at one time a guarantor in further reorganization. Presently, operation of the miniature system ceased altogether and protracted litigation was the precursor of dissolution. Thus did a budding nation in a constructive age behold a once famous railway rust into oblivion.

* * * * *

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND CHIEF PASSENGER DEPARTMENT REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY’S NUMEROUS AND SCATTERED FAMILY.
JANUARY, 1916

J. E. Dalrymple,

Geo. T. Bell,

Vice-President.

Passenger Traffic Manager.

Top rows—W. J. Moffatt, C.P.A., Toronto; L. L. Grabill, Asst. Gen. Bge. Agt., Toronto; M. O. Dafoe, C.P. & T.A., Montreal; J. E. Quick, Gen’l Baggage Agent; F. P. Walsh, G. M., Crosby Tpn. Co., Milwaukee; C. P. Orttenburger, C.P.A., Chicago; J. P. Shea, T.P.A., Boston; A. A. Gardiner, G.C., Montreal.

Centre Row—O. C. Bryant, T.P.A., Chicago; S. R. Joyce, T.P.A., Toronto; F. W. Hopper, G.A.P.D., San Francisco; R. L. Fradd, Montreal, Sec’y to G.P.A.; E. C. Elliott, C.C., P.T.D., Montreal; W. S. Miller, T.P.A., Montreal; C. W. Johnston, A.G.P.A., Montreal; D. B. Smith, C.P. & T.A., Portland, Ore.; A. B. Chown, T.P.A., Pittsburg; J. H. Burgess, G.A.P.D., Seattle; E. H. Boynton, N.E.P.A., Boston; C. S. Proctor, T.P.A., Toronto; J. E. Reilly, C.C., Chicago; J. D. McDonald, A.G.P.A., Chicago; F. P. Dwyer, G.A.P.D., New York; E. W. Smith, Supt., D. & P.C. Service; A. Kirk, Ex-C., Montreal; R. E. Ruse, C.P. & T.A., London; J. Quinlan, D.P.A., Montreal, and W. J. Gilkerson, G.A.P.D., St. Paul.

Lower Row—J. Anderson, C.P. & T.A., Hamilton; G. W. Norman, T.P.A., Chicago; D. P. Drewery, T.P.A., Buffalo; R. McC. Smith, C.P. & T.A., Detroit; J. E. Crossley, T.P.A., Montreal; C. E. Horning, D.P.A., Toronto; F. W. Wherrett, T.P.A., Detroit; W. S. Cookson, Gen’ Pass’r Agent, Montreal; G. N. Wilson, T.P.A., Kansas City; J. H. Corcoran, T.P.A., Moncton, N.B.; C. E. Jenney, G.A.P.D., Vancouver, B.C., and H. R. Charlton, Gen’l Advertising Agent.

Type of Grand Trunk Locomotive in use 1853

ONTARIO’S TWIN SISTER IS THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY

If a vivisectionist, adroit with scalpel and scissors, should dissect and remove the bone framework from the torso of any man, that man would collapse, and likewise, did Atlas or Sampson but lift the Grand Trunk Railway System from out the ballasted roadbed in the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec and contiguous territory, the extensive and most densely populated area of Older Canada would immediately become paralyzed and inert. Mankind in thousands would be without occupations, communication and the written word from the world outside would cease in three-quarters of the affected zone: again the over night journey to grist mills would resume, cattle be herded to market, the fruits of the earth would wither on the vine and the travelling public—wont to thoughtlessly grumble at imagined discrepancies in the time table—would submissively fall back on the tri-weekly stage.

How few of us reflect upon and appreciate the amount of planning and experiment, figuring and re-adjustment involved in the preparation of a “Grand Trunk” folder, where a maze of branch line trains that gridiron the country like a spider’s web, must be dispatched to dovetail with innumerable main line connections rolling to every point of the compass.

Before the first of her sixty-six birthdays was registered in the family bible at Headquarters in Old London, the nucleii of the “G.T.R.” were conceived and the infant projects inaugurated in that expectant era of active railway promotion which followed George Stephenson’s practical application of steam for motive power in England in 1815–25–45. Although the earliest railroads constructed in Quebec did not bear its name, these pioneer highways were merged, ere long, into the Grand Trunk Railway which spread its lengthening branches in all directions like the gnarled arms of the famous green bay tree.

Charles E. Dewey

Freight Traffic Manager, Grand Trunk Railway System, Montreal, Que.

The Grand Trunk Railway early became a definite medium in realizing the New World ambitions, spurring on hundreds of young English, Irish and Scotch men. Their methods of substantial construction and numerous ideas of system are yet extant with this great Canadian institution. It has also been a school of diverse experience and thorough training for thousands of graduates who gravitated to newer properties and to-day play their part in determining the policy or lubricating the clerical machinery of railroads in all regions enjoying the benefits of modern transportation.

On the eve of these happenings and during the period when the “Right of way” lands were being purchased under the discriminating supervision of the late John Bell—first and life-long General Counsel of the “G.T.R.”—the voyageur who did not travel by stage coach over corduroy roadways hewn out of the wilderness, was confined to desultory sailings on lake and bay or river. The daily stage coach, which ran both ways between Kingston and Toronto at that time, charged per person, Belleville to Kingston, Ten shillings; and Belleville to Cobourg, Twelve Shillings, Six Pence.

John Pullen

President, Canadian Express Co.

Clear to the retentive memory of thousands of early settlers is that nine days’ wonder, and since enduring boon, synchronizing in the arrival of the first railway train of the “G.T.R.” at their peaceful hamlet, grain elevator or river mouth. That was an event of superlative importance not fully understood. Like them, the “Old Reliable” was a budding enterprise, she was Ontario’s Twin Sister growing confident and expanding step by step, surmounting difficulties, each depending on the other, until now the great and comprehensive public utility we know so well and vitally need, together with her subsidiary properties, is a far-reaching international system comprising 8,000 miles of well equipped railway, embodying an immense investment. That investment, based on a long, discerning and steady look into the future—surely made by optimistic, adventurous men—began when the Canadas truly deserved the petite designation of colonies and the manner in which the expansion of the Grand Trunk Railway kept pace with the unfolding of our young nation’s wonderful possibilities is lucidly outlined in a meritorious editorial of January 12th, 1918, which the Montreal “Daily Star” has readily permitted me to reproduce below:—

W. P. Hinton,

Vice-President and General Manager, Grand Trunk Pacific Ry., Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The Grand Trunk Railway.

“Last year the Dominion of Canada observed its fiftieth birthday. This year one of the great railway systems of the Dominion will celebrate its sixty-sixth anniversary. Both of these are historic events, proving that this young country is growing up, perhaps not getting on in years, but at least approaching adolesence.

“The Grand Trunk Railway is practically, if not actually, the pioneer railroad of Canada. Before its advent there were several small lines, now part of the Grand Trunk system, but it remained for the Grand Trunk to originate and carry through the first comprehensive transportation plan for serving the Canada of the fifties. It was a bold scheme, almost a reckless one, in that pioneer age, to link up Sarnia, Ont., with Portland, Me., via Toronto and Montreal, and to do so with a roadbed of such permanence that its standards have never been appreciably changed since. The railroad builders of those early days had faith in Canada, a faith that might shame some of those living in a more modern era.

“As a pioneer road the Grand Trunk is entitled to—even if it has not always received—the fullest measure of sympathy and encouragement from the Canadian people. It is impossible to estimate the importance of the part played by the Grand Trunk in the development of this country when it was practically the only trunk line carrying goods to the Atlantic seaboard through Canada. During its sixty-six years of history it has continued adding to its system, and to-day when the railroads of the entire continent are laboring under immense handicaps, congestion, lack of fuel and labor, expense and scarcity of materials, the “old Grand Trunk” is holding up its end, and winning praise for its success. That recognition, so far as the people of Canada are concerned, does not seem to be commensurate with the deserts of the company.

“The Grand Trunk exercises an influence in Eastern Canada more extensive than is generally realized. The present system includes no less than 125 companies which were originally separate in legal identity. It boasts a double tracked line practically all the way from Montreal to Chicago. It has been responsible for some of the greatest public structures in the Dominion, the Victoria Bridge, the Sarnia Tunnel and others. For more than half a century it has been closely identified with the growth and business development of Canada, doing its part without ostentation, but none the less effectively. Those who invested their money in the enterprise have had to be content with meagre returns financially, and a large consciousness of public service, if that was of comfort to them.

“It is well that the Canadian people should not forget the factors that have helped them along towards nationhood. The sixty-sixth anniversary of the Grand Trunk should be an occasion for a little thought as to the deserts of that fine old railroad system, an honorable patriotic corporation that has been the victim of one-half the railway legislation not only of the Federal House but of most of the Provinces.”

Grand Trunk Standard Passenger Train 1918

WILLIAM H. BIGGAR Vice-President and General Counsel of G.T.R. and G.T.P. Railways
Some Recollections and An Appreciation

W. H. Biggar,

Vice-President and General Counsel, Grand Trunk Railway System, Montreal, Que.

During that turbulent period in Britain’s history when Sir Francis Drake’s buccaneering exploits had Spain by the ears and intrepid Champlain was spying out the boundaries of Bay of Quinte, there flourished under the checkered reign of the first James in bonny Scotland, Herbert Biggar, and it is a coincidence that centuries after his descendents settled on the rim of the bay where the great explorer had camped. This Scottish gentleman was Laird of Barbine and Nethergloly and espoused Janet Maxwell, Balterson, in the Parish of Holyrood, who survived, dying in 1689, and their children were the ancestors of the subject of this sketch.

William Hodgins Biggar, called to the Bar in 1880, twice Mayor of Belleville, and in 1890 elected M.P.P. for West Hastings, Ontario, now director of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and vice-president and General Counsel of the Grand Trunk Railway, was born in September, 1852, at the Carrying Place, an historic portage where no doubt, Samuel de Champlain and his Indian allies carried from Quinte Bay to Lake Ontario their supplies and canoes.

Late in the autumn, two thirds of a century ago when older units of the family were sailing westward with equipment and settlers’ impedimenta enroute their original location near Brantford, Canada, the voyageurs were frozen in and stalled by winter’s rigors and thus fate or fortune, unsolicited, determined a new world habitation, giving point to the proverb, “There is a destiny which shapes our ends rough hew them as we may”. From here it was that James Lyons Biggar, general merchant, often journeyed in the interests of East Northumberland to parliament in far off Quebec before Confederation and this sturdy trader of pioneering days was wont to accompany goods shipments from tidewater by wagon, coach and vessel to their western destination.

“There is luck in odd numbers”, said Rory O’More and as young Biggar was but one of nine lusty children—all of whom later attained individual prominence—he was not featured as a favorite. Who can tell to what influence his Celtic mother from the city of Dublin, whose surname and temperament he inherited, attributed the success of her son, perchance the good fairies or to the “Luck in odd numbers”. The acquisition of knowledge was easy for him because he gave the task his attention and his inclinations developed system in study. His preliminary education in the village and at Trenton Grammar School, culminated with the gilt lettered honor of Head Boy at Upper Canada College, Toronto, and that distinction has since been bestowed on one of his four children, Winchester, on the eve of his entry to McGill University and gravitation to the army. The mother of the interesting trio and the curley-headed dictator of the family, was Miss Marie Louise Ballou of New York.

A cardinal qualification, noticeable in the majority of leaders in Law and Commerce, is the ability to cast aside the superfluous, bare a proposition and promptly discern the gist of the matter; this qualification W. H. Biggar possesses, combined with a clear, well ordered mind and a splendid memory for facts and precedent. It won him the confidence of the late John Bell of Belleville, former General Counsel of the Grand Trunk Railway and his legal acumen soon became exact and expanded by contact with the ripe experiences in railway jurisprudence of his senior who took the young lawyer into partnership giving him charge of their civil practice. His penchant for deductions explains his skill as a billiardist and one time enthusiastic lawn bowler at home and on the greens at Niagara-on-the-lake, when he was President of the Ontario Bowling Association. He is decidedly deliberate towards all appeals for his opinion on any topic, does not make snap decisions and would never be caught in the fix of the man who jumped at the conclusion of a departing ferry boat and fell into the harbor.

In the capacity of General Counsel for G.T.R.-G.T.P.R., he has dealt with many weighty railway corporation matters and affairs of national import and—no doubt, participated prominently with Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his cabinet in governmental and financial endorsation of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway past and present.

Not long ago his interpretations of the intentions of certain clauses respecting the Government’s attitude towards the sale of bonds of the western section of the N.T.R., were sustained by the Privy Council at London and that body’s vindication of Mr. Biggar’s insight was equivalent to an immense saving in favor of the “G.T.R.”

With the strain of business he intersperses a lively participation in golf, always evinces a keen interest in good sport and when a younger man in Belleville owned and raced his yacht “Iolanthe” on Lake Ontario and across the bay beside his birthplace. He was also a bit of an angler and could pink the bull’s eye at rifle ranges. Many a time, when a boy, have I seen him galloping past in the saddle accompanied by (Justice) R. C. Clute, the late U. E. Thompson, then City Ticket Agent of the G.T.R., Thomas Ritchie, T. S. Carman, publisher of the “Ontario” and the late Senator Harry Corby. A gentleman of the old school, Will Biggar was as prompt to perceive the charwoman’s courtesy as he would be to acknowledge the gracious inclination of the city’s first lady.

Like some men in public life, he is reserved, almost shy of the lime light, but an interesting companion among his intimates and a favorite with little children and generally popular, so much so, that he proved a rara avis in local politics when he carried the Liberal standard to victory in “Tory” West Hastings in 1890 with the untrumpeted aid of many Conservative friends, it has been said. He was always a “man’s man” but now gives the Mount Royal and other Clubs only such a share of his limited leisure as domesticity will permit.

QUINTE BAY

Ensconced in a setting of green and gold,

She is ever young to young and old;

Could her waters speak as they flow along,

“Forget me not” would be their song.

Photograph—Courtesy I. Wilson.

Reproduction of an early type of steam locomotive used by the Great Western Railway of Canada and photographed on the area then known as “Kent’s Paradise”, below Dundurn Park, Hamilton, Ont., in 1864. This locomotive was the first mogul built in Hamilton shops.

The occasion was the visit to Canada of Sir Thomas Dakin, English Chairman of the Great Western Railway, whose name appears on the engine. A key to the interesting headquarters group beside it is given below and some of the gentlemen in the picture still survive.

Turning the first sod, Toronto, Canada, 1869, Toronto and Nipissing Railway

Photograph courtesy of Gooderham Estate.

The Toronto & Nipissing Railway, traversing the territory between Toronto, Ont., and Coboconk, now a “G.T.R.” branch serving Markham, Stouffville and Blackwater, was inaugurated in 1869 and built by Chief Engineer Edmund Wragge for the promoters.

The line was opened to Uxbridge, September 14th, 1871, amid great rejoicing and enthusiasm and an oil painting from the brush of B. Armstrong, commemorating the scene, with the elaborate decorations of that thriving agricultural centre, was presented by the President, the late John Shedden, to William Gooderham, Junior, Vice-President and Managing Director of the Toronto & Nipissing Railway Company.

The personnel of the prominent men of a past generation who were present at the turning of the first sod in 1869 at Toronto, as they appear in the accompanying photograph, is as follows:—

AN OLD CAMPAIGNER’S CAREER

John Quirk

Wingham’s Veteran Conductor, Retired.

How many amongst you wide-a-wake and well-informed commercial men and transportation people, who read these lines, can explain where was and what became of the Erie & Niagara Railway, Canada. A gentleman born in 1833 at Lungar, Ireland, not a great distance from Ballykilbeg, known as John Quirk, Esq., Wingham, Ont., would, if interrogated, inform you that the railroad referred to originated at Lake Erie’s shore at Fort Erie, Ont., and terminated at historical old Niagara-on-the-Lake, where Lake Ontario’s blue waters lave the sloping shore.

The nucleus of that highway—now a “Michigan Central” branch line serving the fruit belt—was surveyed and laid with wooden rails by Gilbert McMicken between 1835–1841 and cost 19,000 pounds. Its motive power was an old grey horse and traffic crossing from England in ships via Montreal, around and over the different rapids and river to Toronto, was transported by Mr. McMicken and his dapple equine engine the nine miles from Queenstown, a grain depot on the Lake Ontario level, to Chippawa, beside Lake Erie, where it was again entrusted to vessels bound to the rim of civilization then at Sault Ste. Marie. The passenger fare from Queenstown to Chippawa was 2s–6d. Gilbert McMicken was a patriarch in the forwarding business, he also built the first suspension bridge at Queenstown where a horse ferry plied and there, in 1846, his heir “Ham.” G. McMicken, later European Traffic Agent of Great Northern Railway, London, England, set foot on terra firma. Permit me to add here, that the latter’s son, E. G. McMicken, is General Passenger Agent, Pacific Steamships Company, San Francisco.

Mr. Quirk would explain also, that he first started railroading on that line as baggageman in 1867, and in three months’ time accepted a conductorship of a regular train running between these points. In the absence of the present Buffalo-Bridgeburg international steam highway, built in 1873–74 by G.T.R. and G.W.R., jointly, United States traffic crossed from the foot of Main Street, Buffalo, by boats which old timers will remember as “Florence”, “Grace Dormer” and “Ivanhoe”. From Niagara-on-the-Lake passengers made the trip to Toronto in the “Rothsay Castle”, “City of Toronto” &c., &c., forerunners of the splendid craft which now transport their children and grandchildren on business or pleasure bent. William A. Thompson secured the first charter for Erie & Niagara Railway and the Great Western Railway surrendered their lease of it in 1870. This road underwent changes in fortune, emerging as a link in the Canada Southern Railway but to-day survives under the domination of Michigan Central Railway.

RAIL COURTESY

Guard: “Now then, Missis, are you first-class?”

Passenger: “Purty middlin’ thank ye. How’s yourself?”

From this embryo period imagine the perspective offered the retentive and vigorous memory of an eighty-four year young veteran like genial John. He has seen a lot of Ontario in the making and a host of travelers and transients have seen him in Great Western and Grand Trunk trains. It has been declared that the travelling man of other days, with fourteen years’ experience on the rail—devoted seven years to his business and other seven to waiting for trains at Harrisburg. From this staid burg Mr. Quirk watched the Wellington, Grey & Bruce Ry. extend northward while he officiated as conductor over each section when laid down. Elora and Fergus were reached in July, 1870, Palmerston, 1871, and Southampton in 1873. They considered themselves fortunate if the trains did not leave the tracks more than three times a week as the new portion was used without delay and formality as a means of accomplishing a further leg of the journey. Prior to that time the tedious and lumbering stage coach was the only long distance substitute for shank’s mare in reaching a hundred towns and villages which the Grand Trunk serves to-day, thus aiding a battalion of drummers in the vital matter of earning a living. John Quirk was long a respected citizen of Kincardine and covered the run from there to Brantford and Hamilton for twenty years. He punched the tickets of thousands of travelers using the London, Huron & Bruce R’y, who remember his brusque but cheerful manner and woe betide the luckless bride and bridegroom who happened to entrust themselves to his care when making the initial trip in double harness. He never did possess a voice as soft as a sighing zephyr and he was ever an incorrigible tease.

Our subject was the contemporary of such men as W. R. Callaway, widely known General Passenger Agent, Soo Line, Minneapolis, when he was agent at Paisley “in them days”, of Adam Brown, Hamilton’s postmaster, after whom a “Great Western” locomotive was named, W. K. Muir, W. J. Spicer, John Labatt and scores of others.

He was in his prime when a dozen United States railways competed vigorously for the traffic moving via Chicago and St. Paul during Manitoba’s first boom before the C.P.R.’s entry into Winnipeg in 1885.

Michigan Central

“THE NIAGARA FALLS ROUTE”

Mr. Quirk voluntarily resigned from G.T.R. service in 1905, enjoying the respect and favor of the Company’s officials as well as the friendship of the rank and file. He keeps in touch with the railway world, the trains and former associates by occasional jaunts around about, and he will wager his bonnet, his best jack-knife and even his boots, any day, that his watch regulates the sun’s movements. He is a collector of pictures, walking sticks and clocks, and must be a “freetrader” for at one time he was notorious as a bargainer and “unsight and unseen” artist.

If he likes you he will procure anything one desires from a dozen fresh eggs, a Latin recipe for rheumatic gout to a flagon of nut brown ale, and “Here’s the old spite to you all”.

The history of the Emerald Isle is in his book-case, her map is on his desk, and the Irishman’s ready answer still springs quick from the tongue of this lively, eighty-four year old colt, ex-conductor John Quirk.

❦ ❦ ❦

THE LUCK OF A LIGHT-HEARTED “LANDLUBBER”

Avast, my hearties, port your helm. The sun is over the yard-arm.

C. & N.W.R. Conductor Cornelius O’Konor, from Oconomawoc, a dry land pilot, visited under pressure, a Chicago departmental store recently with his wife. In her dauntless quest for the elusive bargain she led him here and marched him there: into the basement and up the stairs until fatigue made him hanker for home. Refusing her coaxing to make one last trip to the roof before the store closed, O’Konor dropped on a nearby chair while his wife made the ascent for a little “burnt onion” dream of a hat.

Her spouse relaxed, tilted back his chair, cupped his “Christie” on his knees and unexpectedly slept the sleep of the just conductors. When Madam O’K—— returned in the wake of a stream of charitable departing shoppers and awakened her lord, she found in his hat $3.49. Now he wants her to spend their vacation there.

Saturday Night

KNIGHTS OF THE SWINGING LANTERN

“GRAND TRUNK” CONDUCTORS

David J. Dinan; Hugh O’Donnell; Alexander Muir; Allan Eby; William Frost; James Guthrie; Welland Strong

O we are merry men from Mars,

An active squad of light hussars,

Schooled in tact and the three big R’s

And how to steer by moon and stars.

Some think we haunt the gay bazaars,

And likewise smoke long black cigars,

But in our brood no Lochinvars

Toast yonder moon and strum guitars.

Our task is a life of jolts and jars

And each one bears his grist of scars—

The brand of couplings, beams and bars.

Knights of the punch—our home the cars,

We know the brig from the keel to spars,

And there we reign like blooming Czars.

Pilots, moguls, airship tars,

We guide you safely to planet Mars

O’er the trail of the swinging lanterns.

THE CREDIT VALLEY RAILWAY
Toronto to St. Thomas via Woodstock
Inauguration of Toronto-Milton sections, September 19th, 1879

The Marquis of Lorne graced the ceremonies with his presence and traveled from Toronto to Milton and return by special train.

Lord Lorne can be recognized standing in the centre of the official group and the party about him include George Laidlaw, Toronto, promoter and President of the line, John C. Bailey, Toronto, an outstanding figure at the time, who mapped the route of a dozen Canadian railways and made the survey—“Bailey Route”—of the T. & N.O.R. He was the engineer of the Credit Valley Railway and Harry Crewe, Toronto, was his chief assistant. To the right can be discerned the late James Ross, a young Scotch surveyor and engineer from Kingston, New York, in charge of construction, who afterwards became the Montreal millionaire.

Among others in this photograph are—Honorable Geo. W. Allan, Senator, Honorable John McMurrich, M.L. C., Toronto, James Beatty, K.C., Mayor of Toronto, Ross McKenzie, accountant with the Credit Valley Railway, who probably was Canada’s most famous lacrosse player, and Wm. Taylor, secretary for James Ross.

STREETSVILLE JUNCTION, SEPTEMBER 19th, 1879

Train sheet and entries thereon the day of the Governor General’s Special.

Courtesy Hamilton Spectator.

THE CRUSADE
OF
UNITED STATES RAILWAY INTERESTS IN CANADA

John Bull’s eldest daughter, Canada—recently eulogized as his fairest by the Honorable William H. Taft—is no laggard in recognizing opportunity as it ebbs and flows in the great, scientific game of trade. Like our wide-awake neighbor to the south, she inherits from commercial and speculative England the bartering instinct, and is willing enough to emulate, in a modified way, cousin Columbia’s obeisances to the goddess of commerce. The goddess, aforesaid, has been an active dame and most aggressive throughout North America during the past half century. To further her aims, enthusiastic disciples have achieved such marvellous feats, especially in railroad construction and transportation methods, during the period mentioned that comparisons, invidious or otherwise, are well-nigh compulsory.

The prairie schooner has made a squeaky exit from the drama of locomotion into museums and the tortuous, blazed trails of the gold seekers of ’49, minus kinks and humps, are now the routes of many lines with trackage contributing to an aggregate of 256,547 miles of railway which 2105 roads have under operation to-day in United States alone. In 1860 the Union possessed only 30,626 miles of steel.

Fifty years ago the fruits of opportunity in the middle and golden west appeared to the denizens east of the “Missouri” to ripen and require plucking all at once, and the termination of the Civil War signalled the inauguration of extravagant railroad ventures. Ambition fired the mind of the restless native and that big, swelling, polyglot immigration pouring into the “Land of Liberty,” needed space and breezy fumigation. Afterwards, they had to be fed and equipped, which, pursuant to the laws of demand and supply, materially increased consumption. Responding to the goads of progress, the railroads extended, paralleled and criss-crossed the “other fellow” in the dignified scramble for a slice of the melon of prosperity. The slogan was and has ever been, “More Passengers,” “Increased Tonnage”: import, export, interline and local business all comprised grist for the mills. About the time mercantile houses were becoming inoculated with the “commercial traveller” idea, a small squad of travelling railroad representatives, in open formation, were training observing optics on prospective traffic. In this, the eastern group of railroads were slightly in advance of their newer, western connections.

As far back as 1868 New York and New England State railways—the nuclei of gigantic present day systems—grew interested in international trade and thrust their tentacles across that imaginary line of demarkation bisecting the great lakes, into Ontario and Quebec. Mr. E. L. Slaughter entered Canada forty-eight years ago as representative of the “Erie” and is said to have been the first foreign line travelling agent to invade British domains on such a mission. Some Canadian merchants no doubt, remember this Southern gentleman who occupied an office at the corner of Scott and Wellington Streets, Toronto. John Strachan, genial and popular, followed him and for many years graced the position, with Mr. M. McGregor, inscrutable and keen, as right bower. S. J. Sharp was also an active agent of that system in Ontario. Those were the days of the “Merchant’s Dispatch,” 1870, the days when John Barr in the early eighties trod the boards boosting the “Blue Line,” and his understudies, A. F. Webster, Bob Moodie, Charles Holmes and F. F. Backus, sallied forth from the corner of Church and Colborne Streets, originally laboring in the same cause. Afterwards, T. J. Craft, and subsequently S. Hyndman, made predatory incursions from Detroit for the “Blue Line.” Mr. Craft was once agent at Galt, Ont., and an organ, the product of his skill, is, I believe, in good order to-day in a church in that Scottish burg. The distinctive term “dispatch” I mention, was applied to the earliest systematized methods, operative within a railway organization, for tracing perishable or timed freight and transporting it via most direct routes in cars of a uniform dimension, color, etc. Ere long, “Great Eastern” and “National Dispatch” sprang into existence. Hot on their heels came the “Hoosac Tunnel Route” and “West Shore” bidding for favorable consideration through the medium of indefatigable Joseph Hickson.

Not until 1901 did W. A. Wilson, a graduate of that school, and formerly with the “Fitchburg,” assume control of the “N.Y.C.” merged freight interests. Louis Drago and Frank C. Foy supervised passenger affairs for the consolidated lines.

At that period there was more talk in Canada of reciprocity with United States than there may be again. Uncle Sam’s politicians were wont to shun the subject, but the interchange of traffic grew apace. Emboldened by their competitors’ success, the “Lackawanna Road” sent an emissary into Ontario and they “have stuck,” George Bazzard campaigning for years for that interest until age caused him to make place for A. Leadley, now at the helm. 1884 saw the advent of the “Lehigh Valley” and Duncan Cooper. Robert Lewis, then in his prime, was busy making hay, years before their permanent office was decided on. He was a practical student of the “Morse” code at Suspension Bridge in 1855 when the first near-modern structure spanned Niagara River. Thirty years ago he presented his card in “York” state as representative of the “Great Western.” Only recently came the “Pennsylvania” with Don McKenzie as sponsor and succeeded by L. J. Fox and Messrs. Stackpole Plummer, and Little.

Ten Hale and Hearty Gentlemen Linking the Past and Present. Each Stalwart in the upper row has completed 50 years’ active service. Their companions are vigorous and capable, with splendid records.

A
J. A. Richardson,
Midland Railway, Millbrook, Ont.,
Canadian Agent,
Wabash Railroad Co.

B
N. Weatherston,
Grand Trunk Railway,
General Agent,
Intercolonial Railway.

C
F. J. Glackmeyer,
Ticket Clerk,
Great Western Railway, Toronto.
Sergeant-at-Arms, Ontario

D
George Ham,
Newspaper Man, Raconteur,
Diplomat,
Canadian Pacific Railway.

E
Richard Tinning,
Wing Shot, Oarsman, Vocalist,
Grand Trunk Railway,
All The Way.

F
R. L. Nelles, Lieut.-Col.,
Buffalo & Lake Huron Railway,
Grand Trunk Railway,
Toronto.

G
W. R. Callaway,
G.T.R. and C.P.R.,
G.P.A., Soo Line, Minneapolis,
Noted Advertiser

H
Alfred Price,
Credit Valley Railway,
Ass’t. Gen’l. Manager, E.L.,
Can. Pac. Railway, Montreal.

I
Wm. A. Wilson,
Grand Trunk Railway,
Gen’l. Can’n Freight Agent,
New York Central Lines.

J
W. J. Grant,
Midland Railway,
Port Hope “Mobile & Ohio,”
Dis’t. Freight Agent, C.P.R.,
Hamilton, Ont.

A large percentage of the public have enjoyed or know of the splendid passenger equipment and service some of these railways, in conjunction with Canadian trunk lines, offer to-day between Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton and Atlantic Seaboard. No doubt the reader who has attained the age of 45 years could develop a comparative mental picture of his first train ride, its discomforts, shortcomings and quaint paraphernalia. The demands of the age and growth of travel account for “the milk in the cocoanut.” Before the war, the average number of trains crossing the line via Rouse’s Point, N.Y., was 134 per month, and in that time they transported 9,627 passengers southward. At Newport, Vt., 160 trains entering United States yield a monthly patronage of 6,897 people. Probably you are curious to learn how it is at Niagara Falls, N.Y. This accessible and world-famous spot, redolent with much that is historic and tragic, is the magnet which attracts or ushers into the State of New York 20,000 souls a month and 700 trains of all railroads are pressed into service to cater to the modern craze to be “on the go.” These authentic figures do not include pedestrian traffic.

Compare the tonnage of forty years ago, and the leisurely dispatch it was given, with the daily carloads containing a multifarious assortment of perishable commodities and staples which now make regular, scheduled runs of 24, 36, and 48 hours between United States points of origin, the docks at Portland, Boston and New York and distributing centres in Canada. Twelve to fifteen hundred tons of import merchandise for Ontario destinations per month, apportioned to each of the half dozen competitive eastern “U.S.” lines, is a conservative estimate of what is handled. They bring in hardware, silver novelties, locks and clocks from Connecticut; tools, machinery and electrical supplies from Massachusetts and New York; cement and coal from Pennsylvania; early table delicacies from Maryland, and off ocean vessels, English fabrics, weaves from Scotch and Irish looms, German toys, Parisian frocks and bonnets, as well as tons of express matter and the theatrical accessories which accompany the thespians, prestidigitators and slap-stick artists. One of these eastern lines, with a strong weakness for fruit shipments, transports to the international bridges during the season, 125 carloads a month of incoming Cuban pineapples, Costa Rica bananas and Mediterranean lemons. The local and through eastbound tonnage secured by interested railways receives equal dispatch, exceeds that average and includes large quantities of apples, cheese, eggs, flour, implements, lumber, meats and poultry which probably approximate a combined monthly output of 1,200 carloads. It may be news to some of the uninitiated to hear that 1,500 carloads of Ontario grown turnips are shipped annually in the autumn for consumption in the United States. It is not surprising, therefore, that the big “American” carriers hasten to augment their revenues by coaxing and nursing this growing trade.

R. M. Melville, R.N.,

General S.S. Ticket Agent, Toronto and Captain, retired H.M. M.M., “S.S. Pekin.”

In 1875 the complacent east languidly condescended to heed insistent whispers concerning Canada’s vast Northwest. The tide of travel was diverging and began to carry with it in that direction prospectors, homesteaders and adventurous merchants bent on spying out locations in the prairie El Dorado. Dependent, of course, they levied on the mills of the east for food, clothing and implements. About this time Sir Hugh Childers, London, England, occupied the President’s chair directing the destinies of the Grand Trunk Railway, and the contemporary Canadian Pacific Railway official was (Sir) William Van Horne. Lucius Tuttle, President of Boston & Maine System, D. McNicoll, Vice-President, and C. E. E. Ussher, Passenger Traffic Manager, Canadian Pacific Railway, later on in the first flight and noteworthy examples of what determination and capacity accomplish, were going through a “course of sprouts” with Ontario lines which afterwards lost identity. Robert Kerr, former Passenger Traffic Manager “C.P.R.,” was “G.F. & P.A.” of the Northern Railway, and in his office situated at the foot of Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Tom Marshall and Henry Jago shoved the quill. Mr. Jago recently relinquished the duties of “G.E.P.A.” West Shore Road at New York. Henry Bourlier, so long associated with J. D. Hunter as western representatives of the Allan Line, was in 1874 ticket agent of G.T.R., in the old depot, and Tommy Jones was City Ticket Agent, Great Western Railway. Shippers hereabout will remember John Porteous, G.F.A., G.T.R., Montreal, Arthur White, G.F.A., Midland Railway, Port Hope, Ont., Jim “the penman” Thompson of the C.P.R. and Malcolm Murdock. Then it was that the star of Geo. B. Reeve and W. E. Davis began to twinkle; likewise, John W. Loud. All in modest positions at that time, they were fitting themselves for the exalted places they afterwards honorably filled in shaping the policy of the “Grand Trunk” and “Trunk Pacific” systems.

The majority of these and other officials had frequent business intercourse with the various United States railway agents who visited Canada.

In the year 1877 Mr. A. H. Burnham made his initial bow in Ontario representing Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. This move was significant, indicating the expectations of western roads based on the interest Manitoba’s commercial future had awakened. In July, 1878, the late James M. Taylor, prior to that time General Freight Agent and Superintendent, St. Lawrence & Ottawa Railway, had the distinction of establishing at Toronto the first permanent western line office in Canada. He was appointed General Canadian Agent of the “St. Paul Road.” Unlike any competitor, that railway maintained an agency in Ontario without interruption for three decades. Andrew J. Taylor joined his father in February, 1879, succeeding him several years ago when the former transferred to Pittsburg. These gentlemen have ever been regarded as pioneers and charter members of the foreign railway colony, highly respected by a legion of friends. James M. Taylor, a man of sterling personal characteristics and business acumen, who appreciated and sustained a clever hand in a quiet rubber at euchre, chose for headquarters a suite of rooms within a door of the northeast corner of Front and Scott Streets, then the hub of mercantile activity in Toronto. A neighbor was Mr. Richard Arnold, for a long time City Passenger Agent in charge of the “G.T.R.” office located on the aforesaid corner. Mr. Arnold’s daughters became respectively, the wives of William Wainwright and James Stephenson, two notable figures of the old regime. The former died when Fourth Vice-President of the “G.T.R.” and his erstwhile confrere, I believe, lived in retirement in England until death. Mr. Arnold numbered in his staff the late well-known “Phil.” Slatter; a junior assistant was Mr. C. E. McPherson, now A.P.T.M., C.P.R., at Winnipeg, who 35 years ago left “G.T.R.” ranks to travel in New England for the “Rock Island Road” and J. B. Tinning. C. W. Graves imbibed from the same seasoned chief preliminary hints on how to handle the dear public and look out for the elusive traveller who was not above licking into illegibility the date on expired tickets.

John B. Tinning,

T.P.A., C.P.R., formerly with G.T.R. and R. & O.N. Co.

Messrs. V. M. Came, W. Barnes and Sam. Beatty soon followed Mr. Burnham of the St. Paul Road to further the interests of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, but were transferred before many moons had silvered the landscape. The two Jacks, “Morley” and “Winnett” swung into line in 1879 and did good work in both departments for the “C. & N.W.R.,” opening an office in Toronto in the old Baldwin Building, I understand, in 1880.

John Morley long ago forsook the excitement of the road. He died at Winnipeg during the summer of 1908, and interment occurred at Toronto, where his family is well known. The mantle of these gentlemen fell naturally on the shoulders of a sturdy Spartan, Burton H. Bennett, cryptic, yet merry, who jumped into the game with a will and has won an enviable reputation in the dual position.

The “Burlington Road” was right up on the firing line, looked after by a gentleman bearing the uncurtailed and historic cognomen, John Quincy Adams Bean, from “way down east.” After him, in order, appeared Messrs. Badgeley, Simpson and John A. Yorick. The late Joe Simpson was always happy if his road secured patronage in regular twos and threes. Not every one knows that he was for a few hours an unwilling guest of the “Fenian” leader O’Neil in 1866, and had been with M.K. & T. and T.St.L. & K.C.

Brilliant, well-informed, J. Francis Lee represented the “Rock Island-Albert Lea” combination, D. J. Peace sought freight for them and Eben MacLeod was located at Montreal somewhat later for “C.R.I. & P.” Such watchful competitors as “Great Western Railway,” featured by Messrs. Ridgedale, Noyes, Storr and Baker, and “Union Pacific Ry.” with Ira P. Griswold in the van, M. C. Dickson and J. O. Goodsell holding power later, before Geo. Vaux and J. J. Rose took up their work. Charles A. Florence, an “Illinois Central” Agent, made Berlin—now Kitchener—his headquarters.

Geo. B. Wylie

Traveling Passenger Agent Illinois Central Railroad

The “All Rail” mediums then available for transporting man and beast destined California, the Dakotas and Manitoba from Old Ontario, were “Grand Trunk,” “Great Western,” “Credit Valley,” and “Canada Southern,” covering the distance as far as St. Thomas and Detroit, thence via “Michigan Central” and Wabash Railroads to Chicago. Tom Cochrane, R. W. Youngs, Bob Middleton, J. W. Kearns and G. C. Wilson follow the footsteps of predecessors and patrol that neighborhood now. As travel increased from a dozen or two people to an occasional weekly carload, and more, the number of migratory railroaders multiplied. Oldtimers will recollect some of those big hearted, brainy hustlers including Sam Seymour of the “Pennsylvania,” Dave Cavan, formerly of Stratford, John Laven, off the “Iron Mountain,” representing “M.C.R.,” Charles Ousterhouse, T.P.A. N.Y.C. Lines, Geo. B. Wyllie for “L.S. & M.S.” and later in full charge of “Ill. Cent. Ry.” affairs in Canada, and the late much lamented J. Nelles Bastedo, who shipped from Barlow Cumberland’s service several years ago to travel for “Santa Fe System.” Joe Rattenbury, who twenty-five to thirty years back used to stow away at his place in Clinton in one night as many as 18 of these railroading nomads and cosmopolitans, often repeats a story the wiseacres will recollect about his brother “Ike” and laconic “Bass.”

The many sided men above enumerated made it their duty to assist with Customs formalities at the frontier and also assuage the fears of intending passengers trembling at the prospect of meeting in Chicago that much heralded and maligned bugaboo the bunco steerer.

It is worthy of remark that while to-day the railroad companies caution and forbid passengers riding on the platforms, thirty-five years ago the travelling public swarmed on that perilous projection, on the steps and quite often took possession of the car roofs with a nonchalance that would make the cold chills play peek-a-boo up and down your spine. How many of the lads and lassies in this year of grace would have the temerity to sally forth, for instance to the London Fair, decorating the top of a flat car rigged up with benches for the occasion? Your fathers and mothers did it.

The patronage of the farmer and his brawny sons, who had visions of gang plows and waving wheat, was an important desideratum in that era. Party leaders were “some pumpkins” and they puffed and spat over many a fragrant cheroot while sipping their “ponies” and “bootlegs” in company of expectant agents.

Charlie McP—— tells a tale of an exodus of the boys over the trail of the lonesome pine to some silent place near Coboconk where the villagers were to meet them to consult. To introduce the serious talk of tickets, rates and routes, some foreign line spokesman suggested a mild libation all hands round. Agreed! Not to be outdone, his neighbor ordered again something out of the lamp for the lords and laity: partaken ad libitum, in extenso. Now me! It’s your turn, and so the hours wore on, your Uncle Dudley Hayrick taking on his grist at minimum cost, business postponed and county council adjourning to reconsider the tax rate.

Honorary Judges, Clinton Fat Stock Show, April, 1912
Two generations pictured beside the Rattenbury House.

R. G. McGraw, Soo Line; H. E. Watkins, G.N.R.; W. Hood, C.N.R.; F. A. Nancekivell, Soo Line; David Forrester, Gentleman-Farmer; G. Barnes, W.C.R.; A. J. Taylor, C.M. & St. P. R.; Host Joe, Rattenbury; J. J. Rose; Robert Reford Co., R. J. S. Weatherston, G.T.R.; F. H. Terry, G.N.R.; W. Jackson, C.P.R.; H. Macdougall, G.T.R.; R. Middleton, M.C.R.

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

As the train slowed down at a busy country station a man excitedly put his head through the open coach window. “A woman in here has fainted,” he cried, “has anyone got any whiskey? Quick!” A philanthropist reached within the recesses of his unmentionables and handed a bottle to the enquirer with an 18 karat thirst. The latter frantically uncorked the flask, put it to his lips and took a noble pull, “Ah”, he sighed, “that’s better, it always did upset me to see a woman faint.”

Presently the good blood of Ontario, and some bad stuff, was rolling westward at the rate of two and three regularly arranged for trains of nine to thirteen loaded cars each week. The personal effects and stock of the settler went along too, the owner ensconced occasionally in a tourist sleeper jolting along at the end of the string, and eager railway companies took turns in hauling the prize. Excitement ran high. The wires were kept hot about special or inadequate equipment, conflicting rates and alleged unconstitutional moves of opposing forces.

It was no uncommon occurrence to convene a meeting in hotel parlor or little red schoolhouse and there agents present would, in turn, give the agriculturist samples of terseness or spell-binding eloquence. Imagine the persuasiveness that was pitted against the farmer’s cautiousness or distrust. Recall, ye of good memory, if you can, the epigrams, arguments and bon mots which rolled off the ready tongues of a dozen or more jovial pilgrims from o’er the border; for instance, M. McNally, representing “St. P.M. & M.R.” a fowl fiend who could eat poultry five times a day, Charlie O’Connor with the “Northwestern,” Con. Sheehy, that urbane, silk tiled gentleman sent over by the “Wabash,” A. C. Stonegrave with eagle eye for “Central Vermont” end of it, rough and ready Harry Badgeley of “Great Western,” Bill Askin or handsome Billy McLean of the Beatty Line. They talked corn until their tones grew husky and they were as fine a coterie of unconventional free lances as ever probed the intricacies of a railroad timetable. To this day the boys tell of the adaptability of Harry Badgeley of the “C.G.W.R.,” how he studied pigology, hob-nobbing for three days with a colony of ruralists whom he landed high and dry by this artful manoeuvre in spite of keen competition. That was the halcyon era, the palmy days of Ed. Sullivan, Ed. Riley, Ed. Clancy and Ned Hanlan.

Frank E. Harrison, who is now agent of C.P.R., at Whitby, Ont., will remember all this as he was about this time Canadian Agent first for the C.B. & Q.R., and afterwards the C.St.P. & K.C.R.

On “special” party dates passengers were concentrated at junctional points and afterwards personally conducted to Detroit, Chicago or St. Paul. Mr. B. Travers, city ticket agent at Paris, still, has informed me that parties of 75 and 100 people were occasionally gathered there, and such a pretentious exodus was known to earn a serenade by the local brass band at the time of departure. The sturdy knights of ploughshares and other instruments of peace had to be and were better mixers than the stall-fed variety of traveller of this day, and the consciousness that theirs was a common object made easy the upsetting of social barriers to the music of violin, mouth-organ and jew’s harp. The journey always ensured incident and good-fellowship, and perhaps, some disappointing experiences. The records, considerately offered me for perusal, do not include the name of the escorting agent who, while wrapped in the arms of Morpheus in a Chicago hotel, suffered the loss of his train’s entire proceeds by the deft removal of a panel in the door on which his coat was hanging. It was when escorting a party westward that Will Wyley, with “M.C.R.,” suffocated, and M. Boesmburgh had a very close call in the burning of the hotel “Newhall” at Milwaukee.

D. O. Pease, Manager, Ogilvie Mills, Hamilton, Ex-District Passenger Agent, G.T.R., also C.M. & St. P. R., Montreal.

A. F. Webster, General S.S. Ticket Agent, Toronto, and former Canadian Agent of Blue Line.

M. C. Dickson, Ex-District Passenger Agent, G.T.R., Toronto, formerly C.P.A. Union Pacific Ry. in Ontario.

Thomas Henry, Chief of Commissariat, Canada Steamship Lines, formerly General Agent, Northern Pacific Railway, Montreal.

E. Allen, widely known Superintendent, Canadian Express Co., Toronto.

The late Wm. G. McLean, of Beatty Line and C.P.R., former General Agent, G.N. Railway, Toronto and Montreal.

John Paul, District Freight Agent, Canadian Northern Railway, Winnipeg and former agent M.C.R., London, Ont.

Three different gauges, or widths between rails, were accepted as standard in different parts of Canada and United States at that time, and to permit interchange of equipment, three rails were sometimes laid. Just before the adoption of the standard, broad gauge, 4 feet, 8½ inches, became general in America, a good-sized party bound for the west were delayed at Toronto half a day awaiting the readjustment of that portion of the “Great Western” to Hamilton, Ont. In the forenoon one rail over the entire distance, 39 odd miles, was moved in and spiked down in its new position. This must have been quite a feat 35 years ago in the absence of those simplifying methods practiced to-day. John Weatherston, father of Nicholas and Robert of the same name, supervised the work.

Moving westward over designated routes from Chicago, the canary-colored coaches were pulled by locomotives with yellow bellied boilers, wheels painted scarlet and ponderous smokestacks—hummers in the old days—but antiques in 1918. They bore such names as Antelope, Reindeer, Thistle, &c., as well as of prominent people.

BOIL THEM WHEN THEY’RE TOUGH

Picking her way daintily through the grime of the locomotive works, a young woman visitor viewed the huge operations with visible awe. Turning to a young man from the office who was shewing her through and pointing, she asked, “What is that big thing over there?”

“That’s a locomotive boiler”, said the guide.

She puckered her brows.

“And what do they boil locomotives for?” she enquired.

“To make the locomotive tender”, said the young man from the office, with amazing effrontery.

Young’s Magazine

What a shock it would be to My Lady’s complacency if, on her journey now, she should find it necessary to raise a sunshade in the coach to protect her raiment from the rain and snow sifting through the chinks and rifts in the car. This age is not without some blessings, as Ben Fletcher might have exclaimed. We are reminded here of a characteristic of Mr. Fletcher, who was advance agent for “D.G.H. & M.” He had been working up business for an excursion to Nebraska, which did not “pan out,” one solitary passenger offering his patronage. The selling agent wired him for instructions and received reply couched thusly: “By the great horned toad Reginald, chain him to the seat!”

The “St. P.M. & M.,” at birth “St. Paul & Pacific,” later converted by astute minds into the “Great Northern Railway,” was the railroad which gave that big quartette, Messrs. Angus, Smith, Hill and Stephens, a gilt-edged monopoly of Manitoba emigration and, incidentally, the patronage of dame fortune. Men and chattels had only shank’s mare as an alternative to this line northward from St. Paul as far as Fisher’s Landing, a Red River port. Here, transfer was made to the Kittson Line of steamboats plying to Fort Garry now Winnipeg, and owned by Norman Kittson, a colleague of J. J. Hill in some early business ventures. In winter the trip was made by stage travelling part way over thick ice. Mr. Kittson was one of several successors to Anson Northrup, the pioneer navigator of the Upper Mississippi River who launched his first craft there in 1835.

The Great Northern Railway, during the time of the Manitoba boom, and since, was championed in Canada by “live wires” such as Jack Huckins, resourceful Ham McMicken, who is acting for the road in Europe at present, Messrs. Kinsley, Graves, Wurtele, Watkins, Hetherington, Tudor and Brooks.

James M. Taylor, in charge of affairs for “C.M. & St. P.R.,” during those strenuous days, pulled off the biggest coup of the period I attempt to sketch, in securing for his line a party which originated at Millbrook, Ont., and is said to have consisted of or influenced 500 people together with 55 carloads of effects. Mr. A. Leach, who was ticket agent there then, capably fills that position to-day.

The idea which the “President’s Agreement” made concrete in February, 1900, was ridiculed twenty years before and the system of commissions to agents for ticket sales being in vogue, competition waxed lively. For obvious reasons the standards of remuneration did not always remain stationary; fancy prices and fat drafts swelled many a bank balance.

Although few dismissals and re-engagements by telegraph were bulletined, the foreign railway man’s berth never was considered as sure as taxes. For brief periods in those stirring times, the commission paid to agents for each ticket reading from a point in Eastern Canada to the Pacific Seaboard netted $11.00 to $15.00. Inside information about methods and means, dormant in the book shelves of many an agent’s memory, would have made interesting anecdotes had one gained the favor of men like Tom Ford, T.P.A., G.T.R., W. J. Grant, for a time with “Mobile & Ohio” in Canada, Geo. W. Hibbard, former A.G.P.A., C.P.R., Montreal, unfortunate Alex Drysdale, who lost his sight and was pensioned by the Chicago & Alton Railroad, and the erudite M. B. “Garfield” Tooker, the Beau Brummel of many a husting. Heard you ever of Mr. Tooker’s perceptive olefactory membrane? How he accurately distinguished, though blindfolded, the odor of a dozen different perfumes in J. Livingstone’s store in Listowel. Then behold, the unkindest cut of all: some mischievous scamp thrust an uncorked bottle of skunk oil beneath his nose.

Another scout, robust and in commercial life at Hamilton to-day, who links the past and present, is D. O. Pease years ago with the Great Western Railway. Dan Pease is the proud possessor of the long delayed Fenian Raid medal, and when William Edgar appointed him D.P.A., G.T.R., Montreal, he evinced during twelve years in that capacity, an enthusiastic interest in military matters and movement of troops. Conversant with shipping and the French language, shrewd and sauve, he successively represented the C.M. & St. P.R. for several years in Quebec in the early days, and relates an incident about a ticket agent in Prince Edward Island who booked a party of twenty round trips to California and out of the bountiful commissions purchased for his wife a fine horse, harness and basket buggy.

Canadian Ticket Agents’ Association

Representative group of officers and members present at Annual Meeting, Buffalo, October, 1909.

Pictured beside C. & N.W.R. Terminal, Chicago

H. G. Thorley, Ontario Passenger Agent, White Star Line, Toronto; C. R. Morgan, Ticket Clerk, C.T.A., G.T.R., Hamilton, Overseas; F. W. Churchill, City Passenger Agent, C.P.R., Collingwood; A. Philips, City Passenger Agent, G.T.R., Huntington, P.Q., now M.L.A.; T. L. Thomson, C.T.A., C. & P.E.I.R., Charlottetown, P.E.I.; Dr. J. W. Shaw, Honorary Physician, Clinton, now overseas; Will Lahey, C.P.A., C.P.R., Brantford; W. Ward, C.T.A., G.T.R., Dresden, Ont.; H. J. Moorehouse, C.P.A., C.P.R., Sault Ste. Marie; H. M. Bohreer, D.P.A., “M. & O.,” Chicago; Arthur Hare, C.P.A. “Wabash,” Tillsonburg; M. McNamara, C.T.A., G.T.R., Walkerton, Collector Customs; W. McIlroy, C.P.A., C.P.R., Peterborough; E. de la Hooke, C.P.A., G.T.R., London, Ont., Secretary-Treasurer; J. P. Hanley, C.P.A., G.T.R., Kingston, Vice-President; R. J. Craig, C.P.A., C.P.R., Cobourg, President; W. Jackson, C.P.A., C.P.R., Clinton; W. Bunton, C.P.A., G.T.R., Peterborough; C. E. Morgan, C.P.A., G.T.R., Hamilton; R. L. Mortimer, C.P.A., G.T.R., Shelburne; Geo. B. Wyllie, T.P.A., Illinois Central Railway, Buffalo, N.Y.

There are quite a number of agents, active in transportation matters at the present time, who took part in and recall the friendly but whirlwind competition “American” lines indulged in to obtain the lion’s share of business moving beyond the border. Forty years rest lightly indeed, on them all and a baker’s dozen chosen at random might well include Edward de la Hooke, London, dean of the faculty, erect, vigorous and immaculate, who began railroading in Hamilton in 1864, W. G. Webster, a colt yet and an inveterate wag, who resides in Chicago, J. A. McKenzie, Woodstock, Will Jackson, Clinton W. Somerville, Seaforth, James Dore, Mitchell, R. Lauder, Goderich, C. L. King, Kincardine, John Towner, Stratford, P. Robertson and R. E. Waugh, Hamilton, Dick Shea, Palmerston, W. E. Rispin, Chatham, Dan. Hayes, London, Geo. McCallum, Galt, a storehouse of ancient history; C. E. Horning, Toronto, Tom Evans, London, John Paul, Dave Dover and Alex. Calder, Winnipeg, W. H. King, St. Thomas, J. Quinlan, Montreal, W. H. Clancy, now living in Toronto, (a wit with an “Emerald” flavor), A. E. Lalande, Montreal, J. B. Lambkin, Halifax, D. Carruthers, Quebec, John Lyons, Moncton, and J. M. Riddell, Portland. The names U. E. Thompson, Belleville, John Foy, Toronto, A. H. Taylor, Ottawa, C. E. Morgan, Hamilton, J. Tierney, Arnprior, W. Bunton, Peterborough, W. H. Harper, Chatham, Alex. Notman, Toronto, Joseph Heffernan, Guelph, Louis Drago, Niagara Falls and John Gray live in the memory although they have ceased their labors.

Among such as these was and is business and co-operation sought by that original and persistent advertiser, W. R. Callaway, once station master at Walkerton, now G.P.A., Soo Line; S. H. Palmer, C.P.A., M.C.R.; Harry W. Steinhoff, Geo. H. Anthony, Varnie Russell, R. G. McCraw of W.C.R. (the Soo’s new arm), D. W. Hatch, connected with A.T. & S.F.R.; C. Hartigan, Rutland Railway, and that big four who so well attended to Northern Pacific Railway affairs, Messrs. Walter E. Belcher, W. G. Mason, George Dew, Thomas Henry, and their collaborators, Geo. W. Hardisty, Geo. McCaskey and Geo. Barnes. Guided by Armand Lalonde, the “B. & M.” scored often. They could tell you of long drives in good and indifferent weather into the surrounding country seeking prospective passengers and good locations for the half and quarter sheet style of advertising so much used then; of hard and fast arrangements upset in a thrice accompanied by restitution of deposits given to clinch the deal and of mysterious cheques which seemed to spring from nowhere in particular when the management forbade their acceptance. They smile when recounting methods used to test if agents were sticking to tariff. I remember the case of one stool pigeon who, after obtaining the favor of a ticket at a rate partially unconfirmed, selling it with intent to a rival organization to be utilized in trapping the enemy. He made a required affidavit as to purchase price and the subterfuge, with its charge of irregularity hingeing thereon, had not been operative an hour before the resourceful agent who sold him the ticket, effectively turned the tables causing the spotter’s arrest on the grounds “false pretences,” and that worthy received his liberty under suspended sentence together with a reprimand.

While these diversified events were finding a niche in history, M. V. McGinnis and Major E. M. Peel, a lover of horseflesh, were on the war path for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and their contemporary, W. T. Dockrill, present T.P.A., C.P.R., was a “big issue” in another direction. A busy man with a portable railroad in his “carpet-bag” ticket case, he created quite a furore years ago in the vicinity of Brockville. From November, 1883 to June 1885 he traveled on the “C.P.R.” trains between that city, Ottawa and Smiths Falls exchanging prepaid orders and ticketing westbound business. In July, 1885, the C.P.R. was completed to a point beyond Jackfish and from track-end there, the heroes of the Battle of Batoche marched across the arm of Lake Superior before the bridge linking up the western extension was erected. During the time the different contracts were completing, the builders released at intervals, 10,000 laborers and navvies in lots of fifty, one hundred and two hundred, who traveled via Carleton Junction to Brockville on orders issued by the agents appointed after each station had been established behind the scene of operations. These exchange orders were seldom fully routed and Mr. Dockrill thus controlled heavy business which he, in competition with G.T.R., directed round the horn via ferry and Morristown, N.Y., thence Utica & Black River Railway, an abbreviated but prolific “feeder” to “Canada Southern” through St. Thomas and “L.S. & M.S.” by the way of Buffalo.

William T. Dockrill,

Traveling Passenger Agent, Canadian Pacific Railway.

In 1881 rumors of consolidation of existing railway systems in Ontario were bruited about by those “in the know” and the steady, westward extension of the “C.P.R.” sowed uneasiness where the interests via “Chicago-St. Paul Route” were cherished. August 11th and 12th, 1882, witnessed the amalgamation of “Great Western” and “Grand Trunk.” William Edgar then was “G.P.A.” at Hamilton and Mr. Geo. T. Bell, present Passenger Traffic Manager, Grand Trunk Railway System, made stenographic hooks and crooks for him.

November 2nd, 1885, marked an epoch in the annals of the prairie provinces. Although previously used for transportation of troops, it was the date when Canadian Pacific Railway equipment first rolled into Winnipeg under a schedule. The event was fraught with much import to Manitoba and forged an item of significance in the history of the Dominion. The national character of Van Horne’s project and the prestige of the sponsors of this great pioneer, western Canadian line attracted to it the major portion of freight traffic which had been moving via other channels, and by demanding the privilege of preferential passenger rates, based on newness, geographical position and inaccessibility, the patronage of the “Homeseeker” was diverted, practically en masse, from United States lines which had enjoyed the pickings unmolested for eight years. This reversal of conditions left not even all the “Dakota” business to the latter, and with a single exception, the Chicago-St. Paul and allied systems, one by one, abolished Canadian agencies and withdrew their representatives from active participation in the chase.

Then it was that General Passenger Agents Carpenter, Charlton, St. John, Stennett and Barnes, in the seats of the mighty at Chicago and St. Paul, felt a temporary modification of interest in Canadian passenger affairs. Geo. Barnes afterwards resigned from the Northern Pacific Ry, entering commercial life as a piano manufacturer, and, I believe, made a fortune.

S. H. Palmer,

District Passenger Agent, Mich. Cent. Railway, St. Thomas, Civil War Veteran. Formerly connected with “Atlantic & Great Western,” “Erie & Pittsburg,” “Canada Southern.”

These changes, however, did not impair the business relations then budding between “U.S.” merchants and Canadian importers, and the railroads of the neighboring republic realized that it behooved them to look jealously after their individual share of lumber, broom corn and cotton goods from the Southwest, seeds, citrus and deciduous fruits from California, tinned salmon and shingles from the North Pacific Coast and consignments of matting, silks, bamboo, rice, etc., disembarked along Puget Sound.

The man in the street might puzzle over the price of his breakfast orange if he reflected that some days 20 carloads of this marmalade fruit now and then gluts the local markets at Montreal and Toronto.

A certain percentage of such incoming cars, after unloading, are returned laden with hides to Milwaukee’s greatest tannery, clay, cordage, fish, lumber and sand; pedigreed sheep for Idaho and Oregon ranchmen, hair for San Francisco plasterers, gums, glass, nuts, salt, and tinplate from Atlantic Coast wharves; also with ton upon ton of coveted Canadian woodpulp which reappears as the basis for newspaper headlines.

Historians of railroad progress chronicled continued extension until the ramifications of the “G.T.R.” and subsidiary properties, gradually gridironed the Province of Ontario with a network of branches, despite obstacles, not always anticipated. A most deplorable happening, and severe financial setback, was the accident which occurred on February 27th, 1889. In the evening of that date “G.T.R.” eastbound express, No. 55, en route Hamilton in charge of conductor Dan Revells, crashed through a bridge at St. George, snuffing out the lives and injuring more than two score passengers. Mr. J. A. Richardson, widely known as Canadian Passenger Agent, Wabash Railroad, and a veteran business getter, had, under pressure on the part of friends, left his train at London. The seat he vacated there was taken by William Wemp, Immigration Agent of “C.M. & St. P.R.” Poor Wemp was numbered among the killed. This proved to be the worst Canadian railroad disaster since March 12th, 1857, when sixty people died in the Des Jardins Canal wreck.

From 1891 to 1898 seven lean years spread stagnation and hard times abroad in the land, discouraging operations of “U.S.” corporations in Canada, but 1900 beheld a restored confidence pulsating the arteries of trade. British Columbia felt the stimulus, the optimistic Northwest clamored for improved transportation facilities, while J. J. Hill surveyed from afar the possibilities in duplicating portions, at least, of “C.P.R.” Later, his policy got the wedge’s thin end into “Kootenai” and Vancouver, which quickly resulted in heavier tonnage prospects from Ontario and Quebec for his trains. Canadian Northern Railway activity in Manitoba followed by the deal that province’s government entered into with President Mellen of Northern Pacific Railway, threw open a previously restricted area giving United States lines to the south larger opportunities and scope, which compelled their attention once more.

The complexion of things had undergone a change in twenty-five years and the traffic the returning “American” railroads now seek and appreciate comprises not only settler’s outfit and pressing needs, but everything from a car of seaweed to a circus train and the variety runs the gamut of raw and manufactured products. Your westerner unconsciously imbibes large ideas with the unpolluted ozone of the boundless prairies. He courts sleep in a metal bed from Ontario, bathes in a porcelain-lined tub and eats well. If he has them, he freely parts with his ducats for carloads of biscuits, butter, bacon and eggs; cheese, flour, canned vegetables, condensed milk, syrups, marmalades and sweets which come from the east. Recently a train of cars containing John Barleycorn’s headache provoker flaunted boldly across the horizon heading due west to the opulent personage who imports his pianos and autos in big lots regularly. Mark you, more than 200 carloads of “Niagara” grown grapes, peaches and mixed fruit roll out to the blooming prairie every season over bridge and ferry and into the tunnel’s insatiable maw at Sarnia.

The substantial growth of Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, Brandon, Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and Pacific Coast cities, and the mushroom proclivities of many a lesser burg, has given a marked impetus to the spirit of competition in manufacturing and railway circles. In the face of an exaggerated propaganda about bounding difficulties, and the like, and a strong but diminishing pro-Canadian sentiment, the men behind the gun annually dispatch and receive by way of Rouse’s Point, Suspension Bridge, Port Huron, The Sault, etc., merchandise worth thousands of dollars which our cousins eagerly solicit, working for the haul in conjunction with Canadian railway lines. Eight hundred carloads a year would be, according to some men’s estimate, a modest shewing, but, after all, conditions considered, it is a tidy, “found” business in and out of Canada for an individual “U.S.” line to secure or relinquish. I have known a single railroad’s catch in Ontario to exceed, on several occasions, three hundred carloads a month, 95 per cent. of this tonnage going to Manitoba and British Columbia destinations, the fresh fruit receiving exceptional attention and other commodities making scheduled runs to Winnipeg well within five days, and to Vancouver in twelve days’ time. It is estimated that via the various avenues between the two nations, from Coast to Coast, two carloads of freight a minute pass into the republic to the south as a result of the crusade of its railroad corporations.

In more than one tight pinch “U.S.” railways have come to the fore, furnishing an expeditious alternative when shipper and consignee have been stewing over congested yards, crippled motive power, notorious scarcity of cars, strike and snow disadvantages which trouble every line sooner or later and which are not unknown to the men piloting the Canadian railway interests to success.