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1IU CM W«>.i StTMl
W oehw t li. Nn rorti t.«OB USA
(7tl) .•] - 03(O - PhMM
(7ta) 2W - SMa - Fn
THE ILLUMINATION OP
JOSEPH KEELER:1,°'^
OR
ON, TO THE LANDI
»»™»H. B.IC11M.A, M.
Boaroic. Stim.
Rr^7S7
rr
CorrwoHTED m the United States or Ahbbica
AMD Canada, I91A,
CONTENTS
CRAFTMB
FAOB
I. Halcyon D»ya on Prciqu' hie Bay j
II. High Ancestry of the Keeler Family .... 7
in. Hi.tory of Early SetUement at the Carrying
!•••« . 11
IV. Joseph Keeler Visit, the Home of Hi«AncMtor. U
V. Official Report to Family on Paternal Gen-
e«logy ]g
VI. Discussion on Causes of High Prices, with
Results ai
VII. Joseph Keeler, Student of Early Canadian
History j^
Vm. When Upper Canada Became the Dominant
Partner ,.
IX. The Heir of the Keelers under a Social Cloud.. 35
X. The Professor as a Student of Canadian
Economics * I
XI. Joseph Keeler Recalls Commercial and Politic J
Events of Forty Years 47
Xn. The Btit of John Keeler from Frenzied Finance «S
Xni. Rural DepopuUtion and Urban Overpop-
ulation -_
XIV. The Stress of Society Functions Has Unforti-
nate Results jj
XV. The Problem of High Prices Analysed .. . 67
XVI. Mr. Joseph Keeler Turns Farmer 73
Xm The Legal Evolution of an Agriculturist... 81
XVm. Halcyon Days Have Come Again Down on the
Lake Shore a-
XIX. The Philosopher's Stone Discovered gg
FOREWOBD
I h«v« TMd With km inU . Dr. Brvw'i .n.«.~ -^
ing cTUta ^oUl ™, genomic . .«*UW tft^t tt"
loundQr cono«wd. In the pmence o( the mort awful <r»
•utherto known to naddnd. nothing .ffonTIn Wi^
intenwtion*! rapect and mutiul eMeem -"-^
iMual m-r ^ Immvrattm ^ Cm«da h» b«»ght him f^i
^Ln Tl'^^. '^'^'^nui p«blem. of life «d uA^ "hS
witbn the l«t half century have put upon the opTW.
hitherto unexampled number of the human race. ThZ^^
;r "I'l^"^ ""*•*• '" -o" libertrmo™^ fc
food, and better houring, and aU of the« havrbTfolA
perhap. a. neve, before, in the new world. AndyeTaJ^
ol«rv„ cannot fail to be .truck with that ,t^Z>Z^
m^P-fon today, drawing the children of the oriZu^
g~.t. away from the Und «.d into the citie.7wSchl^
"^ «em to po«» an almort im^plicable a tZfcL
For «,me year. I>r. B^.* ha. been a careful rtudB^ nwl
d^opuUtion „d. not content with merely ob«rving pLn^
ena.ha.MnghttoertimateandtocrjtroIthem. ^'^"""'^
mteerting data of popuUUon. overpopuUtion, deoooulati^
May thi. Uttle volume ' dte to a clo«r .tudy of the* orob.
ta«. m«^ a thoughtful person both ;„ the S-^oTaH b
^ Umted Sut«. for the «me problem, .„ corfr^tin^ ^^
people, and are found on both dde. of the line. "°« ""
W. T. Stay -:i,
Bo«ON. Mm., May l.^m"*"^ ''^^ "^ ^ "^W
PREFACE
TU» ii • (torjr written with ■ Mnitc piupon.
The pj»noinenon b«hic forced at thii moment upon the .tten-
Uoo of . popuUtion of 10O.000.00O in the United SUfiS
C«»d., pc«e«ln, dmoet iUimiUbl. ««„ of whnt one hZ
*»dyem ,y wm mortly virgin nil. finding itKlf KtuJIy
importing foodtuff. .t high pricey mu.t ineviubly c«^Z^
»«u.n.ly conc«ned in the he Jth. pro.perity. ,nd the«>fo«te
the h.pp.neM of the people, to «ek -riourii. for .ucHX."
During the pMtde«de. with. «rie. of «. of .ucce«iv.ly
^^ "W and the influx of »me 1. 0,000 immig,™^
l«gely of the working cU«e., there h« been witn«T„
•gpegation of people in the urban centrei of the United SUtee
i^e the totjl mcrew in the number of perwn. culSva ■'
toe Und haa been rektively amall.
.J^ ""'.T^/ «ilway conatruction, of induatrial eipan«on
«d of city buddmg have given tempo«,y employment ti^rk-
men; whUe the owortunitie. for the centrali«Kl inveatment cl
capital have suited m the development of ^wculaUve ente,.
pnae. and m the diversion of both public attention and private
^.tal from the true baai. of aU w«lth, the cultivation of tto
The inevitable outcome of th-^ Kveral combined cau«. i.
efcci., whKh. though unpleaaant and diatreMing to many, wiU
not have been without «dutary and beneficial reault. a they
aerve to turn auch again toward thoae ewential virtue, and
^iJt^u^"' *"" "" ***" "»ooi«ted with .ucce«ful
„f Tlltu "" '"• °"^° °' ^' "*" «"* ""t .ubatantW citiaen.
of both countries lewlen in induatrij enterpriae. «id in the
viB
Pnfact
•pplicatwn of acientifio knowledge, may be directed through
tte penual of thia itoiy to the imperatixp mitional need for
their active interest and practical intervention in the proUem
of the reconstruction <rf mral proaperity and of aocial progroa
in all. but especially io the older sUtes and provinces, is the
smcere hope of the author.
P»™h H. Brtck.
THE ILLUMINATION OF JOSEPH KEELER, ESQ.
ON, TO THE LAND t
(A 9iOBT OF HiOH Pbicis)
CHAPTER I
Hamto» Dats on Pbesqc' Isle Bat
"Those were, indeed, halcyon days" were the words which
especiaUy arrested the attention of Joseph Keeler, Esq., whole-
sale merchant, Toronto, i» one Sunday evenmg he turned the
pages of an old chronicle in the Papers of the Ontario Historical
Society, tellmg of the days of early settlement on the easUm
shores of Lake Ontario.
Mr. Keeler had been grea% interested in the story of Umg
ago in that part of Upper Canada, which he had left when a lad
of Hve summers, with his father, who, finding trade in his
general store going yearly from bad to worse through the changes
incident to the commg of railways, had in the late fifties gone
to Toronto as the metropolitan centre. The latter with a fair
capital had estabUshed there a general and. subsequently, a
wholesale grocery business, and gradually had come to be
looked upon as one of the leading merchants of that city. The
busmess had in the natural course of events been continued by
the son, Joseph, whom we find a leading merchant and import
tant member of several large financial corporations.
As Joseph Keeler read on in these historical papers, he had
become yet more interested in the list of names occurring in an
oW parish register of the District and most so when he found
the following;
XlWCASTLB DDIRICT, U. C.
Mm; SI, 1804, B>ptinsd this da;,
"tamsph Keeler, aon of Joseph Keder and Maiy Peten Keeler."
The article, proceeding, had gone on with a popular account
of the other settlers on Presqu'Isle Bay in Northumberland
County, among whom were Peters, Simpsons. Rogers, Wards,
Bumhams, Gibsons and others, and told of how in 1803 a sur-
vey of the now village of Brighton had been made, and of how
lots had been taken up by a number of these people, the Gov-
ernment intending to make it the town of Newcastle and county
I
« The Ittumituium qf Jowph KeeUr, Eiq.
««t<rftheDiat«ct. He ri«, found related maoy stirring „ well
« patbeUe mcrienu of the early day. on fteiayZd a^"
«ad. d»«.ve.ed him«lf becoming a link with m,Tm pjT
bu „«^ly separated from it by hi, .unomulinr "he
house had grown sJent, his wife and daughters havinf „U,S
the fnends they had been entertaining hid gone Tnd ^elwo
o^der son, of the family had not yet come T There.^^t™
l'J)^K^^f-'"'°''*°*"^'<"»'-««"'dP«ent,. ^ZZ
E^lf"}t^ V" ""^' *" »*•« '•""«' »' Boston B^y'C
oiSv ™ . ^f • '"^ ^'^ ^ Mas^chusetts; but. finZ
become an active officer in the militia during the American
^itZ •'" *??" '•«' •»"''«' westw^and af "r dS°
Murray and Cramahe Township,, named after the first
such seed gram and implement, a, the Government agreed to
meat. The chromcles told. too. of their hardships for the first
of t^e^ h!™ T' ""•* ™*f « '" "'^ fi"* ''heat cmps; and
of the.r dependence meanwhUe on the abomiding fish o the
^dTam^ '"•'''■' ^"^ '"''■''' ''"'"'''-■'"'"■''^-*^
J^^K T'^^ ™°t?'te'l with the present surrounding, of
cl^t -Zt '"^!' ''":"7 ""'"^"* byawealthycitymeT.
»X ^ T '"''*'^ *h* ^"°^ "W "'<>"'« of the race
two dau^ter, proudly lending their elegant support to the
felt a seme of unreality in his environment anu. yet more m
zx^r*^ r.T •" "'"•='' '^ g-'t-graiST;"
the chromcler and of whom hi, father h«i told him, but who
tte oM ^ ^r° ''"* "' ''"""^** "'*'"'"y- He ^ee^ed to J«
the old lady „ttmg m her ,ilk dress and h«e cap. rehearsh^
Balcyon Dayt on Praqu' IiU Bay S
the «toiy to his father's cousin, her favourite granddaughter,
of the dangers from the Yanlcee rebels and from the Indians;
of the fears of invasion and the loss of her father's small capital;
of the journeying as a young girl up the rapids of the St. Law-
rence, the tugging at the ropes by the line-men on the shore,
the poUng of the boats, and the struggling against the rocks
and the currents in the river. Then, too, she told of the night
camps at the small bindings along the upper river reaches, the
passing of the Thousand Islands, and at last their stay at Cat-
araqui, where were the Land Office and the Depot for govern-
ment supplies. Their final trip up the beautiful Bay of Quints,
the crossing of the Carrying Place to Wellers' Bay and the
final location on their allotment beyond the Bay and Presqu'-
Isle Point, were all depicted in glowing, if homely, language.
As she told of those early years, when the house was at times
without flour and of the occasion when Captain Keeler had
gone with several othe- to the mill at Napanee, with their
small grist of wheat, and were delayed by stormy weather and
a breakdown at the mill, and of how during the weary waiting,
an Indian had one day paddled his canoe to the shore and ask«l
for bread, the grandmother's eyes had filled at the recollection
of how, when she had bu-st into tears, telling by signs as best
she could of how she had no food, and her children were starv-
ing, the Indian had turned and said, "You very good squaw," '
and going to his canoe, tossed a Urge sahnon onto the sandy
shore and then paddled away.
Then came tales of brightening days, when there were hrger
clearings, and the virgin soil gave abundant crops; when, as her
boys were growing up, the waters of the kdce and the rice
marshes of the Bay gave to their spears and guns abundant
fish and game. TTie salmon filled the creeks in spawning time,
and the waters of the Bay swarmed with trout and whitefish,
maskinonge and pickerel; the black duck, the mallard, and teal
darkened the waters at early morning, and in springtmie the sun
was shaded and the trees even broken down by the flocks of
purple-breasted wild pigeons. The autumn brought in the
hunting season; the deer, which sometimes had become a nui-
sance coming into the wheat-fields, now supplied the winter
larder with many a haunch of venison. The chronicles retold.
ill
ill
* Tk, lUumituOion qf JoKph Keehr. E,q.
M^t. Which .tnuided on P««,u'U, Pobt in the .utunm of !««
««. approached the «=hoone, and «tit onfi" 'rd*^"^
1^"^" '"■" ""• '••'"^'' »^"'- ""'--K .wayTlt:
But the weirdest of all her ■tones wu ffc.t „» .1. i
ft-,u-I,le Point of the -hooner ™;:^^:^th Ton*^
:an"':r:tt^„^i^'ri ^'^-^t.rf'.^^^r^at^
iSt«fte John T- """"" '^"''"'- ^^°«" McDon^fu^ .
•avocate, John Stegman, surveyor, Mr Georw fj„»^ i-jr
mU,p,eter,WRuggle,.EsJjohnkr:ott.br;irt^
pruoner. and Captain P„ton and five of . cieT Th^ Thl
hjd started out f „„ To«.„to on Sund.; erninTSctCT
with a brisk northwest wind- had call«) in tfc "=".■*' '•
O^wa to take on witnes«» ^^t^ttvZ ht w^'Zn::
tarn Peters and others fearing for her hurried away to the Poio?
Zt^ ^'^'7 ^-"'"'I'-SPeedy-topoXbu^rhrrs!
^pewed in the darkness during the height of the storm
^yTtirS' ""1 "*" i.' '"" " '"^ °' the schler^but ta
The stoiy. tragic as it was. ,.a, . natural one and would
Bakym Doyt on Pntqu' Irit Bay s
have K ranwined, except for iti myiterioui lequel. A short
tunebefore the tngedy, it h«l happened that Cptain SeUack
of Pr»qu' ble had been up to Niagara with a load of goods
from Kingston and on his return on a sweet summer day the
wmd was luUed to a cahn, the sailors lounging about on deck,
when one suddenly saw something dark and strange beneath the
smooth glistening Uke surface. The captain was appri«d,
and, takmg the ship's yawl of the "Lady Murray," went back
with the men and located a large rock just beneath the water
Next day he, with Captain Paxton of the Government schooner
"Speedy," took boats and, by the points taken before, located
the sunken rock, »»rce three feet beneath the surface, at some
four miles out from shore. The rock was some forty feet square
and strangely had on every side some fifty fathoms of water
Captain Paxton caiefuUy charted iu location and promised
to report it to the Department at Niagara to have it placed
on the Lake Chart.
After the "Speedy" had disappeared and the storm subsided
Captain SeUack and the settlers of Presqu'Isle went out in
boats to make search and grapple about the sunken rock, seek-
ing for some evidence of the lost schooner. They searched the
first day, but in vain, for evidence of either schooner or rock-
with more men and boats, they went next day and a third'
but still no rock could be found, nor has anything further ever
been heard regarding the sunken reef. The stoiy of the phan-
tom rock could not be dissociated from the loss of the " Speedy "
and became the basis of an agitation for moving the District
town and Court House to Amherst, now Cobourg. So the alert-
ness of old Captain SeUack and his men in searching out the
hidden danger became the unlucky occasion of the village los-
mg, what in those days was of so great importance, the County
Seat.
But the story of brighter days grew, as Mrs. Keeler saw her
sons young men, going forth as their father had before them,
taking up new lands and becoming prominent in the community.
Settlers arrived in plenty, and every settlement on the shore
became a lake port. The young men went sailing on the lakes,
their only highway, and the clearing of the forest, cutting ships'
masts and square timber for export, and bmlding sawmills for
I!
• n» lUuminatum qf JoMph KfUr, Eiq.
lumber for local uh. Jl beoune « put of thow biuy diflr, tUt
flUed the Uter yean of Grandmother Keeler. Neither did the
rV !^^ I«y»Ii»t miM telling the evenU of 1837, when old
Coloiiel Willianu and Captain Keeler took boat with their
militia company to defend Toronto againit the rabela
A. Mr. Keeler read the cloung woidi of the touching chroni-
cte, ThoK were halcyon days." he wa> diaturbed in hii vi.ion
of that part by the aound of his sons' latchkey in the h»!l door
and their sUent entrance, hoping perhaps the "governor" was
asleep. Finding him awake, however, they said good-night,
not, perh^H, without some uncomforUble feeling that it was
hardly fair that they should not give the home their occasional
presence on a Sunday evening. Air. Keeler was too accustomed
to the family routine to have noticed at any ordinary time this
occurrence; but the reading of these annals of the past, in which
ius family had played so pronounced a part, had aroused new
thoughts, which made the distance between himself and the
common interests of the family seem to have grown to a wide
guB, and almort with a cry of longing he repeated the words.
Those were indeed halcyon days!"
CHAPTER n
High ANcmBT or tbk yiaa.»!B Faiolt
The Keekr family itood hi^ in the genenl legsrd of their
community, for the merchant wa« succearful in his bunnew
and his wife in her social drele. The latter as the wife of a
piomment wholesale merchant of old standing in Toronto, but
more especially as the granddaughter of an early missionary
and Anglican clergyman of the Hamilton District, demanded
and with ito usual good 'lumour society in some measure
yielded her that place, if not that consideration which she
deemed due to heneU . Most properly she was a member of
the "Daughters of the Empire Club" and, indeed, had been
for two terms a vice-president of the local branch— for had she
not had pointed out to her by some friend of historical research
tendencies that the following was to be found in the old register
of the parish church where once her grandfather had officiated?
'TuMd.y, P*. e. ISS8. Ilia wu • dsr of Public TliMikiglyiii. by
pnehiutioa irom Sir Piud. Bond He«l, the Litolraut Govanor. (or
victory obuiatd omt the rebeb m both Flovhioee ud lor their geneimi
maptmon,"
(Signed T. M.)
She had not, indeed, actually known her grandfather, but
vray naturally believed he was honored in having so high-
spirited a granddaughter, who was so well able to replenish
with luscious fruit the already productive family tree. She
might, indeed, have had ill-natured remarks borne to her, as
that people said she was showy, superficial and even mercurial,
whatever that might indicate; but such remarks were simply
ignored, or endured with equanimity, she always knowing that
they came from persons of no fandly importance, who really
had no ancestors!
It was not unnatural, therefore, that her family, nurtured in
thdr comfortable home, surrounded with the generous luxury,
which a merchant of their father's standing so easily made
' 1
• Tkt lUumituHoH of Jimpk Kihr, Ef.
po^ •hoold be funjr codkIou. at thrt neU npoiocH^.
which th«y Jad b««B Uugbt to believ. WM thein. IIm two
young bdw. M the hoiue. after periupe lUihthr ineguW
•chool coune. in . "Young L«liee' Semiauy," «hei« «,
tock U Kholutic lucceM wu due nlely to the poor qunUty at
thii OT that pvticulu tcMhei^-not to the kck of applintiaa
or cpMitjr m the pupiHud gmdusted in turn with honoun
ud ■ certifiato in deportment, the elder winning • priie in
•rt and the younger in muiic. As the Mminuy w« txdutm
and moet wiect. meamred by the high feei and the unind
lt»at deKent of the lady principal. Madame Keeler waa fully
•atufied with the raulta. at a whole. Thereafter two yean'
travel abroad" in Europe with their mother, a few month*'
rert m Laiuanne for French and language! uid ae many mom
in Mimich for muiic and art had, with general travel, completed
the education of the two young ladiee, who on their ntum
home m the early autumn, were duly announced in the ndety
columns ammgst the season's notabilities, the elder especially
asa iilniUmte, having already in London been presented at a
Drawing Boom. Several seasons had passed since then and
the^er. Miss Maud, was stiU unattsched-though holding
»hi*, even exchisive place in her circle, being best known
P«ta}« for a someiriiat haughty rcaerve and a degree of cw-
scious superiority--no eligible port.- having yet had the courage
to take a plunge into so crystalline a stream, whose temperature
was feared as being as chilling as its source. The younger
dau^Ur, Fanny, bore a family name, and whether in speech
or manner expressed oveiy shade of that vivacity and light.
heartedness, which had. and even yet, marked her mother. A
general favourite, it waa her friends who eqiedally brightened
the social circle of the young folks who frequented the house,
and who with their music and dandnj had not been slow to
emulate the paces of their elden in the fashionable bridgn,
iriiich made life in the Mosm a daily roun^. of excitement, even
if rather enervating, to the vivacious Mm. Keeler, who felt
however, that "duty must be donel"
It seems necessary in attempting this family ■ ventory to
add a word or two about the sons of the family, John and Tom.
now young men. and the youngest. Ernest, a lad just leaving
Bi§kAntulrtqfthKMbrramat f
Vvpf CaBKU CoOcfe. Jolu, wo and heir, had nOj beta
nt ^art by the pnud moUwr (or a diitinguuhed caiCCT, had
graduated from Upper Canada CoUeie where he had ahowii Ua
ability, paoed throufh the univerrity, leeidiiv in hii two
final year* in hie Fnrt houie. gnduatine ' poUtieai econ-
omy and hiHory with an averafe standi. {. Lo|ica% he
went into law, and had been now (or lereral yean a junior in
a large legal finn. At eveiy itep, lUe had been made eaey (or
him. No queitione cl penonal ecooomici or ol monU had
ever given him aerioiu thought or trouble, and now, immened
in club Itfe and iu dutie*. he had dri(ted along at a young man
around town, generally ipoken o( ai clever, it only he would
^iply hinueU and not devote to much time to the lomewhat
v*iM iniide o( clubdom. His brother, Tom, o( the more even,
phlegmatic type o( his (ather, had logically gone (rom Upper
Canada CoUege into the warehouse to be initiated into the busi-
nen at which his (ather was pit^riy proud. Tom had not,
petfa^M, been too reguhr as to hours at the waiehouae; but as
he had to uphold the honours o( the Argonauts in their ei^t-
oaied crew, and to attend assiduously all yacht club races, such
inegularities were pardonable — even necessaiy. Like his
brother, Tom Keeler had moved naturally and easily into club
Mo and was generally liked by everyone as a splendid young
(eUow of fine physique; but none accused him o( being as yet
seriously solicitous about the firm's wettare, or a shining star in
the business firmament o( Front Street. This, however, every-
one said would all come in good time when his (ather loosened
his hold on the reins. "Tom was all ri^tl" Such then was
the Keeler (amily as it appeared to the public.
It
CHAPTER ni
HisTOBT OF Early Siitilement at the Cahhtinq Puci
The week had passed rapidly as usual for Joseph Keeler, Esq
Monday morning had brought its usual duties and the irregular
appearance of the family at the breakfast table did not excite
«By comment, as it had become habitual, and in no way affected
Mr. Keeler's daily routine. It was not without some mis-
pvmgs, however, as to the quality of his eldest son's habit.,
that Mr. Keeler had noticed his usuaUy late hours at night and
hu non-appearance at the family breakfast table, with now and
then later m the day displays of irritabiUty, which could not
certamly be due to the exhausting nature of his legal duties.
But, once in his office, the heavy English mail drove all
other matters from Mr. Keeler's thoughts. The short midday
lunch at his club, a meeting of his bank directors at «.S0 and a
Uter one of the Trust Company at 4.S0 had fiUed Us day, and
at 5.S0 he rolled home in his auto, the type of the successful
city man. A heavy course dinner at which the family, with a
fnend or two, were present, as on fuU dress parade, completed
the day s duties after which he passed the evening in his study,
glancmg through the evening papers over a comforUble cigar
and the last Engiuh Remm, thereafter retiring only to repeat
a similar daily round throughout the week.
Sunday evening had come again, and Joseph Keeler found
himseU as usual in his study, and taking up ahnost mechanically
the historical volume laid down a week before, he recaUed
suddenly the story of the old grandmother and the words.
Those were indeed halcyon days." He found the passage
agam and reading on found stiU more interesting recitals of the
old days down in the Lake Shore Settlement.
The whole territory at the head of the Bay of Quint« was
redolent of the stirring scenes of Indian warfare from Cham-
plain s time onward to the days of the Jesuit missions, where
the very site ... the old mission of WeUers' Bay (the four-
U
fii^
u
Tht lUuminaHon of Jouph KeeUr, E,q.
i
m
m
f^rll. .?*^ ^ullf^ *"•"'' '* »»'<' Bluff «:««s the ^
R^mth«. the S,dp.tian mi»ion»e, h«l pushed westwari^
tiie Seneca vilUge up the shore to Tenagou, now hi, hom.
Toronto and north by the Trent. Rice LZLXitn^r
to a.e huntmg ground, of the now vaniAed HuronT",^;
MatohedadiBay. To the Car,ying PU«. too. ca^ £.1S^e
on h« fim memoreble journey, seeking an oute w«tw«d
to the oce«., and there strangely, too, elected i^^^
Ldce Ene. u«te«i of the Aort northerly route. certli^ty^'Z
.^o^ ^tT;""' *^P *° MichiUnuJdnao. fearing. wT^
™ppo». «.e Jesuit, might <•.»„« him along the Ltol^
route. There he camped at Kent«. the old Indian villaBe3
nuM.on, and lent lustre to it, tr«lition, by hi, tol^^p^
fKTw),,^ *i^!," "'"^"' *^*" 8™'''"^ 8»ti'««d « halo
way eastward; of how a mirvey was made in 1794 for a canal
U™.* Murray township; of how it was stated that frem ^
^ •^T^.'™'^ '"*'"'*' "f Parliament for the NewcMtk
Distnct had been elected on the promise of getZt t^^
bmlt. and when finally he re«l that it was a fo^KteS
lather-, courin, the Hon. Joseph Keeler. the b^ oTttTib^
f«ndy mune. that of the captain, the first imnSZ^ ^d «tte
M a.e ajy, and now hi, own name, the wholeV^ser,^mri
to have .hsappeared into that glamoured time, Ld he S
toh. hvmg over again the Uves of all tho« .;to« i^ t^^M
d«maoftheCarrymgPl«=e. It presented the painted redn.«^
once on the warpath now a kindly neighbor; haK aZZJ
half dependant of the early MtUen; then Uie pati^nt^^W
«wa.^g the return of their heroic Uand, ^ow .:^,^t™
t^wmg of these lusty setUement, with their alarm,. irtiviti«
ami struggles; pictured the war of defence, and btor o ^^^
^^z^^:^'c "^ "^^ ■"."" i-i«ranl":?r;^
Dack Mttlements. the mcreasmg vesiwU and traffic on the lakes.
Early Setthmeni at the Carrying Plant 18
the buading of the canal, the coming of the nulway, and aU
the dmnge. that it brought with it. But throu^out all there
remained one fixed idea of how clow to each other in their
hardships, with their mutual self-help and common sympathies,
tte people m those early days had been; how near to primeval
Nature, with her pine woods and grassy marshes fiUed with
^e and fish, and how intimate, too, with the Almighty Creator
of those scenes of pristine beauty, who, nevertheless, seemed to
dommate aU with some infinite and unseen force, in which as
in the loss of the "Speedy" tragic Destiny mocked the puny
efforts of men.
Mr-ig as in a dream, Mr. £eeler was aroused, as usual, by
the euJy of his sons.
i! 'I
M
CHAPTER IV
Joseph Keeler Visits the Home of His Ancestobs
Joseph Keeler was essentially city-bred and, naturally enough,
though having heard of his father's people, had taken no par-
ticular interest in relatives, the nearest of whom were cousins
and countiy-bred. But now he had become charmed by the
recitals of that kindly past of which he had been reading, and
began to feel that in this life history of a part of his native
Province he had some personal interest. This was still more
increased by the discovery that it was his father's cousin, the
Hon. Joseph Keeler, who had taken such an important part
in the development of his home distrirt. Perhaps, too, it may
unconsciously have come to his mind that it might not be
unprofiuble even from a social standpomt to cultivate hia
ancestral relationships, as Barnes Newcombe did the old
Colonel. So it came about that on the next hoUday, which was
the Queen's birthday, he took his boy, Ernest, and, telling the
family he was going to Brighton for the day, went down on a
Saturday evening train to spend the two holidays. Often as
he had passed to Montreal on business, Joseph Keeler had never
stopped off at the Bay; so when on the Sunday morning they
strolled out along the lake beach, pushing their steps toward
Presqu'Isle Point, an emotion of deUght not unmixed with
shame came over the man (who till now had needed no an-
cestors), as he drank in the beauty of the scene and recalled the
memory of the old forgotten yef.«, when "They were indeed
halcyon days." He could imagine the Bay cover<Kl with wild
fowl; the Unes of seines, where salmon, white fish, pike and
pickerel weighed down the nets, supplying abundance for the
settlers, who had as yet few cattle for food.
He pictured the place where old Grandfather Gibson was
building his schooner when bumcH by the Yankee pirate in
181«, and, telling these old Ules t his boy, recalled the way-
laying of the mail-carrier, travelling rapidly by land-post from
U
18
Tht lUuvtination ^Joupk Kuh,, £«,
!l;f
bMin of the B«r, wUle thl ^ '^!.'^"l""« *''• 8«'*«»^
of the piiA-whS; btolm! 7^J '"'*^ *^« ™™»' '««<«»«
At the hotel theoIdnZI? ^•" '. ™"'»'''« intoaction.
inquired of m. K^^uTZ ' "^t Tf' ™ "« ««*'*•'•
when he »^eJtt.t ft wt twT.f V '™'"'' '^*"- ""•
improved on his loouacitrTnHfcT . . "'■ ^"" Bomface
fame of old CptS S^d ttf M ""^ ""= t""'™"-*
had hean, of Jthe g^tXtS:;" trpt:*'"- "''•"" "■•
J<»eph Keeler »S his^e Tt^U t. '^*' ""' '"» ^"P»^
to recaU forgotten ^fere^l" by^'ll^erT^ """, "'°'"*
on the Bay; while the «mnl. 7 *''* *"'y '™«
fa,hionedhoLZ^:4';:Xe':?"f;''"' """' '"«^ ""-
of a period in the hi,tonr omf., fT ' !" ^J*'*"* memorial.
Upper Canada, whfch tm nl^h J^^Tv-""' •'"^''"P"™* of
•Hetnming to tte hlteUS^ ^ ^'" *" ••."" "^ " ^''»«» book,
and learned the l«^tion cf ttf ^"v^T**?"^ the proprietor
wa, situated weJ^^XS^^^^t « ''°"'''*^= •"- '*
replaced that which had beTb^ J^ n^' '""'*°' 'armhouse
rtiU showed the Z^oHLT ^' «"""'''' '«"'«™'.
behind was loct^e 11 ^^^ *'"'" °° *^« '"ndy knoU
BonifacegossSn^ , i? T^ ^'"^ «""»d »tiU the«.
a.veness.zs-,t^L^rrrf::ihtr^""'''*^'''-
than to those days when his f«t W u T^ . ** "^ accuracy
house in the coac^^™ ^ imt^t" '''^ "^"^l^t °" "**■
«. destructive of the s^ iT ^!,«"^« o* the raUway.
•»,«, ™. .^„ „ .. ,^ ^ ^ ^_ ___ _____^
Jomjih Keeltr ViriU Ike Home 0/ ku Anctriori 17
briar rOK and honeyiuclde to teU him not only that there,
"Tile rude torrfatlien cl the lumlet lleep";
but al«o. what to him waa of inten« importance, that there
lay hu forefathers. The strong Mjlf-comphoent man shed
•Uent tears at what seemed a life-long neglect and a permitted
•acnlef^, where catUe and sheep had broken through the
decayed stone wall of the neglected graveyard. Speaking very
qmetly to his son. Mr. Keeler said: "Ernest, we must 6nd wme
way of carmg for the graves of these dear old folks, who were
your ancestors as weU as mine." The lad cried, too, wonde>
mg much at it aU for though he had read of the glorious deed,
c* sddiers in Enghsh history, and had been eompeUed to learn
the datM of the battles of Queenston Heights and Lundy's
Lane and Stony Creek, the English masters at Upper Canada
CoUege were almost as ignorant of, as they were indifferent to
the heroic efforU of either Brock or De SaUbury, who had held
Canada for her sons and the Empire.
In the afternoon they took a carriage and drove around the
Bay shore road to near the Carrying Place and along the tow-
path of the canal, which was one of the living witnesses to the
tocal patriotism and endeavors for his native county of the
Hon. Joseph Keeler, who haddived and died in it and who, aa
he was to learn later, had been financiaUy ground between the
upper and ^e nether miU-stone of new economic condition,
brou^t in by the nulways, which have meant commercial
tragedies m Upper Canada, as elsewhere, which have wiped
out in truth thousands of family names in the older border
counties of early settlement, once the syn<mym for local
progress, commercial integrity and social success. Of such
local history, the sessional papers of the Legishiture, and even
the portraits of the halls of ParUament aU teU of a time when a
(wigle name spoke the gloiy of a whole county, whose where-
abouts was known best from the fame of its representative
CHAPTER V
OmcuL Report to Fault on Paternal Genealoot
When Jowph Keeler returned to Toronto, he did ao b changed,
re-formed man. Hitherto the family had mortly counted on iU
deacent from the country rector, who had held the thanlugiving
»ervice for the suppression of the Rebellion, through instructions
from the lieutenant-governor, and had piously and with fervour
read the Litany —
"Fnm all Mditlon, privy conqiinc; and RbcUioii, Oood Loid dellnr ui."
If not in so many words, Mr. Keeler had been more than once
made to feel that yet, even though he was a successful wholesale
merchant, the true measure of the social family success had
come through the female Ime of succession. This belief was
fully impressed upon him, especially by his eldest son and daugh-
ter. The former was distinctly a member of the legal profession,
and the latter, for what were to her the best and moat logical
reasons, bore herself like that other Maud in Tennyson:
"But a cold clMf<ut face, ai I found her when her carriane paiaed
Faultily faultleia. ic^y legular. aplendidly nuD."
She had been for a term or two, recording secretary to the
"Daughters of the Empire," and her name, more than once, had
been seeu appended to resolutions and addresses, breathing
even redolent of— loyalty to the King, to the Empire and to the
Over-Seas Club.
When now Mr. Keeler returned from the Bay and Ernest
burst upon th dinner-table with a highly picturesque, if
slightly exaggerated and inaccurate account of what they had
heard and seen of the queer old place, where father's ancestors
were buried, jid of the canal, which one of them had had built,
the father felt a distinct sense of approaching, if not of having
wholly arrived on, the social plane, where his very superior
family had in these later years, when his business success and
financial standing in the community made it possible, found
to Tlu /ihimtnatton qf Jo-pk Kttit, Eiq.
thenuelvn to utunlly ctUblithed and k generally received and
accepted. Mn. Kecler now at once turned to her huiband and
enquired if what the lad had been chattering about wai correct!
and when Mr. Keeler laid "certainly I" ihe then wished to know
if he had diicovered who theie people were, aad whence they
bad come. Joseph Keeler, now with nme pardonable dignity
and perhaps ollended anceitral family pride, laid there wai the
following, which he had written on an envelope:
"To tk« Monory o( Captlin JoMph Knier, bom 17M U I'phai, Eoiluid,
•rriwd In BoMoa 177 J, ud Mttlgd in tlit New ChIIc DiMrlct 17M, • piimxr
of »» in Onrcfo >■> 1819, and held till Um end o( the war, nferinf much
tor Kinf and Countiy. DM 1898."
and
"Mary Peten, hie wife, boin in 1780. who coming to Canada with her
father. Captain Petet^ bote with hemic rounge the hanlihipe of ploDccr
dajw retalnini throiiahoiit her lon| Ufa a joyoui ipiilt: Who driighled her
childnn and fiandchildien with talea cl early danfen and adventuiea layinf
alwayi, Thoae wen udeed halcyon daya.' Died 18M."
At the end of this recital of the inscription on the old head-
stone, Mrs. Keeler with an injured air at once remarked:
"Now, Joseph, it is really too bad you have never told us this
before, when you really are of such a good famfly."
'Well, my dear," he replied, bUndly, "how could I, when I
did not know myself? And besides, my dear, you have always
had so much family yourself, there has not really been room for
much more.'*
To which reply, given perhaps with some intended emphuis,
his elder daughter replied,
"It is all very well, papa, to make fun of 'family'; but you are
just as proud of us and our mother's ancestors as we are our-
selves."
Mr. Keeler closed the matter, when he said very quietly, look-
ing meaningly toward his eldest son,
"It is veiy desirable, my dear, to have come of good families;
but there is with it a great responsibility laid upon us all of living
up to our privileges, and of doing things worthy of our ancestry."
Even tl mother was silent and the subject was turned to
some passing trifle— a rather oppressive silence marking the rest
of the dinner, except when broken by Ernest's rhapsodies on the
apple orchards of Brighton.
CHAPTER VI
DuctnuoN OM Cau«u or Hioh Pbicer, with Ruults
It hmd not poued Jowph Kecler's acute obwrvttion unno-
ticed, thiit the old luwn o( Brighton leemed to breathe an an-
cient air; that the age of the hoiues, the appearance of the stores,
the old hostelry, the absence of proper attention to the streets,
even the movements of tiie people, all seemed to tell of a life,
which had once been vigorous, energetic and hopeful, but which
now appeared to have been lived and was old. Similarly, the
farmsteadings and the farms, with their wealth of spring verdure
and the rare beauty of the scenery of the hills skirting the Bay,
seemed often to give evidence of a lack of agricultural progress;
while large fields of rough pasture land and wet, undrained areas,
seemed to indicate a something lacking to the eyes of an ener-
getic city man, always intent upon keeping buildings and ware-
houses as up-to-date as possible. Just what the matter was, Mr.
Keeler's inexperience of rural aSaurs prevented him from fully
comprehending; but the casual notices in the daily papers re-
garding a stationary or even lessening rural population came to
hia mind; while the possible relationship between these sti.te-
ments and certam unsatisfactory, and, indeed, unpleasant
conditions during a number of years past, in the mcreasing ex-
pense of doing business in selling goods throughout Ontario, with
lessening sales in the smaller towns and less profits, came to
assume an importance, which was to result m directing his
thoughta and actions a long way aside from the pathway which,
during a long and busy lifetime, he had followed with satisfac-
tion.
Just at the moment when these matters were fresh in his mmd
Mr. Keeler happened to be dining with a small company an^ongst
whom was the University Professor of Social EconomKs. The
table-talk passed from the general high cost of living to the cause
of the great increase in the cost of food products. The usually
ascribed causes were discussed, amongst which were the hi^
»
tt Tin IttuminoHaH qf JoMrk K—ttt, Btq.
imtak, too mmny in the ra*l-«st«te biuineu too muy middk-
mm handling lupplici, tiw high out of tnuuportation on nil-
wigri, the ihiftleMneu of the farmer in not producing enough,
with the boyi leaving the farm, the wtate tlirough highly paid
and wretchedly trained coolu and limilar reaioni, all more or
leH correct. Joeeph Keeler liitencd intently and with hif recent
rural obiervationa in mind Hid but little.
The profcMor in turn ipoke with academic conviction, while
all liitened reverently, inspired with awe, u hr talked of chang-
ing world ponditions, of how the early settlers in Canada had
mostly been «^ Ihe peasant class, too often of the pauper and even
criminal rhuaea, who were ignorant and content merely to labour
or simply to exist. He recalled how, late in the last century,
many of those had become well off; had grown ambitious for
their families, sending sons to college, while others went into
towns from the farm. Though a)l this did seem directly asso-
ciated wita the high cost of living, yet in the great world
processes of evolution, self-culture, social illumination, and the
cultivation of the amenities and graces were all important ; while
the many conveniences and even luxuries, which were within the
reach of the whole people, whether in city or country, after all
more than compensated for what at timet did seetn a diliicult^'
on the part of people in making ends meet. In fact, the time
had now arrived for society to begin to employ the inferior races;
in the East, the Pole, the Finn and Galician; in the West, the
Chinaman, Jap and Hindoo. Brain must ever rule over brawn,
and if only John Stuart Mill's policy of laiuafain were allowed
to operate freely and leave all these matters to be privately set-
tled by "competition" such temporary di£ ilties would, in the
end, right themselves. It had been remarked concerning this
professor of practical affairs, bom, bred and educated in the
Old World, that he busied himself with bis teaching duties very
seriously during the college term, only to hie away in the spring-
time to English or Alpine fields from which he might study at
long range the agricultural, industrial and social conditions of
the several Provinces of Canada, extending from ocean to ocean.
But apart from his rather irritating ipae dixit, he was scholarly
and companionable, and was capable of becoming interested in
social problems when directly set before him.
DumurioH m Catuu vf Hifk Pritf U
Now JoMph Kceler had not been at all Htii8ed with the pro-
(ewor'i ponderoiu platitudei, ud wu reioived to go much mora
ckiwly into the itudy of whtt had now become (or him an ab-
•orbing queetion. Inviting the profeuor to ipend the neit
Saturday evening with him, Mr. Keeler bade a general "Good-
nifktl" and walked home, revolving many thingi in hi> mind,
like Ulyuci by the loud-reiounding lea.
With the nnt Saturday evening came the profeuor and. Mt-
tled in a comfortable armchair in Mr. Keeler '• itudy with a pipe
and a glan of lome supporting Sedek, he liitened while Mr.
Keeler let before him certain phaiei of the problem which they
had been diacuwing as they bore upon commercial aSain, and
told then of the terieii of incident! that had taken him to the old
town on Pmqu'Isle Bay, and the new light iii which the whole
problem was licginning to appear to himself, as he read from the
past into the present history of the beginnings of settlement and
of the development of Upper Canada. He said :
" You know, professor, I was a lad of only five years when my
father left the old town down on the Bay, where he had been for
yean with his father, a general merchant, supplying the incom-
ing settlers going to the back townships with all kinds of goodi
on credit, and taking in return their potash, timber, grain and
farm produce. Uis father ijcfore bini, a farmer, hftcl .i^cdually
gone into business, as, having been the son of one of the earliest
settlers, he had grown to a man of local importance and was con-
sulted by the newcomers, who so often needed some temporaiy
assistance, and could only pay for it with produce, there being
but little money in those times. As I have now learned, my
father was but one of a series of merchants in those old lake
ports of the early days, which extended from Cornwall to To-
ronto. As the settlement of their townships was only possible
through these ports, so up from each at eveiy five to ten miles
were government roads, and the local squabbles of rival ton-ns
for the expenditure of public funds on their particular roads to
the back country were even more strenuous than those for local
railways today.
"In most of these larger villages or towns was a government
land agent; but especially important was this appointment in
the district or county towns, where were the registry offices.
44 The lUumination 0/ Joseph Keeler, Eiq.
Each of theie towns, as the immigration increased, became the
centre of a business activity in selling to the immigrants and in
shipping out lumber Rnd grain equalling, and exceeding even,
that of the growing towns of our new Northwest today, since
the products were much more varied. I have, indeed, taken
some trouble to obtain figures, which I have found in old blue-
books, which I suppose my father had sent him by his cousm,
the Hon. Joseph Keeler, of Northumberhmd County. From
these I learn that when Lord Durham's report was acted upon
and Mr. Poulett Thomson, afterwards Lord Sydenham, got his
District Councils Act passed in 1841 and a census taken, the
population of Upper Canada was 450,000 and the actual revenues
were but $700,000.
"Now mark what followed. By 1881 after the union with
Lower Canada as a legislative union had existed twenty years,
the census showed in 1861 a population increase in Upper Canada
to 1,396,000, and a revenue of $3,500,000. But what further is
of intense interest is the then distribution of population. The
townships of Murray and Cramahe in the Bay district were
surveyed about 1794, and other lakeside townships westward a
little later. The census of 1841 gives the following table, which
I have compared with 1861 and 1911 :"
Tammhipt lau t861 1911
Murray 8061 361* 8765
Cramahe SOIS 3841 2439
Hamilton 4857 6315 8414
Clarke fuu 8575 3S75
Haldunand 2690 6165
Hope sase 5888 SJ7S
Town of Cobourg 4974 5074
Town of Port Hope 4162 5092
Rear Towmhipt
Seymour. 847 8842 S3S1
Percy "... 726 3515 2786
Asphodel 551 2911 1861
Cavan 2899 4901 2499
Cartwright 365 2727 1584
Ditcuttion on Causa of High Prices is
Mr. Keeler continued:
"1 confew I was astoni.; -a r-oe^ t had carefuUy examined
ttese three »eU of figures. To think. wU:. i total population in
Ontario in 1911 of «,««S,i :i, aad only 46f.000 in 1841, that the
townships along the lake i Im e had at thi time, in almost eveiy
instance, larger populations thiui iu IDII though aU had notably
mcreased in 1861, was something I never dreamed of. But the
way in which settlement advanced through these lake ports
l»fore the raUway came is neatly Ulustrated by the figures for
the rear townships in 1861 as compared with 1841. All had
filled to overflowing, and yet the losses in these townships by
1911 are even greater than in those along the lake shore."
To the professor, these figures applied in detail to a special
district, were most startling. He, of course, knew of the depop-
ulation of Ireland at the time of the famine of 1846, but he knew
also that such was due to poverty, disease, and political unrest
He was acquainted, too, with the periods of unusual emigration
from England and Scotland; but then these were caused by
either commercial depression or bad land laws. But how to
explain a situation in a province like Ontario, which had no old-
time problems to solve, where peace and plenty, so far as he
knew, had existed for many years, and where agriculture always
seemed prosperous was to him quite impossible. The question
had been much too small an affair for him, whose studies in eco-
nomics had been based almost whoUy upon European conditions-
while, as regards the periodicaUy acute problems in the United
States, such were looked upon as a part of European commercial
questions and as abnormal, owing to an enormous mass of unas-
similated people, and not governed by the operation of ordinary
economic laws.
When, however, Mr. Keeler pointed out that along with this
steady lessemng of the rural population, there was an equal les-
senmg of local business, measured by the wholesale dealings of
h« firm and the wholesale trade generaUy, and that he learned
from the Ontario Bureau of Industiy Reports of the decline al-
most yearly during the past ten years of the areas in crop in many
old counties and of the decrease in the number of cattle and
sheep and of less acreage in wheat, barley and oats grown, the
professor began to comprehend that perhaps here really was a
26
The Ittuminatum of Joteph Keeler, Etq.
problem quite within the range of his work; while the more he
dwelt upon it the len certain he was that he had up to this time
been doing all his duty to the University of the Province, which
supplied him with a secured position, and which institution
existed and was supported for the very purpose of giving scholars
like himself opportunities for tracing existing sociological and
economic conditions to their first causes, and perhaps indicating
wherein mistakes had been made and how remedies might be
applied.
The professor at length rose up to say. Goodnight! and
thanked Mr. Keeler again for the quite new train of thought and
study opened up and promised to meet him soon again.
i|i :
CHAPTER vn
JoeEPB Kbeueb, Student of Eablt Canadian Hibtobt
In the interval, Joseph Keeler had been busy on his now all-
engrossing subject. He took it to the club with him and at odd
moments, producing his volume of figures and statistics, would
discuss the tope with his business friends at Board meetings
and elsewhere. He devoured every available scrap of early
history and especially of the District he had grown to love and
look upon as his own. He learned from the old newspaper
files in the central library and from various blue books of the
manner in which a group of English, Irish or Scotch immigrants
would settle a whole township in one year and of how in the next
township a quite different class would come the year following.
He became acquamted too from standard Canadian histories
with the organization of the District Councils by the Bill of
Lord Sydenham in 1841, under which the wardens were nomi-
nated by the Governor, and with the rapid evolution of county
self-goyemment completed by the Hon. Robert Baldwin's
Municipal Act of 1840, providing for complete township auton-
omy. He found too that the effects of the long struggle for
representative institutions had developed a strength and sturdi-
ness of thought and of mdependent action m the people of
Upper Canada, increased by the inrush of emigrants from Britain
who had witnessed the same fight there, resulting in the Reform
Bill of 1838, and later m the Repeal of the Com Laws in 184S,
all which had resulted in the merging into one of the people here
to a degree and with a rapidity never before surpassed.
Digging yet deeper, Mr. Keeler found a whole volume of
correspondence containing minutes of the Legislatures of both
Canadas and of several Boards of Trade, which existed even in
those early days, urging that free entry he given to Canadian
wheat into Britain and at the same tune asking that American
wheat be admitted free to Canada for grindmg, but that it
should be taxed in England, thereby supplying a preference
f
m
9S
The lUuminatum of Joseph KeeUr, Esq.
necessary^ it was stated, because of tlie cheaper freight via the
Erie Canal which ran from Oswego to the Hudson. As bearing
intimately on this matter, Mr. Keeler found a letter to Lord
John Russell dated 21st January, 1841, from Lord Sydenham
then Governor of the Canadas. It stated:
"Upper Canada is, as you are aware, entirely dependent upon
the sale of its agricultural produce and especially of wheat for
the production of which it is eminently calculated. Great
excitement prevaib in that Province at the present time with
regard to this subject. The abundant harvest both here and
in the Western States has greatiy increased the quantity for
exportation; but the prices are so low that the farmers and
laborers are unable to derive the advantage they expected. The
consequence is that there is an outcry raised for what is termed
agricultural protection in the shape of duties upon the produce
of the United States imported into Canada — a scheme, it is
hardly necessary to observe, whicti would, even if it were nat
objectionable in principle, be utterly useless to an importing
country for the end sought, namely, to raise the price; whilst
it would diminish if it did not destroy a great brancli of trade,
the grinding of United States com admitted into the Ports of
the Jlother Country."*
But there were many side-lights which illumined for Mr.
Keeler the actual situation as it existed in those days, while one
dealing with matters in his own lakeshore district was of intense
interest to him.
Before a committee of the Legislature in 1842 the pros and
eoru of the conflicting claims for the expenditure of a grant of
£1,500 on a settlement road leading from the lake to the head of
Rice lake in the rear townships were discussed, the competing
towns being Cobourg and Port Hope. The evidence went on,
John Gilchrist, member of the House, being called:
* Answers in ooDunittee brought out the fact that the price of wheat on
the ahorea of Lake Erie was tt 9d, od Lake Ontario, 3« Ijd, that freight
from Chicago to St. Catharines was M per bushel; tnm Cleveland to St. Catha-
rines Od; thence to Kingston id; from Kingston to Montreal 7^; and from
Montrcftl to Eugland ii; while tnm Cleveland to New York the freight was
It 8d, and that wheat on Lake Erie to remunerate the owner ought not to
be less than 4t (tl.O(^ per bushel.
ili'ii
Student of Early Canadian HUtory 29
"Q. Are you aware that Cobourg is in the hands of the
Government? A. I have understood so.
"Q. Is not the trade of Cobourg larger than from Port Hope?
A. I think so and its being the District town compels many
more persons to resort to it.
"Q. What are your views on the subject of Rice Lake navi-
gation bemg generally used? A. At present it costs sixpence
per bushel to bring p.-oduce to Port Hope. If th-; Plank Road
is completed it wil! reduce this to three pence, by bringing the
produce to Peterborc and thence by water to the Plank Road.
"Q. Do you think the penodical fires will endanger the - d
by the new route? A. I have often seen the Plains on fire;
it is not as formidable as represented. There are some farms
on the Plams, and the farmers generally run four furrows round
their fences, and these protect them effectually. The same
precaution would in my opinion protect the Road. Answering
the question. Is the wheat brought to Peterboro and thence by
direct route to Cobourg? Gilchrist answered: That there are
several flouring mills on the route where it may be ground en
rovit* "
Illustrating what were other difficulties of the times, Mr.
Keeler further found in an enquiry about postal facilities by a
Royal Commission the following amongst many other choice
bits. It is a letter by Rev. John Roaf, dated Toronto, 1840,
in answer to an official enquiry. It states:
"A large portion of the people of this District are so far from
Post Offices as to be virtually destitute of accommodation
from them. . . . Many persons attribute this not only to
political favoritism but to the contemptible purpose of driving
as many as possible to the shops of the postmasters. . . .
Sometimes the English mail is made up here before half the
city population is aware of it ; and if a person i« a day or two late
his letter may be eight or nine weeks in rei.uimg England."
Such and much more was the material which Joseph Keeler
had ready to discharge at the professor at iheir next meeting.
■ii
Hi'
I
liii
CHAPTER Vm
When Uffeb Canada Becaii£ the Doionaiit Fabtneb
It WM several weeks before Mr. Keeler was able to arrange
another evening with his friend, the professor: but, when they
next met, he was fully prepared with data wherewith to make a
very good exposition of the commercial conditions of these
early years from 1840 onward, and found that his friend, the
professor, who had been saturated with the contents of standard
works on the growth of the Free Trade cult in England, pricked
up his ears and showed an intense interest in figures, which gave
so completely the prices of wheat and the cost of carriage in
Canada at the very moment when Gladstone as under secretary
jf the Board of Trade was laboring at the tariff schedules of
1,«00 articles, trying to make them fit when they would not,
and who was forced finally in his desperate task to advise Sir
Robert Peel in December, 1845, in the midst of the most acute
commercial depression and serious political unrest, associated
with the poverty and sufferings of the unemployed in England,
and the disease and death from famine in Ireland, to bum his
protectionist ships and in a single bill abolish entirely the taxes
on com and wheat.
The professor was just beginning his education in a new field
and, trained to study, learned rapidly. The first question which
naturally occurred to him to ask was: "How did the almost
wholly new political and economic situation, developed in the
United Canadas after Lord Sydenham's efforts toward a pref-
erential treatment of food imports to England, affect immigra-
tion?" The professor was amazed at the information he
obtained.
"From the census returns he found that while Upper Canada
had increased in population from 1811 thus,
1811 77,000 1841 46S,SS7
18«4 155,000 1851 952,004
18S4 820,000
91
■fi'
32
The Illumination of Joseph KeeUr, Esq.
yet the rate for the decade, 1841-1851, wai 104 per cent. He
further learned with surpriw that thU rate of increase exceeded
that in the most rapidly developing western state, Ohio, which
had in 1850 some 1,080,427 of population; but whose increase
in ten years had b^n only 33 per cent, while what was even more .
marvellous was that the wheat acreage of Upper Canada, though
but seven-twelfths that of Ohio, had raised 12,675,630, or 16.25
bushels per acre, as compared with a total of 14,487,351 in
Ohio."
The professor was, however, too keenly analytical to imagine
that this remarkable development of Upper Canada was due
solely to the repeal of the Com Laws, which favored the United
States equally with Canada, although the Imperial Parliament
did in 1843 put a protective duty on wheat coming into Canada
from the United States. Very properly he found this marvel*
lous increase in population due to the choosing by the unemployed
population of the Mother country of emigration as perhaps the
leaser of two evils, — a forlorn hope, indeed, since it meant an
ocean voyage often as long as t\so months under conditions on
shipboard, which today dare hardly be recorded. John Morley,
writing of the situation in England, says,
"Commerce was languishing. Distress was terrible. Poor
Law rates were mounting and grants-in-aid were extending
slowly from the factory districts to the rural. 'Judge,' then said
Peel, 'whether we can with safety retrograde in manufactures.* "
"Then came the failure of the potato crop in Ireland and the
famine and distress attendant upon it, forcing emigrants to the
United States, Canada and Australia, to the number of 1,404,786
from 1840 to 1850 and m 1847 alone there were 109,680 who
came to Canada. But along with the poverty and misery of the
poor emigrant on leaving Britain came disease and death in this
terrible year; the quarantine at Grosse Isle in the St. Lawrence
saw 5,424 victims of ship fever buried, with physicians and
clergy laid beside them, while hundreds more died at the marine
hospitals at Quebec, and Montreal and en route to towns farther
inland. In 1849 cholera served to fill in the details of this
picture of misery, this being the year succeeding the 'Year of
Revolutions,' when all Europe was an armed camp in ceaseless
agitation due to sudden alarms from every side. The decade
Wkn Upptr Canada Became Dominant Partner SS
found Ihe population of Iicluid decreawd from S.ns.lU to
6,414.794. or «U per cent; whUe the efflux from Germany to
the United SUtei, already just a million by 1840, brought a
sturdy freedom-loving people during the next decade, who gave
mtelligent energy and labour to the virgin soils of the prairie
and soldiers to the cominp fiirht. and who perhaps saved the
Union. With all this inrush of people to Upper Canada, making
a total of 1,S0«.081 by 1681, a population of only 103,894 was
found in 1881 in her five cities, or 7 per cent of the total, then
thought adequate for all her centralised commercial needs,
while the products of the farm alone amounted to (89,129,314. "
These astounding figures so far exceeded anything conceived
by the professor that, bad they not been blue-book statistics,
for which he bad a professional, even reverential respect, he
could not have given them credence. The influx had exceeded
the almost fixed average of immigration for five previous decades
of 83 per cent to the United SUtes by over 66 per cent. Surely
nothing ever did more clearly demonstrate the possibilities of
the natural wealth of the peninsula, girt with iU fresh water
seas, bearing its wealth of primeval forest, fanned in autumn
by the winnowing winds and fed from virgin soils sleeping during
untold ages under the deep calm of the still winter whiteness,
only to yield up to the vernal sunshine that rich Earth, which
but required the touch of the ploughman's share to make it
bourgeon forth with the w ilth of grass and grain demanded by
the needs of the toiling masses of English towns. He thus began
to realise the full meaning of that immanent Providence which,
teaching men the brotherhood of man and making them learn
the arts of Peace, had brought the resources of Science to bear
on the problem and in the invention of the steam engine, pro-
pelling vessels across the hitherto measureless oceans, and bearing
the fruits of the earth to the sea-board over thousands of miles
by railways, was supplying a means by which the congested
millions of old-world cities could escape their thraldom, and,
finding use for their energies, were now to cause to disappear
those ever-feared demons of famme, whose gaunt forms from
time to time had, during all the past centuries, stalked across
the darkened landscapes of the countries of the world.
m
( I
M
Tlu lUuminalim qf Jottpk Kfttr, Etq.
The two men grew lilent under the influence which these old
figures, speaking from out past years, made upon them and they
parted (or the evening, each promising to follow up the history
of events as they marked the succeeding half century.
CHAPTER IX.
Thi; Heir or the Kecleiu Under a Socul Clocb
The current of evenU hu glided along more or leu event-
fully in the Keeler homehold since the evening, some month*
ago, when young Ernest disturbed its even flow by telling them
all of the greatness of their paternal ancestors. Madam Keeler
has since then had at least one lift added to the heels other
already unusually high shoes and has, perhaps, on veiy impor-
tant occasions shaken the flounces of her skirts just a little more
pronouncedly than formerly and worn an aigrette on her ex-
pensive hat somewhat higher even than its hitherto ample
proportions possessed. Neither has she neglected to direct the
conversation on eveiy convenient occasion to the absurd way in
which her boy had come home, ranng about what he and hii
father had discovered regarding the family at Brighton, the par-
ticulars always being given with a pleasing naiceti when, after
aroiismg curiosity, she complied with the request for details.
Even Miss Keeler, who always maintained with Such dignity
the family honour, now felt only the more justified in her
pretensions and at club meetings had been even more solic-
itous in advancing the claims of those descended from the
early first families of Upper Canada to a due and proper consid-
eration, and impressed the young gentlemen, emigrit in their
own eyes from England, who so frequently honoured with their
presence the drawing-rooms where she found herself, that it was
these early emigrants of good families who had really main-
tained pure and undefiled the traditions which had made
Canada, for such new-comers as they, so pleasing a place to
come and reside in, since they could find here at least a few
of the graces which had marked select society at home.
Undoubtedly, however, the events had run most swiftly for
the son and heir, John Keeler, during these past months. It
had been aknost inevitable that, in the rushing torrent of busi-
ness development and speculation in Toronto, he should have
as
30
Tkt lUumination qf Jom]^ Kuttr^ E»q.
become involved more or leu in the real etUte trauactionit
which bad atimuUled u well u fdlowed the phenomenal in-
creue of * city which had grown 81 per cent in the ten yeari of
the censui, or from 408.000 to 870.000. Indeed, be had become
one of a lyndicate formed a year or two previous to exploit a
luburban farm, lending especially his family name as a guarantee
of stability, but. nevertheless, taking many shares, which were
to be paid for out of profits from the sale of lots in the rapid
turnover expected. Unfortunately the purchase had been made
at too high figures, the extension of the radial railway, which
from inaide information was to boom the price, bad not mate-
rialised and just now the young lawyer was finding it extremely
difl^cult to obtain money to meet the "calls," since his income
as a junior member of the law firm was not large, while his club
expenses, always nearly even with his income, did not allow
him much ready cash wherewith t6 meet such extra demands.
But what was more unfortunate was that John Keeler had con-
tracted a habit. His former occasional stances at a cent-a-point
had now become a nightly occupation and the betting at. brid^t
became heavy in a certain clique of which he was one, while his
needs were making him plunge more deeply, the nervous ten-
sion preventing him from maintaining the sang-froid and de-
veloping the Umche erudite of the experienced gambler. It was
not to be supposed that the increasing irregularities of the
young man, his restlessness and irritability, could very long
escape the acute observation of his father, who, while making
every allowance for him as a young man, understood too well
that all such effects had their legitimate cause. Casual hints that
better hours and more regular attentwn to business would seem
desirable had been met with scant respect, and, while seeming
to result in some temporary improvement, matters soon drifted
back into the old routine, and Mr. Joseph Keeler was soon to
have the unfortunate fact brought home to him that ancestral
advantages of birth and good breeding, never, since the days
when the Judges ruled Israel and the Scriptures were written,
have been a guarantee against moral laches and impioprieties
of conduct, since we find it written, regarding tiie sons of Sam-
uel the prophet, "And his sons walked not in his ways but
tturned aside after lucre and took bribes and preverted Judg-
ments."
Tki Brir qf Ikt KnUri undtt a Socitd Cloud S7
It WM thra with vniUble •lam thmt Mr. Knier mw in tin
P*tM of Saturday M,hl. which h») b«n making for month.
wuUughU on the fren.i»d fl„,n« ,nd rr«l r.t.le plunging of
Toronto .nd other Ciin.diin ritiei. reference, to a club K^andal.
Which, while giving no name., made it perfectly pl«in that the
cotene to whKh hi. wn belonged had gotten into trouble with
the HouK Committee, not perhap. primarily on account of high
phiy, but becauK a member had been accuKd of cheating Of
coune the vandal w«. invctigated behind clowd door.! but
to Mr. Kccler the yet more jaded appearance of hi. K>n and the
hinu about certain young men made it quite obviou. to him
Uiat hi. mn had been in »rae manner involved. So maitera
contmued for a .hort time, the «.n, while Kerning to be home
earlier at time., did not in any way a«ume hi. oldtime jaunty
manner, but rather hi. irritabUity and lack of attention to the
ordinaiy amemtie. of home life increawd. The climax wa,
reached, however, when Mr. Keeler. coming home late from
an entertainment m hi. auto, suddenly came around the comer
upon hi. »n in a maudlin .Ute. hi. brother. Tom. and a friend
having been with difficulty conveying him home. tni:-,ting that
the houK had a. usual become quiet and that the intoxicated
young man could be .lipped into bed unnoticed. Mr Keeler
now undemtood and reali«d what month, of vague hint, and
dubiou. appearance, meant, and. feeling that the famUy honour
wa. at .take, became a. anxiou. a. Tom that the matter wh ch
he hoped wa. the firat Mriou. aberrancy .hould be kept from
the mother of the family. Hi. rtem but quiet tone Krved in
some degree to wber the young man and. with Tom'. awuiUnce
matters were areanged » that the hou«hold remained ignorant
of what had happened.
Mr. Jo«!ph Keeler wa. much too prompt in businew matters
to allow an affair of this kind to be overlooked or to drift so
that, when John wa. known to be sleeping heavUy. he requerted
lom to come to the library. The generous, open-hearted b-.dier
came feehng as if he were the culprit, and, while lov-Jty to his
brother demanded that he should make the matte"r appear as
little seriou. a. possible, hi. own frank nature a. weU as hi.
knowledge of his father prevented him from attempting in any
'Ml
S8
The lUuminatim of Jotepk Ketler, Etq.
1 !,
•: .
m
way to deceive, even thou^ he tried to palliate hii brother'a
faults. The father aaid:
"Tom, I am greatly distressed. I have observed that John
has for months been keeping later and more irregular homra;
that bis appearance in the morning has indicated dissipation of
the night before ; but I never dreamed that one of my sons could
ever so forget himself as to be brought home intoxicated. I
want to know how long this has been going on and whether or
not there is any special cause for such a change in John?"
"Father," said Tom, "I hope you won't be too hard on John;
but things have been gomg from bad to worse ever smce John
got in with that syndicate bunch in the FoUie Park real-estate
deal. You know most of them and, while some are very nice
fellows, the manager who has little or no stock in the concern,
and Sam Brown, who is president, have been playing pretty
sharp lately and by encouraging play and its accompaniments
have kept the crowd as much as possible from realising just
how matters have been going. They paid a long price for the
farm, and while some have been able to meet payments, others,
and John amongst them, have been getting farther behind every
day, and some have been foolish enough to try and make it up
by 'play' and others have just kept playing because they did
not know how to get out."
"And to which lot does John belong?"
Tom looked at his father, whose firm, stem face made decep-
tion impossible, and said:
" You see, father, John just played for sport at first, and drank
a little; but as these payments became pressing he had been so
unaccustomed to such calls upon him that it made him anxious
and irritable and I think that he often played and drank more
just to make him forget, especially as the manager kept telling
him that when the season opened and the tramway ran past the
park, the price of lots would double."
Again the father asked, looking more anxiously if not more
sternly:
"Was John mixed up in that scandal, which Saturday Night
talked about?"
Tom's face paled with shame and fear at his father's question
Tht Heir cf Oe Ktelm under a Social Cloud SB
uttered in • tone almost of anguuh, yet knew that nothing but
the truth could suffice.
"Yes, father, he was and, I am ashamed to say, John was the
one accused of cheating."
Joseph Keeler was as one who had been struck a deadly blow,
for he turned pale with shame rather than anger at the very
suggestion that a son of his could be capable of a dishonourable
act. His voice faltered as he slowly pioceeded :
"And was it proved?"
"Well father, I am so sorry for John, the committee found
that he had acted in a miumer unbecoming a gentleman; but,
inasmuch as he was said to have been intoxicated at the time,
the club ruling condoned the offence as not requiring his res-
ignation, but he will not be permitted to play again in the club
for a year. It is the disgrace, added to this financial trouble,
that has driven him into the condition you have seen him, sir."
There was a filence for some minutes in the library— for Tom
as if it were of the tomb— when it was broken by Joseph Kee'er:
"Tom, my boy, I need not say that this is a lesson for you."
\
i"l
I
CHAPTER X
Thk Pbofessob A8 a Stddent or Canadian Econoiocb
Owing to the pressure of business and the urgency of distress-
ing family matters, it was some time before Mr. Joseph Keeler
could return with any enthusiasm to the studies, which had
for him so Iieen an interest. But the professor had been put
on a keen scent and, like the trained hound, ran his quarry to
earth, so that when he again found himself in the cosy study of
the Keeler home, he was not long in taking up the story which
Mr. Keeler had brought up to 1850. He said:
"Comparing English with Canadian historical events, he
found, while world-wide British trade, now freed from the shack-
les of discriminating tariffs, was rapidly recovering from the
serious depression of the ' Forties,' that in Canada the enormous
immigration had created an era of land speculation, which kept
up so long as new towns could be exploit«»i along the lines of the
Great Western Railway now building from Niagara Falls to
Detroit and of the Grand Trunk from Portland to Samia, and
as new townships remained to be opened in Perth, Huron and
Grey. Labour, with the employment of the large number of
immigrants in railway building, remained high, and all prices
were made still more exorbitant during the two years, 1854-
1846, of the Russian war, in which the wheat supplies of Russia
were suddenly cut off from the millions of needy mouths of
Britain's work-people, making wheat in Canada and the neigh-
borii:g States rise to »«.60 per bushel. Nevertheless the crisis
was ra.nidly approaching which was to so lessen Canadian credit
that a period of extreme depression was created, lighted only
by occasional sunshine, which was to last for forty years. He
found that towns had been laid out in the Queen's Bush even
and Sites held in the nearest town of Guelph on the marketplace
when; marquees were erected and liquors, even champagne,
flo«»< like water, while the mad orgy of trading in ephemeral
values went on. The American railways, having once reached
41
f,1
J!
42 The lUmninoHon of Joiepk Ke^, Etq.
Xi:i Great Lakes, continued akirting the southern shores and
even pushing into every state east of the Mississippi. Large
land grants were given to railway promoters, and in Britain,
Germany and Sweden their agents were scouring every district to
secure immigrants to their lands, thereby to repair the damages
of the financial collapse which had followed the Peace of Paris,
18M. He found too that immigration had become the commer-
cial barometer in America, instead of the price of wheat as used
to be in England, as seen in the figures for these succeeding
years. Thus the immigrants for different years were:
United Sialet Upper Canada
IMl «67,8»7 «,6(W
laM 244,S6i aa,a',i
IMS «80,88« S4,«M
1M4 19S,08« 48,761
18M 103,414 17,966
18i J 111,887 16,878
18S'' 1«6,90« «1,0C1
ISii «»,716 9,704
1849 70,808 6,688
1860 119,9«8 9,786
" But he found that another and wholly different set of forces
were now to affect the normal progress of commercial develop-
ment in the United States and to react disastrously upon Canada,
which for a moment was the seeming temporary gainer by the
Civil War, which broke out in 1861. North had met South in
fratricidal confiict and the energies of a nation of 3!i,000,000
were engaged in the most sanguinary war of the nineteenth
century. For the moment immigration to the States fell in
1862 to 64,191; but this did not read, favourably upon Canada
which had only 12,717 in that year. The depression in business
already following over-speculation in railways in the United
States had encouraged that government to enter into a reciproc-
ity agreement in 18S4 for ten years with Canada, which was
henceforth to become a doorway to the Northern States, and
horses sold at high prices and food supplies of every kind found
free access and at favourable returns during the four exhaust-
ing years which followed. In spite of the war, however, the
inmiigration to the States rose to 191,114 m 1864; remained at
Studmt of Canadian Econamict
48
that untU alter the North was victorious when it tt once in-
creased to SS2,{rr in 1887. While, however, the local trade of
Canada seemed for the moment prosperoiu* ip. these years, polit-
ical ferment between the opposing proidnces, accentuatnl by
racial and religious mistrust between the two dominant races in
the United Canadas, made any progressive movement towqrda
national development impossible. The year 1864 saw the
Reciprocity Treaty abrogated; while the one brigut gleitm of
national hope, which shone with the crowning Act of Confed-
eration in 1867, came too late in any way to counter-baUuce
the glorious sense of power and national resourcefulness felt by
the victorious Northern States. Canada was forgotten, when a
triumphant people, now nearly 40,000,000, turned the energies
of millionii of disbanded soldiers back into the walks of peace.
The railways, already wide-spread, were pushed westward from
the stanopoint both of national security and unity and of
commercial development, and 1869 saw a railway uniting with
iron bands the people and destinies of a whole continent be-
tween two oceans and gave a nation, who had fought to be free,
an intrinsic sense of ability to dare to do and accomplish, aided
by the telegraph and steam engine, — ^the necromancers of the
modem world — deeds in peace never imagined, much less
equalled elsewhere. A nation had found its soul and its spiritual
essence blossomed forth in works of material accompli^ment,
which, however crude, illustrated the spirit of their Viking
ancestors of a thousand years before."
All this the professor now read into the cold facts u' history
and turning his eyes upon puny Canada beheld a series of dis-
connected provinces with no sense of unity, no common interests,
no trustful spirit, no conscious hope. The most promised for
the darksome future was that the Confederation Act contained
a clause providing for the building of the Intercolonial Railroad
from Canada to the sea at Halifax and to this end a loan of
£3,000,000 was guaranteed by the British Government. The
professor had abeady seen that immigration had almost ceased;
he learned from the Committee of Agriculture of the Legisla-
ture in 18«9 that the Grand Tnmk Railway, built with the
money of English bondholders, had had its agents in Germany
anu Sweden, booking passengers for the longest haul to Chicago
ifl
44
The lUumination qf Jotepk KeeUr, Etq.
'^lU
and the West, and found it stated that of the few who entered
as immigranta at Quebec, almost none stayed in Canada. He
now understood upon what basis continental expansion de-
pended: viz., that of virgin land for cultivation of wheat, and as
yet Canada had no western territories. Committees of the Leg-
islature had had Simon Dawson, the explorer, and others tell
them of the Lone Land beyond the Great Lakes, behind the
rock-ribbed interminaUe areas of spruce forests and deep-
basined water stretches of the western Laurentians. These
travellers told of a land of black, deep soil, where the common
crops of the East might grow; but which now was the home of
Indian tribes and a few scattered half-breed settlements, some
En^h but mostly French, but all tied to the chariot wheels
— or canoe stems — of the Great Hudson's Bay Company.
Such was the story which, as it increased in volume, grew in
intensity of interest with the telling of the professor, who, proud
of his researches, yet with a new-found sympathy, told it with
growing emphasis as he paced the floor before his friend whom
he held spellbound with his eloquent periods. Becoming con-
scious of being entrapped into an unwonted enthusiasm, he said:
**But, Mr. Keeler, I have been doing all the talking and have
been telling what to you are conmionplaces and matters of your
own experience."
"No, indeed," said Mr. Keeler, "I am sincerely grateful to
you, for you have condensed, what it is quite true I have known
but never apprehended in its full meaning, the hiFtory of a period
which is the length almost of my whole life, into a living picture,
which, as you recall its details, enables me to see the very actors
in it come upon the stage and play their parts as in a kinemat-
ograph, and I shall ever thank you for having worked into the
very texture of the series of pictures scenes which make a veri-
table drama of the history of Canada as I have known it. There
are, of course, dozens of personal experiences which I can give
you of the events of those t^ro decades which you have illumi-
nated so well; but. in essence you have given the history."
The professor said, **How dearly I would like to hear some
of them from you! "
"Well, you will remember,** said Ikfr. Keeler. "I was but a
child when the American war b^an and the first thing I recall
Studtta rf Canadian Eeonomia
45
i* the excitement in CanuU over the Trent affcir, when eveiy-
wheie they began to form volunteer companies and itart drilling.
Ot courae I knew nothing o{ what it meant; but I remember well
the great Review as early as 1862 when some 5,000 troops were
assembled on the Garrison Common, and when the Thirteenth
Huaaais and the Rifle Brigade and batteries o{ artillery marched
and countermarched and skirmished all day, having associated
with them our own Queen's Own and Grenadiers. I was so
anxious to get near the horsemen as they marched oS the fiehl
that I found myself nmning along holding on to the stirrup of a
Hussar who talked to and petted me; but 1 6nally got lost in the
crowd and was found crying by one who knew my father and
took me home. After that, every boy at school was a soldier,
and we boys formed a company and got our mothen to make us
red jackets trimmed vith white braid, black forage caps with a
white band, and black trousers with a broad white stripe down
them. We cut and planed blocks of wood, paintn' them black
and put them on black polished belts for cartridge boxes and
even cut heavy blocks of wood and strapped them on as knap-
sacks. On a Saturday, more than once our squad of boys
assembled early at one end of the street, got the smaller boys
hitched to our plsy wagons, loaded with sheets, blankets and
clothes-horses borrowed from our mothers and marched in fine
form to a vacant lot, where we bivouaced for the day; took our
tin pails and boiled potatoes and fried eggs and meat in our
borrowed spiders; had the parade and sham fight after dinner
and marched home, tired and cross perhaps, but saturated with
the military enthusiasm of the time. We went further even and
became attached to a company whose drill quarters were nearby,
and they bought fifes and drums for us and, except on official
parades, we were the band to march out with them. You could
not know what it meant, for, toward the latter part of the war,
there were a lot of disreputable Irish soldiers across the Line
who stimulated the old antagonism to Great Britain amongst
the Americans, made the more acute by the Trent affair, and
the more or less openly expressed sympathy of certain British
papers tor the South. Their emissaries came to Canada, and
stirred up a disaffection, which, perhaps never very serious,
caused reports of secret drillings and the hiding of thousands of
Tkt lUuminalim qfjotepk JCwbr, Etq.
M
•tandi-of-unu, ind preparatioiu mt a ngnal for • riling united
by Feniu invaders hom the South to wreit Canada fram per-
6dioiu Albion. The time* were (uU of terron for the young
and exciUment for thoM older. I remember well looking over
my father'! ihoulder aa he read aloud from hii daily paper the
account of the auaaaination of President Lincoln, and recall the
•till more aerioua affair of the Fenian Raid at Fort Erie.
"All of us boyi went to lee the Queen's Own embark for Port
Dalhousie on June 1, 1866, and we waited in breathless excite-
ment for news of the fight which all the next day was taking
place at Ridgeway. i hen too we followed with the crowd on
the Monday after, when the bodies of the d«ad, Unded at Yonge
Street Wharf, were given a military funeral, and especially do I
lemember the names of the men of Company K, your old Var-
sity Company, McKeude, Mewbum and Tempest, who were
killed out of a total of forty in a few minutes in the Limeridge
part of the fi^t, and recall dear old Professor Vander who,
though badly wounded, is I still sac on deck in the University.
"Of course I joined the Cadet Company at Upper Canada
College, when old enough, and later recall how the martial
spirit stayed with us when one summer three of my Form stole
away and enlisted in the Queen's Own to go to Niagara Camp
and of old Principal Cockbum's translation of the Horatian
couplet as he satirically spoke of the runaways:
***Ihdet et decorum est, pro patria nwrit*"
"'How sweet and fine a thing it is to eat a mutton pie.'"
"We did not know then — none in Canada knew — ^that out
of this temporary ebullition of traditional Hibernian dislike
for the Anglo-Saxon, or, perhaps, more really owing to the ab-
sence of any occupation lOr the moment for disbanded soldiers,
was transmuted much more rapidly than in any other way
possible into a sturdy Canadian spirit, the various opposing
elements of the West and the East.'"
m
ill
CHAPTER XI
Jaaa>H Keeleh Recalib Commebcul and Poutical Events
or Forty Yeabs
The evenU of the yeara folh.wing 1870 wen deeply atamped
upon the memoiy of Jowph Keeler, for it wu in 187S that he
wai brought, aa a young man in his father'a warehouse, face to
face with one of the longest periods of buaineaa depreaaion,
which Canada had known. So it waa easy for him to give, aa
he did at their next meeting, details to the professor covering
the crisis, which was a sequence to the financial collapse follow-
ing the Black Friday, 18th of September, 187S, in New York,
when the Jay Cook Company waa forced to cloae the doora of its
broking and banking house, while having 14,000,000 on depoait
and holding «U,000,000 of the bonds of the Northern Pacific
Railway. Many thousand miles of railway had been built
during the previous ten years, enormous subsidies by the Federal
Government from (16,000 to even «48,000 per mile on the moun-
tam aections had been advanced to the Credit Mobilier, which
financed the Union Pacific Railway to San Franciaco; while
the total expenditurea on railwaya for these years was $1,700,-
000,000. He said:
"The people of the United States had been alarmed, if not
ahocked, at the revelations of too close relations between sena-
tors and members of the House and the Credit Mobilier, so that
the orgy of speculation and of railway building, without aa yet
receipts from the traffic, as their lands were not widely settled,
came to a logical end, as all debauches must, and the breaking
of the banks of financiera, the breaking of the hearts of widows
and the breaking of the brains of thouaanda of overwrought
buameaa men all came together. And the pity of it all was that
the panic did not remain south of the line. Canada waa poor
but, nevertheless, the fever of railway promoting was in the aur.
Then were planned and partly constructed the Canada South-
em and Airline railways across the Lake Erie peninsula, aa well
«
^^^ TIi* tUuminalum oj Jattrk KhUt, Etq.
M the WeUington, Gray and Bruce and Credit Valley roadi;
while a Government went out of power due to nupicioni o/ an
improper intimacy between iti memben and a company pro-
moting the great national enterpriie, the Pacific railway, which
waa to connect coait with coast, and ultimately to prove even
a greater bond, becaUK it wa« lo much more necewaiy, to bridge
over the great gap of wildemeu between Ontario and the Weat.
"But this wai not yet to be. The method later propoaed of
building it in aectiona, part waterways and part railways, how-
ever in keeping with the financial resources of the country at
that time, was wholly inadequate to fulfil the requirements of
the situation, and from 1872 to 1882 commercial stagnation
marked Canada to a degree before unparalleled, and the migra-
tion of Canadians across the border ruse to such figures ^M had
never before been equalled, as seen in the following list of yearly
emigrants from Canada into the United States:
Emigrants from Canada to United States
1870 40,411 1877 ««,lia.
1871 47,082 1878 2S,M8
1872 40,178 1870 31,288
187S 37,871 1880 99,706
1874 32,900 1881 12«,S91
I87t 24,SS1 1882 92,205
1878 22,471
"So remarkable, however, did the trade revival in the United
States become after the five years' depression from 187S to 1878,
that, while the total immigration to that country in 1878 was
only 138,000, it rose in 1880 to 347,000 while that from Canada
to the United States multiplied three times within three years.
This stream, whose fiow had lessened during the five years fol-
lowing the 1873 panic, had risen to its height is 1881, to decluie
again only for a time after this, when the outlet to Manitoba
through Minnesota had been found.
"I fancy," said Mr. Keeler, "that the real extent and mean-
ing of this depopulatii ' as it actually existed then, was not
known even to the public and business men of that time, and it
has needed a decade of expansion such as that of the past ten
years for them in any degree accurately to estimate or compre-
hend the strength of the centripetal forces, which the chum-
Commercial Bud Polilieal Btmit of Forlf Ytari M
ing o( the immigration ocean by tlie great American octopiu
created during thoie many yean, caiuing the people from every
countiy and beyond all from ita neighbor Canada to be drawn
within the reach of ita tentaclea and to be alowly awallowed up
to tlw number of over 2,000,000 by 1900 from Canada alone."
It would have lieen hard, indeed, for the profeaaor to appre-
ciate the full meaning of thia tragic recital, had be not lived in
Canada duHng the decade of 1890-1000, and been an inter-
ested witneia of the enormous development during the succeed-
ing decade. He recalled to Mr. Kecler how he had come to
Canada in time to witness the third strange political agitation,
which like those of 1837 and 1840, had for ita object closer, even
political, relationa with the United Statea. Ita cry "Commer-
cial Union" had originated in New York with two ci-dmmt
Canadiana, Wyman and Glenn, and in Canada waa foatered by
that literary giant, but political enigma. Professor Goldwin
Smith. Supported by a newspaper, financed and edited by men,
previously conaervativea, a great impetus was given to a move-
ment, which appealed especially to the opponents of high
tbriffa in both countries, owing to the melancholy results com-
mercially of the decade, which had opened with a bUre of trum-
pets, regarding what the new Canadian Paci8c Railway begun
in 1881 waa to do in opening up the Great West. Its first
through train to the Coast, leaving Montreal, June t^, 1888,
was indeed an impetus to western settlement; but there had
been aheady dissatisfaction over the land laws in the West.
Indeed the Half-Breed rebellion of 188« grew out of thia; while
time, under the beat of conditiona, waa needed to overcome the
prejudice against the countt^ and its climate, where plagues
of locusts had occurred aa recently as 187S and frosts had not
infrequently injured the wheat and droughts had occurred as
late as 1886. . . .
Mr. Keeler here broke in :
"As I look back on those seemingly so hopeless days for
Canada and find from the blue book returns that not only did
the population not increase through immigration to any notable
extent, but further that we actually were short in our total popu-
lation in 1891 by 120,000 of what we should have had, had we
retamed our natural increase for the ten years, I wonder why
M
Tlu IttuminatiM rf Jotph K-Ur, Eiq.
«• *U did not low faith entirely in our futura. Only tliinli of it,
the agiregate foreign trade of tU Canada in 1888 ai eompued
with 1881 had increaaed by only «400,000 while that for the
dreary yean fiam 1870-1880 had even increaaed by 14,000,000.
"The nadir waa reached when a financial criiii, beginning
in the United SUtet in 1800, reached it< height in 188S. Thia
hopeleianeia ii perhape not greatly to be wondered at when,
although trade ilowly improved after 1803, the export price of
wheat from 18S1 to 1880 roee only once to 80 cent* per buahel,
and fell in 1880 actually to 18 centi, while that of potatoea for
the lame period row but once to fO centj and averaged a* low
aa 98 centa per buahel. There aeemed but one adequate explana-
tion for thia whole lituation, lo directly aSecting not alone the
growth of the Canadian West, but even more that of the old
Lake ihoie countiea of my native diatrict, and thia waa the
eztraordinaiy development of the Weatem American Statea.
"I find for instance that to the twelve North Central SUtea
during 1880-1880 there was an immigration of 1,143,281, which, ~
however, was less than the percentage increase for the same
sUtea from 1870 to 1880. But it made a toUl population for
thia area of n,410,417 in 1880, which had increased by ItOO
to M,330,000 of whom 48 per cent were foreign bom, over
(,000,000 being Canadians.
"Bemember too that while thia caused an enormous growth
in Chicago, and some of the western urban centres, it meant
also an increase in the farms of thia central western area from ~
1,000,000 in 1870 to 2,000,000 in round numbers in 1890. Put
that there waa a limit to the available land there is shown in.
the fact that the increase in farms from 1870 to 1880 was SO
per cent, while between 1880 and 1900 it was only 14 per cent.
"You see then, professor," continued Mr. Keeler, "when
these several elements of our problem are brought together
that they present a group of conditions in some degree helping
to its solution, and we thus find in Ontario and the older
provincea only an accentuation of the process, which went on
in the old Eastern States for several decadea; with thia distinc-
tion, however, that while the whole of old Canada was for forty
years being drained of her population, the westward movement
at any rate kept the old New England population within their
>
Comnunial md FoHtieol Efnlt tf forty Yton
«l
own country. DoubthH it ii • novcment rimiUr to thii which
nuy lie (t the bottom of the fenerml depicHJon and Heminf
•iricultunl ratragreuion in the old dietrict down on Praaqu'-
U* Bay; but the nibject, now that we have nally begun to
inveetigate it hiitorically, ii becoming ol abeorbing interest and
I hope we togetlier may determine in what direction thia moat
•eriou> condition, affecting the welfare of our old Province
•hould beet turn the energiea of her people."
The buiineu-like grouping of commercial and hiitorical fact#
made by the man of aflain wai a lource of intense admiration
to the profeuor, who remarked in riling to go:
"Well, Mr. Keeler, it i> once more the proof of the old icien-
tific adage trperientia dee*l, which we now translate into 'It is
necessary to experiment in order to lesm,' and certainly you
old Canadians must have had either great faith for forty years
in your future or an intense patriotism like that of the IVnlese
or Swiss for their mountain glens to resist the loadstone of com-
meicial advantages and huge business attractions, which you
have so well illustrated in this picture o( the growth of the Amer-
ican West. But it does seem, as you say, as if the Old East in
Canada is today having the same depleting process repeated,
and I wonder if there is to be a forty years* further drain on
these old provinces, which have supplied the very essentials not
only of men, the primary condition to development, but also
of the intellectual, social and political elements in the evolu-
tion of the West. We must study this further. Goodnight!"
CHAPTER Xn
The Exit op John Keblbr pbom Frenzied Finance
It was Mveral months since the first shadow came over the
Keeler house, and unfortunately H had remained there. Mr.
Keeler had hoped that the lesson which had come to his eldest
son would have proved salutuy; but the young man's personal
pride was hurt — the lesson bad not reached his conscience. He
placed the blame of his fall upon others rather than openly and
frankly going to his father and saying "I have sinned." As usual
in such cases, the spiritual in the man being in abeyance, the phy-
sical dominated the actions of John Keeler, and instead of turning
over a new leaf, he went about in a sullen mood, avoided the
family circle and, instead of improving his nervous tone, was
quite evidently indul>r g secretly in what had now become in his
unhealthy opinion, a physical necessity. He did not abandon his
club entirely, for that would have b en to confess his fault; but
he went elsewhere and made associates of otheis, who, like him-
self, had fallen into irregular habits. This, of course, Mr. Keeler
came to know through Tom and, instead of John Keeler appre-
ciating the delicacy of his father's treatment of him hitherto, he
chose to wear an air of injured independence, which made it
impossible for any frank approach from either side.
He perhaps seemed to give more hours to his legal duties; but
even this proved to be but a cloak to cover his absence from the
home at normal hours. The mother and sisters, though still
ignorant of what had taken place, were of course made aware erf
his irritable moods; but the fond mother set it all down to Jack's
overworking at the office, and extenuated a peevishness, which
mwe properly was only a rude selfishness.
But it was not to be supposed that when matters of this kind
had gcme wrong th^ would correct themselves, unless the prime
agent's attitude from the moral standpoint changed, and John
Keeler had not changed. There still ever remained impending
fear of certain actions in the matters of the Real Estate Company
The Ittumination tf Jcaeph Ketltr, Etq.
jj
ilib.
coming to li^t, coupled yaih hia failure to meet payments on
"cails" for stock held by him. As solicitor and secretuy of the
company he had frequently received small payments from pur-
chasers of lots to be sent to the treasurer; but when losses at cards
had occurred, he had for the moment used these bums, intending
of course to turn them in next d^y. Such, however, had now
grown into a considerable sum, and it became inevitable that the
time for accounting must soon come. His associates even, some
of equivocal commercial morality themselves, knowing of his
club scandal and his more irregular habits could no longer for
their own safety delay action. So it came about that at the
semi-annual directors* meeting the amounts of the outstanding
accounts of John Keeler in the matter of stock payments and
moneys received came up for consideration along with others.
With characteristic tnwnirtance, he made his defence, urging that
others were behind in stock payments as well, and that the extra
legal work placed upon him more than made up for the seeming
irregularities. The booming of land sales had, however, latterly
fallen flat, and the directors were in no mood to accept excuses
for these easy-going methods, since they were sadly in need of
funds for payments due on the farm purchased. Young
Keeler's irritating attitude of superiority only made matters
worse, until at length after high words, a resolution was passed
"Requiring that an accounting be nuute within one month of all
moneys received by him as solicitor and that if these were not
paid as well as all payments on stock overdue, legal action would
be taken against him by the company. Meanwhile the solici-
tor's work was to be done elsewhere." The resolution was
passed not without a sense of indecency on the part of some of
the Board, since they had especially counted on the social stand-
ing of the son of Joseph Keeler, Esq., and on the prominence of
the father in large business afiFairs to give their company a finan-
cial standing. But the human selfishness in business, as else-
where, and the toutw qui peut of the speculator have no delicacy
of soitiment and the inexperienced young solicitor, who had
ynan so superior an air. was now to suffer ui injury to his pride,
whkh for him was infinitely more intense than any sense of un-
ffntunate peraonu hiUuts had as yet produced in him. Its im-
Tht Exit of John Ktdtr from Frmuiti Finance U
mediate and almoit inevitable leault waa a period of debauch lo
aerioiu and prolonged that it could no longer be hidden from his
brother and father. The ihock to Joaeph Keeler, when Tom
•tated what he had gradually learned as street gossip about the
directors* meeting, as we recall his pride in the business prob-
ity of the Keeler name, which in Toronto had become a tradi-
tion, may well be imagined.
His son and heir had not only fallen into irregular personal
habits, but he had also marred the family escutcheon. Imme-
diate and prompt action was demanded; but it is unnecessary to
relate the painful scene between the father, who felt bis personal
honor cruelly injured, and his son, who with nerves unstrung
was now forced by personal fear of prosecution for financial
irregularities to tell to the father the shameful nature of his
gambling debts, his misuse of funds and the amounts of the pay-
ments demanded by the company. Even at this moment the
superior John Keeler, the mother's favourite, only saw one mean-
ing in St. Paul's words, "The strength of sm is the law." Not
yet had come to him that other truth, "that it is the renunciation
of self and the giving himself for others," which was the only
measure of his personal reconciliation with the law of the
highest Master of Morals.
Joseph Keeler did not hesitate for a moment to demand a
statement from the company of his son's liabilities and, when
received, to pay them all to the full, and to sever his son's rela-
tions completely with the company, feeling assured that the
whole question of his son's future must be considered from a
wholly new standpoint. Meanwhile the young fellow was quite
unstrung and the panacea of a change of scene must be at once
tried. As it was necessary in the interests of business, Tom took
his brother on a trip to the West Indies, and for the moment we
may leave the young fellows not displeased at their absence from
a very unpleasant situation. Joseph Keeler, Esq., during these
past few months, has distinctly aged; the mother, who of ne-
cessity learned of her son's misbehaviour, has if quieter in man-
ner not ceased to carry herself with an air of even greater
personal superiority, as if assured that the expansiveness of her
socially protecting wings would adequately suffice to more than
se
Thi lUuminaiion <4 Joieph Ktder, Etq.
balance the peccadiUoea at a whole family. Besides did she
not know "that it was those vulgar men her son was forced to
associate with as solicitor to that land company, who had been
the cause of the whole trouUe. She knew her Jack was all
right!"
I ^!
CHAPTER Xni
BniAL Dsporoi^TioN and Ubsan Ovirpopulation
It wa» inevitable that some relationship either real or acci-
dental between those distressing family affavs of which he had
so recent experience and the political, economic and social
movements, which had become for him so absorbing a study,
should impress itself upon the mind of Mr. Joseph Keeler, the
hitherto even flow of whose life had never given him occasion
for serious thought on such matters. He unconsciously com-
pared the fuU, bounding and successful rural life of Upper Can-
ada before the "Sixties, " when not more then 17 per cent of the
people were in towns with the high pressure of present-day com-
mereial life and the restless, artificial and expensive habits of
society, and could not fail to realize that many occurrences,
social and moral, such as the irreguhu habits of his son, were the
logical and inevjUble resulte of the false standards which society
had set up, and to which the young men and women of today
in especially the hi^er circles were expected to conform. Not
only so, but he also saw that such were largely destructive of the
teaching and example of personal effort through self-denial,
which in his boyhood had been constantly inculcated as primary
requisites to success in life. It became further apparent to him
that the phenomenal material development of recent years in
CanMla, making in many cases successful speculation possible
for young men, whom he knew to be wholly untrained in busi-
ness methods, merely through taking the gambler's chances and
showing in their plunging foolish irresponsibility for results,
was exercisiDg wide-spread baneful and most disastrous effects,
not only ujwn the stability of business, but, iriiat was much
more important, also upon the moral fibre of the whole people.
Young men whom he had known a few years before of no
account or standug in business circles were now the moat prom-
tr
tS The Illumination qf Jonph KuUr, Esq.
inent in many club-circles and had indeed invaded and been
received in social circles, hitherto the exclusive preserves for
the traditional well-bom, their sole title to admission being the
fact they had or seemed to have, made *coup9* through stock
gambling or the advances in real estate, such being due on the
one hand to normal commercial expansion and the rapid influx
of population to the cities and on the other to a kind of adver-
tising economically as indefensible as a Louisiana lottery or a
Gowganda Silver prospe^-tus.
The general tone of society to it all seemed indicated by its
laughing indiffemkce to any criticism of the situation, when
everyone seemed to say: "Why, if peo[^e like to be fooled, wl^
not fool them?" while the lawyer who had grown wealthy
through his conveyancing and commissions and the newspaper
managers who had flourished through hi|^y paid gambling
advertisements, both nonchalantly answered with the conical
legal quibble "Caveat emptor" — "Let the buyer beware," as if
they had successfully solved for themselves the most intricate
moral problem and done all their duty as respectable members of
the community and citizens of a country which had a right to be*
come "chesty" as being the latest and last great "Bonanza"
struck since California or the Rand.
But Joseph Keeler was much too practical a man of the world
to become embittered against a situation, which had been in-
strumental perhaps in producing unfortunate results in his own
house, and turned philosophically to the problem of what means
were the most Ukely to improve, if not remove, conditions so
dangerous to commercial and natural prosperity and so pro-
ductive of social and moral declension.
What was perfectly apparent to him was that the removal of
the population of Canada from rural to urban centres, as was
shown by the recent census, and the enormous and dispropor-
tionate increase of the cities through immigration as compared
with that in rural districts could only have one result so far as
the production of the food of the people was concerned. Thus
he found the following:
Rural DejnpiUation and Urban Oterpopulatim M
41
1901
1911
Increate
Ptrenri
Total population
of Canada ... .4.371,814 7.«04,8S8 1,888.4«S S4.1S
Total rural
population 3,349,416 S,9«4,SM 418,878 17.18
Total urban
population «,0«1,799 S,«80,4« 1,248,644 62.24
These figures were only emphasized by others giving yet more
details. Thus in Canada in 1901 there were sixty-two cities and
towns having a population each over 4,000, and only two with
a population over 100,000; while in 1911 there were in all 200
urban municipalities with populations over 2,400. The cen-
tralizing, however, of this population was marked by Mr. Keder
since he found that of this enormous urban mcrease, over half
had been in eight cities alone, which had grown from 444,406
in 1901 to 1,194,274. Such figures were an ample explanation
to him of the continued boom in Toronto, as in these other towns,
and were eloquent in the information they gave, which explained
so many of his problems. His own city, indeed, had grown
from 208,040 to 376,438 or 81 per cent in ten years. But this
was but half the story, for coming back to his own problem Mr.
Keeler found that rural Ontario had lost absolutely 42,184 of her
population in ten years, or such had decreased from 1,246,969 to
1,194,784. What, indeed, he had previously discovered re-
garding his old home of Northumberiand was now seen to be
simply a local symptom of a general disease. What, when
analyzed, made this all the more remarkable was that out of a
total of 1,639,644 immigrants who had entered Canada during
these ten years, of whom 619,844 had given their vocation as
fanners or farm laborers and of whom 120,000 gave their des-
tination as Ontario, all seemed to have gone to cities or if to
rural districts, to have displaced a native popuhition, whose
natural increase since 1901 had wholly disappeared. With the
enormous yearly urban increase during the decade confronting
him, these figures seemed absurd and impossible, while the
industrial expansion of his own city alone confi.med the seeming
universal proqierity. Assuming, however, the truth of thew
M r*« /Uumtiurftaii qf Jotfli KitUr, Etq.
figures, Mr. Keeler uitiindly concluded that they would ihow
•ome logic*! coniequencM on •gricuHurml production >nd k
turned to itatiitic* egnin, where he wu nirpriwd to find that
the average of (arm viluea (or Ontario had increaaed but 11.11
per acre (or all occuped land*, (rom 1906 to 1910, while the
inaeaae of land auetaed waa only 481,969 acra over M.iM.OOO
in 1906; but that the percentage o( land cleared waa (lightly len.
In keeping with these figures he further found that there were
(ewer cattle, sheep and pigs in 1909 than in 190«. Thus:
1905 1909
Itlilchcows 1,106,000 1,07«,000
Othercattle 1,762,000 1,<9S,000
Total slaughtered 714,000 800,000
Sheep 1,344,000 1,S«0,000
Sheep skughtered or sold «,S84,000 2,767,000
Swine 1,906,000 1,M1,000
Similarly there were decreases in acreage <rf the several grains
in the same period. Thus:
Fall wheat, decreased 74,000 acres.
Spring wheat, decreased 21000 acres.
Barley, decreased 60,000 acres.
Oats, decreased 62,000 acres.
while he found increases only in the acreage oi com and potatoes
of 70,000 and U.OOO acres, respectively.
When, however, he found in a study o( the number o( bushels
grown per acre, no increase, (all ^eat bemg 2.4 bushels less in
1911 than the earlier average for five years, barley 1.8 less, oats
1.6 and peas S.S less while the price per bushel had increased
but little, relatively, he realised in this phenomenon of decreased
production and relatively small increase of prir<« to the farmer,
a situation, bad as it was in 1806 when trade everywhere both
in town and country was depressed, which was now aggravated,
so far as its effects upon farm values and the tendency to leave
the (arms to crowd to the cities where there was a demand for
labour were concerned, V the increased cost of farm labour.
It was not long before he had the pro(essor engaged in the
discussion o( these figures brought down to the present time.
Sural Dtpopulaiiim and Utba» OwtrpaimlaHm 81
Ai the profettor had not been idle he wu equally prepared to
give hia theory o( the atuation. Heiaid:
"You know, Mr. Keeler, that through the keen diacuauon in
the United Statea, eepecially during the part few yean, and more
recently in Germany, o( the problems of hi^^ prices an agitation
has been raised producing the mart wide-spread political effects.
The discussion has naturally been concerned with the high cart
of living to city dwellers, and as the Ubouring classes have
witnessed the colossal fortunes piled up through the manipula-
tion of railway and other industrial rtocks and by the combines
to increase prices in iron, cotton, coal and foods, made possible
by the facilities of personal communication by railway, tele-
phone, and telegraph, a deep-seated sense of injustice through
labour not receiving its fair share <A profits has arisen, which,
if not in some way removed, can only end in social revolution.
"Of course strikes have followed strikes in every trade as if
that would lessen the evil; but everywhere an increase of i per
cent in wages is followed by 10 per cent advance in the cort of
food and coal. Strangely, I suppose, because the farmer has
hitherto been too often the silent, uncomplaining heart of burden,
an individualirt wholly unorganised and unbusinesslike, his
voice has scarcely been heard or if beard notlieeded because he
showed no combined political strength. I have been comparing
prices and find that wherever the prices of the farmers have been
increased 10 per crit the wholesale prices have risen by nearly
to per cent. Thus a table in the Beport of the Department <rf
Labour gives the following prices:
Averait of Prieet for 1890-1900 Priem for 1911
Grain and fodder 100 14fi.
Animals and meats 100 140.7
Dairy produce 100 ISO. 8
Ksh 100 14S.e
Average total 100 143.74
"In all articles of which a country produces a notable surplus,
the price is regulated by the world's markets as in the present
price of wheat; but whereas in the United States and Germany,
and now in Canada, the home consumption has approximated
« Tin llhmtmaliim cf Jo-pk KtUr, £<f .
the home piodiictioB. tlw danud, too otten aHutcd by oom-
binatknu in almoit evoy article o( daily couumption, at once
wtvaocea the wholeeile price* often after the farmer hai lold hii
crop at an averafe price. For ioitance, I law the point finely
illuitrated in the paper of yesterday. The cold waaon every-
where hai prevented the tomato crap in Ontario, grown by the
(armen for the canneriei at a price fixed in the aummer at SO
cent* per buihel, from ripening weD and the farmen have hardly
got half the number of biuhela per acre of other yean. Of
coune the canner wa* short, too; but aa the lut year 'a aupply waf
exhausted the demand is the same, ao the canners agreed to add
to the price per can an extra amount to enable them to make the
usual amount of money or even an increase in profita, while the
farmer does not get a cent more per bushel than last year. And
so it runs all the way through the stoiy and, until the farmer
finds some way of protecting himself or helping himself or bemg
helped by buaineas methods and capital, whether private or of
government, this rural decrease of population through loss of
courage by the fanner will and must continue.
"We have academic dissertations aa to the depreciation of the
gdd standard and too much gambling in stocks, all of which is
true; but I am sorry to say that the plain, simple, econonuc
causes affecting the farmers' capacity to produce cheaply and,
after producing, to get a fair proportion of the value of the
product, are too often quite overlooked by the exponents of
political economy.
"Just how we are to help in bringing about a better situation
and enable the producer and consumer to be in the one case
assisted and in the other relieved of the excessive burden of high
prices, I do not wholly as yet perceive; but we shall not desist
unt3 we have discovered a method. We muat discuss it further.
Good night!"
CHAPTER XIV
Tm SnuH OF Societt Fcnctions Has UNiointniAn
Reiclts
The earaetttnna with which Mr. JoKph K«Ier had been
■tudying the several social problenu, along with his (riend the
profenor, during the past months had lessened the tendency to
dwell upon thoae family matters which had so urgently been
pressed upon his attention. His sons had returned from their
prolonged trip to the South, and John seemed to have recovered
from the physical exhaustion ai.d mental depression, which had
had such unfortunate results. But the lack of sufficient law
work gave him too much time for introspection; while the af-
fronts real or imagined, from his former associates rankled his too
sensitive egoism, the outcome proving that his depraved hab-
its had gained too strong a hold, in the absence of any acute
sense of personal wrong-doing, to enable him to reconstruct his
life and actions on a higher pUne. So it was not very long before
his father came to learn with grief that he had a son so lost to
self-respect and regard for the family reputation as to appear
not infrequently in pubUc, showing the traces of a dissipation
tending to become habitual.
But Mr. Keeler was to suffer from the further knowledge
that his younger daughter, the light and joy of Hk home, whose
sunny disposition had so often served to dissipate the clouds
gsthning over the family circle, was toward the end of a winter
of gaiety showing evidences of some maUdy, which her by no
means rugged constitution was not readily throwing o6f. A
ali^t cough had succeeded a seemingly simple cold, which when
her father suggested fewer parties and more sleep she made
li^t of as being nothing at all. When her mother was appealed
to, she too did not think it anything serious; but certainly
thought that a few weeks at AtUntic City would be a good thing.
Of course this suggestion was at once acceded to, so that mother
and daughter had gone away to the seaside, where, after •
S3
64
Tlu lUummaiioH qf Joseph Knier, Eti.
•hort pniod of ra*t uul regulw bout* with outingi <><■ *^ brotd
ptomenwiM, which gave the young lady « ledinx of being quite
well again, tlie mother yieldMl readily to Fanny'i ineiiMitioni
and both were Mon involved in the locial whirl at the (aihiooable
watering-place.
In a few weeki they had returned home with Fanny looking
bfowned by the iun and lea bireiea, and w matter* flowed along
much ai uaual in the home. But it waa uon noted by the father
that hia daughter waa often pale and liitteii in the morning
with a poor and taitidioui appetite, while (bowing in the after-
noon a fluahed cheek, often aaiociated with an unnatural bril-
liance and unuaual excitability, both of which railed hia graveat
apprahenaioni. Hu wife, however, quieted hit fears with the
promiae "that a lummer ipent at their Muakoka home would
bring Fanny home bright and itiong again."
The lummer came and went, the daughter coming home aeem-
ingly better, while the eldeit aon, who had spent moat of these
months at the cottage, returned with them, greatly improved
in his general tone. So every thing pointed to the home return-
ing to its old-time happy routine. Mr. Joseph Keeler, as home
affairs became leas engrossing, reverted naturally to those eco-
nomic studies, which seemed now all the more important as he
saw their relationship to moral and social questions, affecting
even himself and family. U waa just at this moment that the
question of his youngest son's future became a factor in the
problem. Ernest had shown no inclination for the work in his
father's warehouse, and, indeed, for a whole year had been doing
little more than making a desultory acquaintance with office
methods, which from the 6rst he had found irksome. His love
of outdoor life often found him riding in the countryside far
beyond the city limits, thereby recalling the two happy days
spent with his father on the Lake shore at Brighton at the sea-
son when the hillsides were white with apple-blossoms set in
their verdured background, all reflected in the glistening sun-
shine of those fair May days down on Presqu* Isle Bay.
His sometimes laughing suggestion that he ou^t to he a
farmer had been made more than once, and had again and again
recurred to his father. So when, on the boy's return from a few
days spent with an old school chum in the Niagara Fruit Dis-
Tht Sinu of fiinttt Fundmu U
trict. he benme enUiuaUwtic »t the dinner taUe in dc«!ribin«
the glorioiH tiicei they had hid in the country. Mr. Keeler uid ;
"Emeet, how «-ould you like to be • fruit {inner doim nt
Briffatonr"
To which the lul replied:
"Juit try me, air, and tee! It would be iplendid!"
Of coune the mother did not take the boy wrknuly, ai tha
could not compreliend how anyone, city bred, could endure the
inanity of an exiitence leparated from tlie daily exritement of
urban life and of the couitant round of gaieties li v'.irh much
of her later years had been spent. So all she en ulu * v was:
"You silly boy, you don't know what you »r- tulkii,i< aboui.
You would make a pretty fanner!"
To this Mr. Keeler only thought it necei • v to icn..i.k:
"Well, Ernest, we must see about the i .'ler,' ai <l «• .01
a time the matter rested there.
What, however, seemed apparent to Mt Xcrlci, il <• mori' iic
revolved in his mind tiiu rural problem n«.»w con^'n^' \o hr.ve a
family and personal interest as he thought of „ivin'; v.r. b«; '»
evident inclination an opportunity for developi.irnt. -Mf, ilnt
if enough land within the Brighton district could !>' i»i .^'ht at
a fair price, it might be possible to put into effect some of those
theories, which he and tlie professor had been di«^M»fing to
recently.
Not only, he thought, should capital properly invested and
applied be made productive as in any wholesale, manufactur-
ing or other industry, but there further seemed no reasons why
the methods of concentrating business and of cooperation be-
tween tlie new business farmer and the old individualistic
settler, who for so many generations had toiled patiently alone,
should not be brought into effect.
It was not long before he had, through the local enquiries of
an agent, obtained the prices of a number of farms for sale near
Brighton, and, though prepared for it somewhat, was much
surprised, indeed, at the low prices asked. It seemed to him
absurd that a few lots in a field more than five miles from the
centre of Toronto should have a selling price greater than a
hundred-acre farm, with buildings, orchard and all near Brigh-
ton. In some cases he learned of farms, where no sons were
66 The lUuminaHon qf Joaepk Keder^ Eag.
left to till them, and of others ^ere fathers and husbands had
died and only women were left to manage them. So many in*
staucea of this nature were related that Mr. I^eler enquired
still further as to the conditions. He found that while farms
would vary in the percentage of readily tillable soil, yet it was
plain that most farms were but partially cultivated. Not only
was this the case, but the character of the cultivation was fur-
ther quite limited. Relatively few cattle were found in the dis-
trict, uptat from a certain number pf cows on each farm to
supply milk to the local cheese factory, the number decreasing
rather than increasing in recent years; while these farmers
seemed never to have learned the art of feeding fat cattle or
else had ceased doing so as being unprofitable. So the growing
of h^ and oats mostly for the cows and working horses, and
the cultivating of tomatoes and peas for the canneries, seemed
to be the chief methods pursued.
The chief feature of interest, however, was the apple or-
chards; but there were even in this fruit-growing business de-
ments which did not seem satisfactory. He noted that the
census showed fewer fruit trees in some counties of Ontario
in 1010 than in 1900, while he found that the local practice of
many years still prevailed of the apple-buyer of the neighbor-
ing town coming during the late summer and bai^ning for
the apple crop, at the same price per barrel as bru^ been paid
twenty years before.
**No wonder then," sud Mr. Keeler to himself, *'if the wages
paid and the cost of living are higher to the farmer, and prices not
much increased, that he should have grown weary and either
retired to the neighboring village, renting his farm which he
could not sell, or continued on the farm a mere vegetative exis-
tence, not doing much and not getting much, not laying mudi
out and not incurring any serious expenditure or responsibility."
Before going further into the matter. Mr. Keeler invited
the professor to spend another evening with him. The results
of their discoveries were pregnant wilii many altered views <rf
life in the various members of the Keeler family.
CHAPTER XV
The Probleh of Hiqh Pbicxs Analtzbd
When Mr. Keeler and the pnfeasor bad once more nettled
into their uiunl comers in the library, the former briefly re-
hearaed the several incidents related in the last chapter and told
of the enquiries he had been making regarding present farming
conditions and what the results were. He said :
" What do you find elsewhere, professor, in either your travels
or reading? Are rural conditions what I find them here? Is
there everywhere in old communities in Great Britain and on
the Continent this same inertia, bred of an environment seem-
ingly incapable of being overcome, altered, or ameliorated?
Just imagine my bemg offered farms at prices not much greater,
right along the Lake Shore and railways, than asked for wild
prairie land thirty miles away from the nearest raihnad in cen-
tral Saskatchewan! "
The professor replied:
"Unfortunately these very conditions have existed and even
yet exist in some old English and Scottish counties; while Ger-
many and France receive annual migrations of Russians and
Poles, either for the harvest time or as permanent settlers on
account of the exodus mto the cities m recent years, notably
in Germany. Nowhere does the ideal condition exist of a
baUnce between country and city equal to that in Denmark,
where there are about 1,000,000 people in the cities and 1,400,-
000 in the country and where several ministers of the Crown
are simple peasant farmers.
"I assure you that sfaice you have brought all these matters
home to me as a local Ontario problem, I have felt that some of
my early generalisations on the subject seem to me now rather
academic than practical."
"But, professor," said Mr. Keeler, "if the Danes in a country
surrounded by the ocean can solve the rural problem, surely
inasmuch as they are or ought to be affected by the same world-
67
08 The lUummation of Jouph Ketler, Etq.
wide influencea u their neighboun others can do the aame.
Wherein aeem to rest the eaaential differences in results? "
"Well, " replied the professor, "you must know, Mr. Keeler,
I have in my summer vacations visited the several countries
of Northern Europe especially, and what I have noted, most of
all perhaps in the Scandinavian countries, is that which Caesar
noted and what Tacitus writes about regarding the Teutonic
peoples, a simplicity of life, associated with the traditional love
for the customs and practices and occupations, which for many
centuries have marked every hamlet in these countries. Ger*
many since Bismarck's policy of industrialism, basedupondirect-
ing the energies of twenty-one universities into research work
and a high protective tariff for the products of industry, as well
as on home-grown food, has made enormous strides in organiz-
ing her people until the problem, is now one of feeding the towns-
people without bringing in food from other countries, while the
stimulus to become industrial has become so great that rural
development has proportionately very notably lessened.
"Sweden like Germany has advanced industrially very no-
tably in forty years, but there as in Denmark, a much nearer
balance between country and city exists, because the govern-
ment systematically develops ru-al needs as an industrial neces-
sity. Although only 12 per cent of Sweden is cultivated, and
emigration was for thirty years very large to the United States,
yet the great water powers being utilized are greatly develop-
ing industries, and farming is rapidly becoming industrialised.
The wide areas of rocky hillsides are being made to grow much
more stock and the forests have been, and are being, system-
atically cultivated for business profits. Dairying, as in Den-
mark, is closely associated with sugar-beet growing on the same
pUn. Everywhere is being clearly comprehended the conver-
sion by the producer of his own raw materials into the manu-
factured product. Some 93 per cent of all the rural population
has only 4 acres, 66 per cent from 4 to 40 acres and the balance
80 to 200 acres.
"This ideal has as yet been realized only in Denmark, where
with a population less than Ontario, she had three years ago
1,358 butter factories, almost every one of which had ice or
mechanical refrigeration to care for their milk and butter. Of
The Problem qf Hifk Prieei AtuUfsed 69
the ktter there were 141, which handle enonnous quantities of
milk daily, while there are besides several thousand small slaugh-
ter houses, some TO large abattoirs with all modem equipments,
tfeir competition preventing combines."
"So everywhere then, professor," said Mr. Keeler, "there
seem to be associated the two ^'roblems, first scientific methods
applied to farming, and second, the associating of a group of
farmers, as with the cheese factories here, if not to produce,
at least to buy and sell through coliperating." "Exactly so,"
said the professor. " But," said Mr. Keeler, "isthere no otherdif-
ference, for if this is so easy, it is very strange that our farmers
have not done this aheady?" " Well," said the profesaor,"it does
seem very strange and I am free to confess that it is a problem
which you probably can get nearer to the solution of than my-
self. Perhaps there is something different in the fundamental
basis of education on thii v.y>stem Continent. For instance,
if the population of Ontario is half rural and half urban, there
ou^t to be at the fanners' superior colleges and schools as many
students as at the universities, which lead to professions. Now
I recall the fact that the Guelph Agricultural College has stu-
dents of the regular class, numbering only some 600, while
Toronto University has alone some 4,000 non-agricid'^ural
students. The other universities in Ontario really have no
agricultural course at all. As regards the primary schools, I
remember a short address recently made by the head of one
of our Normal Schools on this very point. He said, 'The pres-
ent courses of study for rural schools are made by city men,
text-books are written by city men, and the teachers of the
normal schools live and teach with city ideals.' He pomted out,
that, when science is really applied to agriculture, it will mean
that each farm will grow ten times its present amount and sup-
port ten times as many people. He further indicated that proper
teadung must begin through rural teachers who know how
to teach the most valuable parts first, so that the country child
should learn and do those things at school, which are a part of
his preparation for his future life work. This would mean a
normal school with its experimental farm, where many lessons of
the course are taught in the gardens and orchards, and it also
means a country school with its adjoining farm supervised by
TO The Ittuntinatim of Joteph Ketkr, Etq.
the school principal, where education will be by illustration
and experiment in farming, horticulture and home making.
"When so prominent an educationist sees this, brou^t up
as he was on an Ontario farm, I fancy he really has put his finger
on the primary cause of our present evils. I know we have not
yet begun to approach the practical methods of Denmark in
this matter.'*
" All this is, no doubt, very good," said Mr. Keeler, " but from
my enquiries there seem other phases of the situation demand-
ing the most serious attention, for it must be years for the re-
sulU of such education of the children to have practical results.
Have you in your studies ev>:r come across the details of any
method by which the farmers can unite to obtain the full results
of their labours?"
"Oh, yes," sud the professor, "1 have noticed in a very re-
cent pamphlet from England how, in a single district, three
southern counties have what is called an Agricultural Organi-
zation Society. Its aims are to advocate the principles of
coSperation. Belonging to the General Association are local
societies, whose objects are (a) to purchase seeds, implements,
manures and so on, (b) to secure the best market for the sale
of produce, and (c) to establish credit societies. These methods
are the same as those existing in Denmark and other continental
countries; but in several of those countries legislation exists
enabling governments to loan money at low rates of interest
to such societies."
"Well," said Mr. Keeler, "this is just such a scheme as I
believe is necessary if we are to encourage the farmers of On-
tario to underUke production on a large scale with improved
methods. Of course private capital from the cities may equally
well be utilised to assist in such work; but there is every reason
why both means should be adopted. It is a remarkable illus-
tration of how slow Canadians have been to realise that the
company methods, which are everywhere in operation in manu-
factures, in mining, in lumbering, and so on should almost no-
where, at least in the East, exist with regard to agriculture. It
must be remembered that the fanner through his isolation and
his individualism is not, in the ordinary sense, a business man.
His interests have not really been considered as one with the
ill
The Problem of High Priee§ Analyud
71
business interests of his neighbouring town, and, indeed, the
people of the tx)wn, always small traders^ have too often looked
upon the farmer as the man out of whom to make all they can,
taking advantage of their position at every point.
" I can see every reason why municipal councils should be a
medium through which county associations could be assisted
in financing a number of such local societies through supplying
printed forms supplied by the Provincial Secretary's Deport-
ment for insuring proper organization, reporting as to the good
standing of members and guaranteeing that loans would be
properly secured, as are our drainage debentures under the
Ontario Drainage Act in some of the western counties of the
province. ^^Tiat the ordinary farmer needs, above everything
else, is encouragement to make improvements, which by making
his labour more effective will ensure better returns."
" Yes," said the prof^sor, "this is exactly the point, or as one
of our acute economists expresses it, ' Increased economy really
means the more effective use of loanable capital'; personal
efficiency rather than a growth of population may be the great
force in increasing wealth, and with the uplift of the personality
of those using capital, as in this case of the farmer, comes a
better social spirit, and the replacing of competition by coopera-
tion. Thus it becomes easier to get groups of producers to
combine to prevent waste and. when they combine, the main-
tenance of fixed prices just as bank interest becomes readily
assured."
"That is perfectly splendid, professor," said Mr. Keeler.
"and sums up the whole matter exnctly. As I see it the solu-
tion of the problem resolves itself into three factors as does any
other of my business problems : primarily, it means economy in
the production of farm products, as in my factory it means
enou^ machines and enough intelligent labor to operate them
and the best of materials to work with, which means seed, soil
and climate. It must mean, next, that what is produced must
be of the highest quality pc»sible, lie harvested and preserved
in the best manner possible until put in the hands of the con-
sumer; and, lastly, it means that no undue costs be levied upon
any product by either local buyers, transportation companies
or commission men. I might give you a whole sermon on these
7«
The lUuminaiian of Joseph KeeUr, Eaq.
Utter points; but you know them all, since as one of your pro-
fessors in the University has recently stated in a report regard-
ing hi^ prices, "The tax on imports of food is a primary cause in
prices being higher here in Canada than in Sweden. Intended
to protect the Canadian farmer, the development of canning
and packing factones has made it posuble for a group (rf men to
oitirely control the prices at which our fanners must sell their
products — nearly all possible buyers being in the group — and
also to nuuntain the price at which the consumer must bi^ the
same products up to the level of the foreign price plus freight
and plus duty. '
" I have not said anythiug to you, professor, about my Ernest ;
but I believe I shall be doing a wise thing in at any rate the lad's
interest in buying a farm and in attempting to cultivate a spirit
of mutual help and understanding between myself and neigh-
bours in the country with a view to cotfpnation, and tiie boy will
gradually get fitted into his place vad work, if he takes the matter
seriously, while spending his winters at the Godfih College,
getting the scientific knowledge along with the peftetical. In-
deed, professor, I think some of the blood of my raral ancestry
must be warming up. for I am strangely attnKted to this
problem, and you may expect shortly to see me a k>rd of a few
cheap acres. It does seem very ridiculous that all which we in
Canada hear about the landed gentry of England and Germany
should fill us with visions of ancient country seats set in splendid
parks, surrotraded with a happy rural tenantry, while we in
Canada see on every side our city merchants imagining that
they are the only aristocracy, while the fiumers are really
classed with our wage-earning warehouse men. It looks as if it
is all a difference (rf opportunity and I would dearly like to see
the farmer given one chance, for I cannot believe that the ^irit
has wholly gone out of that old life down by the Bay, when my
grandmother reverting to the early doings always used to say,
"Those were halcyon days.'"
mW
CHAPTER XVI
Mr. Joseph Keeler Tcbnr Faruer
Mr. Keeler was now still more enthiuiastic than ever in his
determination to develop the (arming scheme in his home coun-
ty, so it was not long before he was again visiting Brighton
with his son, Ernest, to examine closely some of the farms
on which his agent had obtained options. He wa.s not long in
selecting an old place situated on the Lake Shore with the rail-
way crossing it. There was an old-time semi-colonial house,
built ninety years ago by the first grantee from the Crown, an
old ex-captain of Commander Yeo's fleet on Lake Ontario in
the War of 1812. Like all of his profession the old captain had
believed in good cheer and from cellar to attic, cupboards and
storerooms all told of the days when the "home-brewed" was
of the best and abundant. Situated west of the town, the old
farmhouse looked out over the waters toward Bald Bluff with
Presqu'Isle to the east and Colbome Pier to the west, and ever
gave to the ^^ew the wide »» eep of the lake, whose roar was
heard from beyond the cedar grove on the shingly beach. The
farm had beea well cared for, though never greatly developed,
there being .•Kil remaining a large wood-lot of a hundred acres,
whose first pine had been cut in the fifties, but now bore a fine
growing forest of second-growth pine with beech and maple,
birch and cedar. This, with a splendid spring creek coming from
the ravine in the escarpment to the north aud wandering over
its gravel bed through the cedar bottom and pasture fields to
the lake, made the farm very attractive, so Mr. Keeler promptly
closed the offer, at what he looked upon as a very hiw price, from
the dear old lady whose whole married and widowed life of
nearly sixty yean had been spent there, and she and her re-
maining daughter left it only because of their inability to manage
it advantageously. The pasturage in the creek bottom was
excellent and the soil gave promise, with its .several old and
young orchards, of supplying the very essentials which Joseph
M
Tlu lUuminatim of Jotpk K—Ur, Etq.
Keeler imagmed would ntiify hii boy'i deain* and give him-
tett the niipoitunity tt puttmg into pnwtkc the |duu which he
wu nutu ing lor «u honourable occupation lor hit ion. See-
ing * favounble opportunity at handling the place by wcuring
the lervices of a young farmer, he purchaied the adjoining farm,
and the ion of its former owner agreed to take charge on the
baaia of "share and ibare" alilce in the products, Mr. Keeler
reaer\-ing the forest land and orchards with other land for sepa-
rate development.
With his business fore i>: t, Mr. Keeler had no idea of rush-
ing into any hvge en " iitures until experience had taught
Um the best method' ■;' oiocedure. As it became known to
the neighbors that a , ircomer from the city had purchased
land, they became immediately interested and awaited with
much curiosity what their new neighbour might be going to do.
Mr. Keeler casualty met with one and another of these; he
fouBd them intelUgent within the limits of their old-time ex-
perience, and when he told them he hoped they might work
togtther to develop the district, he was met with frifHMlly assur-
ances of goodwill and assistance. He further soon found that,
for the verj' reasons which the professor and himself had \rorked
out, these farmers had been following for years along these
narrow lines of cultivation which brought them an easy sub-
sistence, such as keeping cows for supplying the cheese factor> .
caring fairly for their old orchards and growing tomatoes and
other vegetables for the canneries, receiving much the same
returns as they had twenty years befoee. He leaned that the
prices were not such as to enable them to employ sufficient
labour for devela^HKat, while largely for just such reasons
the sons of the fsem had year after year gone into town, where
they could receive ready money or to the West to take up ne^-
prairie farms. When asked why they had not combined to sell
their produce in Wholesale lots, they could only reply by saying
"they hardly knew," but all felt that some such scheme would
pay if it could be worked out. Mr. Keeler recognized now at
first hand how the lack of business methods and the absence of
anyone to take the initiative accounted for what seemed to be
a lack of energy and even a seeming hopelessness of any possible
improvement in their conditions; and he determined that, his
Mr, Jotfk KmUt Ttmu Farmer
n
..II
time and opportunitin peraiitting, be would tiy and develop
in the county lome of the simple methodi under which his
daily bunneu operations in the city were carried on. He fitted
up the old house comfortably tor Ernest and soon had installed
an experienced Scotchman, with bis wife and young family to
take charge of the young orchards, grow special stuff for the
canneries and gradually evolve some new features cf cultiva-
tion, which it seemed to him should be successful.
Mr. Keeler, so interested had he become, determined to have
the house "open" for the summer months and to spend at least
his week-ends in seeing matters develop. During his repeated
visits, he found that the neighbours were discussing more seri-
ously some of the methods of cooperation, one ol which had been
emjUo^-ed successful, at the cheese factory for years, and,
through the young acquaintances which Ernest's jolly ways
had so ea^ made, Mr. Keeler was not long in getting them
organised into an association for mutual assistance in buying
artiik'ial manures, spraying materials for the curchards, and for
picking, packing and marketing apples and other products.
At his invitation a meeting was held in the old house and he was
not a little surprised to find displayed an amount of accurate
{tactical knowledge which ser\'ed to assure him that with busi-
ness methods in buying and sellings very satisfactor>- results
were not only possible but even certain.
So the season advanced from the early spring into the long
summer days and these found Mr. Keeler escorting Fanny and
his eldest son do\sii to the "Farm," himself delighted with the
prtispect of a iio\'el experience and the growing hope that hia
daughter might there regain her (4d-time health and q>irits
and that his eldest son might obtain a wholesomer view of life.
It had been only the failure of her son to t^iow off his <fisBipated
habits, which had injured her vanity, and her saziety regard-
ing Fanny's continued delicate health iHiicfa had haK-ref*onciled
Madam Keeler to the absurdity of her husband's farmif^ fad,
and his encouraging Ernest to exile Jumsetf m the dreary
country. She knew that "it was all foKy and that both would
tire of it; but si^posed there could come so harm from that
trying it for a summer it they chose. She and Mami would gt
to Mudu^a cottage."
W Tht /{mitnatim t^ Jo—pk KttUr, Etq.
It could not be Mid thst John Keder at fint reluhed b«n-
UuncDt from hi* chy haunt*; but he wae not to far loet to
■eU-iopect or mentaUjr etniig enough to miit hii father's
■ugfeetioDi niiich amounted to a command, that he go down
with Fanrjr and make Emeit'i flnt tummer a ple a ia nt one
on the "Farm." Thoroughly practical, Vb. Keeier knew that
John muit be occulted, » only aeemed •urprised when Tom one
Saturday evening came ipeeding up the creek in a well-fur-
niahed motor-boat, which he had rtm down in from Toronto
and which he told John he had brought ao that he might keep
Fanny out all the pleasant days on the water of the Bay and
bring back the color to her cheeks.
So it was not long before the change of scene, constant occu-
pation, with life in the open, motoring, fishing, and resting and
dreaming were not only doing marvels for Fanny, but were also
exerting their soothing, healing effects upon the prodigal son,
to whom came gradually some idea of his hitherto misspent
life, some sense of personal unworthiness and, with steadied
nerves, a growing determination to reform his ideas and habits
of life. To Fanny the days proved one long summer dream.
Coming in from a long ride in the sheltered cabin of the motor
boat, the delicate girl would go rested, though weary, to her
open tent pitched amid the cedars, which, grouped in little
clumps upon the warm light soil of the pasture field looking
over the beach, gave to the soft moist lepl^TS from the lake the
balsamic odours from their sighing bou^. Then after an ap-
petite, long absent, had been appeased with a cream and egg
collation she would sleep, fanned by the summer breeie, and in
the cooler evenings enjoy the campfire parties, which the others
of the household had come to make on the gravel beach. Fanny
soon came to so love the spot, that first in the hot evenings, and
then gradually until every night she made the tent her habita-
tion and, wrapped in warm rugs, would enjoy unbroken slum-
bers soothed by the ceoeucc-^ of the waves lapping on the pebbled
shore. As her strength d< finitely increased, she began to wander
through the meadows and to visit the com fields where Ernest
was daily busy with the men, cultivating the waving com, and
soon she became interested in watching the varied crops in
their wonderful growth and the increasing splendours of the
Mr. Jettfk Kt^ Turn* Fanur
n
weil-truited oichardi. Then ihe gndually piuhed (artlier into
the deeper thade of the woodUod with it< munnuriog pioet
and bwchet and ample undenrood, folli>wing through it* depthi
the purttng cieelc, deep hidden b the tangled cedan, and came
home laden with watercreu, ferns, manb marigoldi and other
woodland treaaum. Responsive to Nature's allurements,
Fanny revelled "\ every new-found flower and moss and, soon,
forgetting she had been an invalid, rejoiced her father on his
week-end \-isit5 with the abundant evidences of a returning
strength and of a rapid improvement in her appearance of health
and with an outburst of her old-time joyous spirit.
But soon, all too soon, the nights lengthened and the summer
sped away and Mr. Keeler awaited with anxiety and some alarm
for what the coming autumn and winter nights might have in
store for his son and daughter. Nevertheless, the autumn came
and with it the generous, even bountiful gifts of Mother Earth.
The evenings were calm and serene, wrapped in that odorous
haie which marks the 'fall' of the leaves, with the warm
vapours wafted in from the now warm lake waters which, pass-
ng over the cooling land, made that wonderful, long autumn
season near the Great L4ike shorcii, delaying often into late
November the killing frosts and creating an ideal climate for
the ripening, tinting and maturing of the apples of those veri-
table Hesperidean gardens of Canada. But now and then came
the li^t frosts to aid in perfecting Nature's treasures, and
with them the tinting of the birches, beeches and maples.
Ernest and his men were now busily engaged in picking the lus-
cious fruits, having already gathered for the cannery the green
com and the ripe tomatoes hanging in their crimson profusion
from the drooping vines.
The Cooperative Association formed in the spring had done
well. Through Mr. Keeler's efforts the railway had put in a
"siding," and flag-station while the association had erected a
large storehouse to which the fanuers brought their fruits,
which there were carefully sorted, graded and packed in the
finest type of modem box, to be sent in car-lots wherever called
for; but especially to Winnipeg to be handled by one of Mr.
Keeler's travellers who had arranged for their sale direct to
retailers there and in other western cities. An expert picker
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78
The lUumiruttion qf Jote-ph Keeler, Esq.
and packer had been empk^ed by the associatk)n, a man psr-
sonally interested in the success of the work, who had marked on
each package the brand of the association, the grade and the
grower's name, thus banning a system which was soon to bring
credit to a district long criticised as unprogressive. Joseph
Keeler had too long known and helped to evolve the refine-
ments of city trade not to realise that what the association had
already done was but the beginning of what an up-to-date and
critical trade demanded. Satisfied as he was with the first sea-
son's business, he saw that with more varied and more refined
products, of course more labour would be demanded, if the
highest success was to be secured.
The crisp evening breezes of late October had now succeeded
the September stillness and the whole country-aide was alive
with the n<ttBe of the apple-picking gangs in the orchards, where
the leaves were now shrivelled and falling from branches bend-
ing with the ruddy or golden loads of perfect winter fruit. Mr.
I^eler*s heart bounded with delight, as one Saturday he strayed
through the orchards fra,<!rant with the flavours of ripened fruit,
crushing the falling leave's which marked the completion of the
growing season. Nature seemed to say to him, "How perfect
is my work! Earth and sky, sun and lake breezes have poured
their benisons on man, happy in the measure that he learns to
take advantage of my gifts I"
But the time had come when Ernest, straight and broad*
shouldered with bronzed face and glancing eyes, which told of
the very joy and dtli^t in living, must depart for the Agricul-
tural College, where he now could go, fully prepared to seize
with avidity the information supplied at lectures and demon*
strations, the value of which tus sunmier in the field luid tau^t
him to appreciate.
The time and other matters related to his going were being
discussed on the Saturday evening when Mr. Keeler was present
in front of the blazing log-fire in the old-fashioned chimney*
place, after he had been wandering with John and Fanny
through the ordiards and the woods scented with the smoky
fragrance of fallen leaves and ripened flowers, as they crackled
beneath their tread. It was very evident to John that his father
longed for the maintenance and continuance of the fortunate
Mt. Joseph Keder Tum$ Fanner
79
oonditionfl brouj^t about by the happy mimmer at the Fann,
and especially did he himself feel that he would but poorij' repay
his father's generous kindness in all that had been done for him-
self and for his »ister, Fanny, who seemed almost another being,
did he not at least offer a solution of the problem. So he said:
"You know, father, I have grown to like the quiet life here,
idiich has been so good for me, and if Fanny will only stay I shall
be only too glad to remain with her. You know there is that
timber, which you were looking over today and which you pro-
pose to have thinned by cutting the larger trees for lumber, must
be supervised during its removal. Besides if you intend to erect
a sugar-house for the maple-sugar makii g from those 500 trees
on the west fann in the spring, someone must be here to see it
constructed."
Mr. Keeler looked toward Fanny, whose face, flushed with the
warm radiance from the burning logs, seemed to fairly glow
with a strange sweet beauty and calm. The girl, catching
his fond, anxious look, came quietly over to him and seating
herself on the arm of his chair placed her arm about his neck
and kissing him said;
*' Father, you don't know what Jack has said means for me.
For weeks I have been so longing to stay here till I dream of it.
All is fair and sweet and peaceful, where the lake and woods,
the growing golden com, and the apple-crowned orchards have
all been so good, bringing joy, happiness and health back to me.
But I was afraid to speak for I thought Jack would be worry-
ing to get back to Toronto. O Jack, you dear splendid fel-
low; how did you know I wanted to stay?"
Mr. Keeler was quite overcome with joy and after a moment's
silence, said:
"You cannot know how happy you all make me. You, John,
have at last come to know yourself and have learned that the
first step toward happiness ia in giving rather than receiving,
and you need not my thanks and blessing for what you are
willing to do for your sister, since it will be equally a benefit to
yourself. I am sure that your mother is getting to understand
and becoming reconciled to having you both remain at the
Farm, if you will promise to come up and both spend Christmas
with her. I know that when she sees you both she will be con-
80 Thi Ittummatim cf Jotejh KeOer, Eiq.
tent and will let you come back to what it not, at least (or us, a
dieary country."
Ernest, irfio had been «Uent during the conversation, could
no longer keep silent, and so started:
"Jack, you old brick, it is just too jolly for you to stay and
take care of the farm for me wjen I am at college. Kemember
Fan is always going to be my housekeeper here, and she can
only stay in town at Christmas for I am commg back here for
the holidays. Besides I want you to get busy and have the men
cut and clear an acre up in the pines there for I am going to have
a good cottage built there for het where she can start next spring
her own real garden, that, when the March winds blow, she will
be warm and cosy; and amidst
** TTbe Buunliiiiiig pines ftiid hemlocks'
be sheltered wherever the breeses blow.
"You know I shall sure be back at'Easter for the sugar-mak-
ing and Fan will put on long rubber boots and there'll be some-
thing of a time, you bet."
"All right, my deah bhoy," said Jack, with a wink at his
sister, "I shall immediately proceed to carry your lordship's
orders into effect. I shall clear the lot and build the sugar-
house; Fan may put on the long booU and carry sap, but J shall
be in at the sugar-oSI"
III
CHAPTER XVII
The Legal Etolct:on or an Aoricultubist
m
."^1
The autumn tints had faded and the chilling winds had driven
the whirling leaves from the trees, while frosts and light snow-
falls gave a wintry appearance to the landscape, dull with
November clouds. John Keeler had assumed the responsibili-
tics of the Farm, when Ernest had gone away to college. Diuing
the summer of his moral convalescence John had tmconsciously
become initiated into many matters, which belong to farming,
and now was to be seen diuly engaged in seeing to the storing
of winter food for the cattle, and in having them properly housed.
But especially was he busy with the work of clearing the space
for Fanny's new farm cottage and in ordering the lumber, v^e
the men were preparing the heavy timbers necessary for the
foundation walls.
Plans had been gone over agfun and again by Fanny and him-
self, while a pleasant site with a southerly outlook over the lake
had been cted. Excavations were made, framing begun,
and soon '. gang of workmen were busy erecting the walls.
Fanny was daily to be seen viewing operations, dressed in
wannest garments, gaining daily rugged health in the crisp
wintry air. A splendid appetite gave zest to existence, and
early hours and deep slumbers brought such a sense of well-
being to t he happy girl as she had seldom before enjoyed. Soon
the walls and roof were constructed, and the interior work begun.
The cottage was protected by the tall pines to the north and
east and had a large sitting-room looking to the south, with a
neat flower-room to the southwest. From this extended easterly
an ample verandah with a glass balcony overitead, on to which
Fanny*s sleeping-room with French windows opened. She had
learned the meaning of fresh air, and intended that her old tent-
life of the summer should be carried on, sleeping in the open.
The rooms ever3rwhere were lined with selected woods and pat-
terned to suit the young lady's fancy; while the workmen,
81
8t The lUuminalion 0} Joieph Heeler, Etq.
pleaaed with her ninny amiles, were delighted to fulfil her every
wi«h. Simple yet modem city conveniencea were initalled from
kitchen to bathroom! and JoKph Keeler was greatly pleaaed on
his occasional viaits to see his two children revelling in the nov-
elty of a new home after their own tastes.
John had to supervise the men engaged in the varied employ-
ments of the Farm; but his oSBce training made it quite easy for
him to conduct both indoor and outdoor operations in a prompt
and business-like manner. The cutting of the timber, the draw-
ing of the logs, the careful cutting and piling of the brush-wood,
all engaged his attention, while this outdoor life gave the strength
and tone to his whole system, which made him no longer
desire to indulge in habits and practices, now with him a thing
of the past. The several works on agriculture and farming
journals served for his daily literature and gradually he became
interested m farming as a worthy occupation. It was all new
to him; but with a student's habits he soon came to understand
something of the wide meaning of the science of agriculture.
The weather, the soil, the varied crops suitable to the locality
developed a growing capacity for observation of the things of
Nature, to which he had hitherto been a stranger.
Both Fanny and John took much pleasure )d keeping their
student londlo'ii informed on the weekly progress of operations,
and Errcst ei-tertained them with accounts of all the things he
was observing and learning r he coUege and amused them by
relating the numerous improve ii^-jnts he was going to introduce
during the next season. Limited to their rural neighbours, both
Fanny and John gradually found themselves getting on friendly
terms with all who, from time to thne, almost timidly, fotmd
opportunity for visiting the new house and examining with much
curiosity the household conveniences to which most were stran-
gers. Such became, of course, the occasion of much comment
in their own homes, and unconsciously each began to think that
they too might enjoy water laid on in their houses and at least
some of the simpler conveniences, which they saw would make
homelife more comfortable and enjoyable.
In the summer months the family had spent their Sundays
in enjoying the pleasant scenes on lake and on the Farm; but
as the weather grew wintry and stormy and acquaintance ex-
Th0 Legal EvoluHon aj an AfricuUuriH 8S
tended, Fanny had suggested to John that they go to the little
church, set in the old graveyard, given by a former proprietor
from a comer of the Farm and where almost a century *8 "fore-
fathers of the hamlet sleep." They found the service simple
and the popular hymns sung heartily, even if somewhat grating
upon Fanny's well-trained ear; but it was not long before the
minister, who listened with delight *o her clear voice adding its
melody, had enquired whethei she it ould not sing for them at a
week-night entertainment. Of course she complied with the
simple request, and pleased greatly the people who were not
long in urging that she play the harmonium on Sundays and
lead the choir. Ever ready to oblige she soon found that she
could not only interest herself but also give pleasure to others,
and before the winter was over she had the choir trained in the
singing of anthems very creditably. Thus gradually she became
the centre of several little activities — even in a dissenting chapel
— which meant much for the improvement of the young women
and men whose opportunities had been so limited.
All the family in Toronto were looking forward to the Christ-
mas home-coming from east and west. Ernest had already
arrived and gave a boisterous welcome to the two farmers
arriving on Christmas eve, and who were received by Joseph
Keeler and his wife with deep feelings of joy hitherto unknown.
Mrs. Keeler had not seen her two children for months; but now
as she gated upon her favourite son, strong, clear-eyed, with
elastic step and manly bearing and upon her daughter, rosy
cheeked, joyous and instinct with vigorous health, she broke
down and wept copious tears of joy its she held her to her bosom.
Possibly for none had these months done more than for Mrs.
Joseph Keeler. She had at lei.i'th gradually begun to realise
that life has another meaning than that which she had hitherto
gathered from it; and she now went to her husband and, kissing
him, thanked him with real gratitude in looks and words for
what he had done for them aU, so quietly and so wisely. The
practical Tom ^aid, "£vei>lhing is turning out all right as I
knew it must," and rejoiced with the rest, while even the
haughty Maud condescended to join in the common happiness.
The painful and serious soon gave way to the joyous and merry,
when Ernest demanded in his boisterous, jolly way of Jack,
M Tlu iUuffltnotum of Jotph Keder, Etq.
"How an your cowa?" mnd iuuted on partkulmn reguding
the health ol "FrMky," "Jenny," "Hoey" and "BUcky"—
all being hit calvei. Fanny in return had to deicribe in detail
the progreu of the cottage and when she invited them all to the
houK-wanning in February, Eme»t'« spirita became ebullient.
The happy holiday week went by, only too »oon, with the
many friendi of Fanny calling and all expmaing delight at her
reitored health. Naturally John Keeler was reserved and,
with a proper perception, felt that he had yet to prove himself
and make worthy amends for an unfortunate past by real deeds
before he could look "the whole world in the face," and tread
with firmness iU broad highway. As Ernest longed to see the
Farm, the improvements and the progress of all its operations,
the happy party was broken up after several mornings happily
qient by Fanny and her two brothers in selecting proper fur-
nishings for the new home, and the) three returned together,
Fanny and John sufficiently gratified in enjoying Ernest's
exclamations of delight as he examined every detail of the build-
ing of which he was to be the proprietor and Fanny "The Lady
of the House. " From the cows and horses at the bams to the
lumbering operations in the woods the boy passed, spending
every hour finding some matter of interest, so that it was with
much regret that he tore himself away at the end of a week to
return to his college work.
John Keeler, while spending his holiday in the city quietly,
had not refused the friendship of those who chose to call upon
him, and amongst such w^ the dose friend of Maud, Miss
Mary Morrison, between wLom and himself there had for year*
existed an understanding, based on the mutual regard of children,
which might long since have ripened into a positive engagement
had not John's habits, time and again, made such on her part
most imprudent. Her delight and pleasure now at finding
him on her first call "clothed and in his right mind" and re-
stored to health, yet hesitating to express mori^ than ordinary
pleasure at seeing her again, were too evident to John Keeler,
whose face lighted with an expressive smile of gratitude, as the
kind girl's heightene colour expressed her sympathetic regard.
Her call lengthened to a visit and she forgot time, watching
his pleased face, as she encouraged him by inquiries to tell of all
Tht Ugal EtaUim (tf m ArrieulhinH U
tb«ir doiiigi, vhich ihc had beaid ioiiietliiiig of through Maud,
tuul which kept Fanny and hinueU » biuily engaged at the
Farm, that they were forgetting th<>ir oM friendi. John, for-
getting hi> reserve, became almoat eloquent in telling of the
many things he had been doing, and which so interested him
that he never found an idle moment or time to grow weary of
rural life, though sometimes, perhaps, looking up expressively,
"he mi^' leel k>nely."
The young woman's beaming face toM him she understood:
but she only said:
"How lovely it must be to have so .luch to employ and
interest one and to enjoy real life in the corntiy, instnd of the
vapid artificialities they had to endure in the whirl of city
society. "
More than once they met during the holidays, and before
John returned Miss Morrison had promised to pay Fanny a
visit when they should be settled in their new home and had the
house-warming.
CHAPTER XVm
Hautoh Da™ Hath Comt Aoaik Down ok ihb
Laks SnoBE
life at the F»nn had raumed iU biuy routine uul by the end
o| Jinuuy. Fanny and John were inrtalled in the now com-
pleted and coiUy fumiahed hoiue. Inviution. \vm iuued to a
few of their moat intimate frienda, and in due time the pleaaant
houM-party had arrived and for wveral day> a mildly hilarioua
tune wa. spent. John eacorted the parly through the woods to
view the lumberinr operations, and many were the exdamationa
of wonder and delight of the city folk. a< they mw the axemen
dexterously feU the pine trees, trim and cut the logs and brush
and with strong teams haul the timber, placing it in pUea ready
for sawing. Here and there on the crisp snow were the foot-
pnnts of foxes, rabbiU, squirrels and other wUd things, whUe
now and then the whirring partridge waa starUed by the new-
comers. Every morning these birds of the evergreens came, to
Uie joy of the visitors, to the euge of tho clearing, where aa
Fanny 8 pets they were accustomed to be fed. As the snow had
fallen m November, she had noticed the few remaining biida
daily coming nearer the bams and house seeking for food, no
longer easUy obtained in the fieMa and woods. As the snow
^w deeper the partridge too wo jld be found approaching shyly
the hjildings, and, susp^tisg the cause, Fanny threw crumba
and as they cinie again, she got grain and soon waa pleased to
find them becoming morning \-iaitanta. Then, too, came the
snow buntings, and at tunes the cedar wax-wings and grosbeaks,
which soon got to know their friend and foUowed her from the
farmhouse to the new cottage. A flock of crows had chaUenged
their mtruMon mto the cottage in the pines and had looked su»-
pirmusly upon its now permanent occupants; but they, always
wise, soon might be heard it the breaking dawn warning off by
their caw! caw! the smal'er birds, and only gave pUce to the
latter when Fanny went to the verandah to feed them. The
T 87
I
88 Tin lUuminaliom qf Ji<Mj)k KtMf, E<(.
party took long Wklka to tt the breakcn roll in on the bnuh
with ifai hummoclu M ice piled high on the ihoie: while (gain
•leigh bell* lent their plewunt miuic to the evening drive in the
bob-aleighi.
It aeemed proper, too, that Fanny ihould do loniething (or
her country (riendi, » a concert wa> arranged in the chun-h at
which the city performen gave ielectioui and mingled in pleai-
ant convenation with their (armer acqiiai nt a w ei. After a final
"party," to which aome ol the more immediate neighbon were
invited to meet the viiitort, the latter regretfully bade their
adieut and John and Fanny returned their quiet life, Min Morri-
•on only remaining with them. She had, during theee pawing
dayi, obaerved with pleasure the active interert John took in
every part of the Farm, and waa lurpriwd, indeed aitonithed,
at the strong grasp shown of all it> practical details. Instead of
the nervous and irritable lawyer she had known, she now bdteld
a strong, calm ma;., seriously engaged in the business of life with
an evident purpose of doing his utmost to cany out his respon-
sible task successfully. She found that instead of performing
a perfunctory duty, John Keeler was eager to learn everything
of farming operations, and she noticed that his reading was espe-
cially of works on the practice and economics of agriculture.
His conversation turned upon some of the problems, which his
father and the professor had been so long engaged upon, and
John pointed out to Miss Morrison how backward agriculture
had become, compared with that in some European countries,
where throu^ his reading he had found scientific methodsof pro-
duction, distribution and selling fully developed. He spoke of
the low land values, which were the measure of the small average
crops in this splendid climate, and said that to reconstruct agri-
culture in the district was a work worthy of the highest kind of
intellect and training. He, too, pointed out the loss to the dis-
trict through so many young men leaving the farms for the city,
and felt sure that the absence of the old-time spirit and energy,
which had marked the district sixty years ago, was primarily
due to a failure of the rural population to keep pace with the
application of modem scientific methods as in other fields of
human energy, and that this must be (airly attributable to the
lack of means and opportunity tor obtaining exact knowledge
Vaieimi Dof Butt Comi Afi* m llu Lakt Short W
o( neh dcvelopmenU Mid of rapital to apply them to pro-
duetion.
The evident determiiuition o( John Keeirr to itiit t ■erioiu
put in reconitructing rountry life by introducing up-to^t«
methodf, both of production ud diitribution of farm producti
by encounginft the cooperation already begun, arouied Maiy
Morrison*! enthuMum, until the uncooacioualy waa led to ny:
"How iplrndid luch an ideal ii and how one muit wiah to labour
hard to lee it fulfilled."
John waa encouraged thua to hope that ahe too might become
M willing helper in luch a desirable work; but was yet too unsure
of how fhe looked upon him, for him to dare oak her to aiaiat him
inhiataak.
Aa the daya grew longer, preparations were being begun for
eitended outdoor operations during the coming seaaon; and fre-
quent were the converaaticna with the most progressive neigh-
bours as to. the possibility of establishinga larger storehouse, fitted
up with all the modem appliances {or cold storing, at the seat
of product Q, the bulk of their perishable products such as eggs
and butt ^nd cheese, and latev their apples, instead of selling
them at half price only to be stored later under less wholesome
conditions in the city He knew very well the Urge city ware-
houses, where great piles of food supplies were heaped up, often
after their first freshness < gone, and urged that the local
storage would benefit most :< th producer and consumer. The
problem of obtaining loca. capital proved, when attempted,
somewhat discouraging; but gradually as he obtained accurate
estimates of the amount of available produce within an easy
distance of the warehouse at the railway siding and the coat at
erecting a proper building and installing machinery he succeeded
in getting a fair number of shares taken in a nOperative com-
pany by several dosen fanners and, with this accomplished, laid
the project before his father. As the idea was wholly in keeping
with Mr. Joseph Keeler's views and es he saw in the scheme the
fulfilment of his hope, that John would not only develop a per-
manent interest in rural affairs and show an inclination to engage
actively in them, but also promote rural reconstruction, he
readily promised to see that any balance of capital needed would
be forthcoming to establish the business on a modest scale, trust-
M The lUumination o/ JowpA Keehr, Etq.
ing that John's energies mi{^t prove equal to making it a profit-
able venture, assisted by the practical knowledge of his fanner
associates.
Agreements were then entered into by which each coOperator
was to supply definite amounts of fann products weekly throu^-
out the year, each in its special season of abundance; while the
directors of the local cheese factory saw the advantage of storing
their cheese in a cold warehouse locally for curing, instead of sell-
ing it at a cent or two of loss per pound in the hot weather for
storage elsewhere. Contracts for a cold-storage warehouse were
also let, and John had but little time apart from his evenings to
devote to the entertainment of his fair visitor, who, without
knowing it, was soon entering with spirit into John*s schemes.
The inherited instincts of two families uf business people, with
John's legal knowledge, made progress rapid, and Miss Morrison
began to link, with the projects for the betterment of the district,
her future with the man whom she was, learning to admire, as she
had long learned to love.
But the visit had long outrun its intended length, and modesty
seemed to say to Mary Morrison, that, if she were not going to
be a permanent resident, it was high time for her return home.
Fanny had not only played the part of hostess, but had also re-
joiced in the many symptoms of a growing admiration and fond-
ness on the part of Mary Morrison for her brother, so that she
often found occasion to retire early that the two might have
better opportunity to get to understand each other. At last the
day of departure was fixed by Miss Morrison, and for the last
time she and John had taken an extended tramp along the wind-
ing logroads among the pines through which the strong winds of
the coming spring "soughed" softly, giving a soothing sense of
harmony and companionship between the two lovers and all
their surroundings. All Nature seemed ready to spring into life,
and that nameless, but universal, influence of returning and
energising power, as truly a part of the nature of man as of the
plants and animals, was crystallising sentiments and longings,
hitherto not fully analysed, of these two into a strong pure
stream of love. Here and there a wood-pigeon cooed its soft
words to its mate and the chickadees chattered their encouraging
note. The waters of the creek in flood in the cedar fiats, rushing
:iij|.
Haleyon Dayt Have Come Again on the Lake Shore 01
to the Iake» told them of the awakened enei^ of life, flowing free
and untrammeled, and the subconKious contact of both with all
stimulated in them the common thought of a future lived to-
gether, filled with worthy effort and noble deeds. Mary Morri-
son glowed with the vibrant force of all this ferment of life and
nascent energy and, suddenly tiuning to John, said:
" Isn't the mere sense of living and being a part of all this new
world of action splendid and enough to arouse one's highest
efforts to their utmost exercise? It seems so strange, John, to
see you the central point and the impersonation of so much ac-
tivity and work going on everywhere aroimd, and I cannot, when
with you, separate myself from it. All seems so fresh, pure and
independent in such a life, that one cannot but envy you in your
determination to make it your own."
Filled with a sudden emotion at this imexpected declaration,
John stopped, and with difficulty found words to say:
"Mary, it is too much to ask you, perhaps too greatly influ-
enced by the rushing waters and whispering pine trees, if you won't
help me to cany out what is daily becoming a pleasure as well as
an imperative duty. But won't you be like Tennyson's princess,
" 'My wifc^ my life, O we will walk thii worid
Yoked in lU exerciie of noble end.*
"You know my whole past too well, Mary, for me to refer to
it; but I think you can now be siu% of me, since I feel so sure of
myself, and am realising the full meaning of what old Professor
Bladde called his creed :
" Xet prideful prieits do bsttle about creeds:
That chuich ia mine whicli doei moat Chiiit-Uke deeds.'
"And that is what my work here is to be.
"We have gone together too long, to be ardent young lovers;
btit, Mary, if you will only say you will become a part of my life
and help me, I can promise that, if a life of honest endeavour can
pdliate the past, you will never, with God's help, have cause to
regret that you joined me to make my chosen task easier."
With eyes full of joyous tears, Mary looked full into John's
face, and, giving him her hand, said:
" Yea, John, I will be your wife, if it is going to make your task
!"
M The Ittwnination qf Joteph Kteltr, Etq.
Side by side in the deep shadows cast by the tall pine trees
from the getting sun, flooding the inter-spaces with a roseate
glow, the two silent loven walked through tiie winding pathways
— a man and woman grown to maturity of thought and action,
proud and satisfied in each other with no illusions as to. the fu-
ture, yet, both trusting in Rabbi Ben Eira's words:
"Grow old alone wi^ °>et
The bMt H jct to be
TV lait o( Hie; for which the flnt wae niMle;
Our tiaee am in Hie hand
Who aaith. *A whole 1 planned;
Youth ihowe but half; tiuet God; eee all, ner be afraid.' "
The setting sun was bathing the flower-room and, thrpugh it,
the verandah in a golden hue as Fanny, now becoming, perhaps
anxiously curious, waiting for the late-comers, met them at the
door as John was handing Miss Morrison, their clasped hands
strangely lingering, up the stone stepsl From the faces of both
were reflected such placid, confident smiles, that Fanny felt that
all she had been longing and praying for, for John's sake, had at
length come true; and with open arms the sweet girl went tor-
ward, embraced and kissed her friend, asking archly,
"Am I right?" to which Mary Morrison, with swimming eyes
could only say,
"Yea, darling, John and I are always going to walk together,
now."
She could only say,
"How lovely!" as she threw her arms around her brother's
neck and cried for very joy.
CHAPTER XIX
The Philosophbb's Stone Dibcotereo
The winter had ended and the May days had come, when Mr.
Joseph Keeler next met the professor under the old familiar
conditions in the library after a stroll through the groimds
now odorous from flowering shrubs. Mr. Keeler was looking out
upon the world again with a pardonable contentment. The
last two or more years' events had brought out in him qualities,
which, before dormant, were now making him view life from a
broader and more generous standpoint, and causing the fine
type of business man to move amongst his fellows with a benig-
nant countenance, which gave to his naturally dignified bearing
a grace which influenced pleasantly all with whom he came in
contact.
From time to time he had chatted shortly with the professor
about his rural ventures, and tonight he was rehearsing the
latest from the Farm. He told of the splendid energy which
John had developed, and of the comprehensive views be was
obtaining of the pressing needs of rural districts in Ontario and of
the ways through which a new prosperity might be brought to
them. He told of John's investigations into Ihe methods de-
veloped in Europe, whereby governments had created agri-
cultural credits, through which associations could obtain
funds at low rates of interest, necessary for new undertakings or
extending old ones.
"What do you think, professor, of the soundness of such a
policy for Canada?" said Mr. Keeler, "Is there any reason why
the capital of governments, properly secured, should not be
loaned to such agricultural associations?"
The professor replied:
"Certainly not, but on the contrary there is every reason
based on practice, why such loans should be made in the same
way as railway grants, bonuses to steel works, and shipping com-
panies, since, even more than these, they will become at once
M The lUuminaHon of Joaeph KeeUr^ Esq.
productive, through increased crops and increased cattle,
thiou^ better drainage* more labour, and better implementi;
and, if loaned for cooperative undertakings as packing houses
for fruit and other storage, will insure more abundant and
better food to the consumer. Remember the example of Den-
mark we have spoken of before, and compare the resources ci
reconstructed Bulgaria to maintain the struggle against effete
Turkey."
"Well,** said Mr. Keeler. "John has determined that the con-
ditions down on the lake can and must be improvsd, and I am
seconding in every way lus efforts to secure codperaticm
amongst the fanners; he is succeeding admirably in the cold-
storage company and in seeing the old apathy disappearing
and the farmers busy in extending their acreage under culti-
vation and intensifying the methods of production."
"Well." said the professor, "it is, indeed, amazing that our
business men have not till now seemed to realize the intimate re-
lation between rural production and urban prosperity, and that
it is to their personal interests to see that just such undertakings
as yon have been engaged in should be made general through-
out Ontario? And I am ashamed to say that, until you brought
all the iacts before me and have indicated the way to the solu-
tion of the problem, I too have failed to realise either the real
situation or the necessity for its improvement. Indeed, I have
sadly failed in my patriotic duty, as an adopted Canadian."
"I cannot imagine anything more worthy of the best energies
of a trained scholar, lawyer and business-man like your son is,
fbun tAlfing up this work just in the manner he is doing and car-
rying it on with enthusiasm. His personal influence must con-
."tantly increase, and the good which will result will extend far
beyond the immediate field of his operations. If other capable
men would only take the work up seriously in differ nt districts
and bring their united influence and knowledge to bear on our
Legislatures, we would soon be seeing agriculture developed into'
one of the most lact sciences. Let us hope that the boys and
their sister may continue to beautify their lives by further
devotion to the splendid work, and that both Mrs. Keeler and
yourself may derive nothing but the purest pleasure and satis-
The Phiiotopker'a Stone Ditcovered
95
faction from the financial and personal sacrifice you both
are making."
"Ah» professor," said Mr. Keeler, "you can scarcely under*
stand how it is not for us a sacrifice but the solution of several
very vexing famil>' difficulties. Miss Fanny, strong and vig-
ourous with renewed health, finds no day too long for her work
amongst her flowers, birds and poultry, and in the many matters
in which she can assist her brothers. She is interested in the
daily, in the greenhouses and the orchards and discusses them all
quite scientifically. She delights in having occasional city
girl-friends with her and gets much fun out of their ignorance
of affairs rural in which she is now an expert, and she is never
more pleased than in pointing out matters of special interest to
them. As for my boy, Ernest, he is happy and busy from morn-
ing till night, and is in many ways showing the benefits of his
year at the college; while John has experienced a complete
revolution, both in his habits and modes of thought and action.
He has found himself and his opportunity, and instead of his
being an anxiet> to me, I am confidently looking forward to his
being a power for good in his community scarcely to be meas-
lued. Just imagine a joyous, prosperous farming district like
in the olden times, whence the depression from imrequited in-
dustry will have disappeared, where the common school educa-
tion will be a science devoted to illustrating the bcttuties and
dignity of agriculture as a profession, and my children all leaders
in the good work. Who knows how great the good, how wide the
benefits both to themselves and the community at large. Surely
all our ideals ought not to be, and are not, purely commercial!
Good society in the past was not founded solely or even largely
upon money and the influence it brings; and never tn the past,
nor now, has it proved any stimulus to either inH- pendence,
goodness or happiness. The intense competitio-^ modern
business dwarfs noble natures, suppresses generou mpathies
and stifles lofty ideals. Society must subsist by wealth, but
ought not and must not be dominated by it. The *I6y\a of the
King' ought to be the catechism of every boy in mercantile life
and the application of its codes of honour should replace the
ethics which too often govern in business circles."
And so we must leave the two good friends for the time to
M Tlu lUuminaiim qf Jotepk Ktrier, £i}.
their rconomic atudies and philoaopluc*! diicuuioiu. The
thrae other memben of the Keeler family itill under tlie family
root have alio begun to lee the moic wrioui aide of life's dutie*.
Tom, during the laat two years or to liai been developing iplen-
didly, taking on himself many of the duties which his
father's new undertakings have forced upon him, and, as the
raponsible business assistant of hi* father, is ahoit ig a broad
grasp of the larger phases of a successful business house. Even
the haughty Haud, associating with her generous-hearted,
piBctical brother, is evincing some qualities of heart and mind
which have hitherto lain dormant and undiscovered.
Madam Keeler, with a deepened sense that in life there are
contained many elements of Tragedy as of Comedy, is now
feeling something of its seriousness, which lends a real dignity
to her social demeanour, and as she becomes more quiet and
sedate her real goodness of heart has an opportunity for its
active exercise. '
Fanny and Ernest keep things lively in all departments at
the Farm; the boy's unrestrained enjoyment in his daily activ-
ities, based upon a sturdy young manhood, supported by his
sister's never-failing happy disposition, making them favourites
with every employee and with their kindly neighboun. There
is nothing which they do not encourage to make life amongst
their young neighbours more sociable, enjoyable and elevating;
while, supported by the serious energies of John Keeler, the
evoluti'iU of farming along scientific and business lines is stead-
ily making headway in the district and stamping its impress
upon every cooperating farmer.
The mutual understanding between Mary Morrison and John
Keeler, which had ripened into an "engagement," is being cul-
tivated assiduously by these now serious, if not ardent lovers,
and it has become generally known in their circle that the wed-
ding of these two, once prominent in the giddy circle of Toronto
society, is to take place in the coming winter, whenever John's
now very serious occupation in developing the new business
of the cold-storage warehouse at the Farm shall have become
less strenuous. Polite Toronto society, which had at first
been very critical as to the wisdom of Mary Morrison's action
in becoming '* engaged," has now begun to congratulate her
Tlu fUtonpkm'i SUmt Ditamred
9T
upon her •ppnMchiag happincai; while her Iwiy frienda are veiy
curioiu to know what her future movementt are to be and
where they propoie to make their future home. To auch, Mary
Horriaon ahraya replica with unruffled aweetneaa, yet with an
impreaaiveneaa, which preventa further remark:
"That ahe propoaea to live where her huaband reaidea, and
wlierever hia buaineaa requirea him/' and aaaurea thrm with
a captivating amile, "that lilce John 'a great-great-grandmother,
they will find hakyon daya ever ahining upon them down in tlw
old diatrict of Prcaqu'Iale Bay."
The End.