The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-09-10 00:00:00

SATURDAY,_SE PT. IC, 1881.

A DESCRIPTION OF WINNIPEG.

The Times of the 7th Inst. published another letter from
Its Correspondent, descriptive of the Canadian tour cf the
Governor-General, the Marquis of Lorne. We make the fol-
lowing extract from the letter, which gives a description of
the far-famed town of Winnipeg
It ,gave one the benefit of a striking and curious
contrast to come straight from such scenery as that of
the Lake of the Woods to Winnipeg. There all was
beauty and barrenness; here all is fertility and—the
reverse of beauty. Flattery itself could not call
Winnipeg a pretty place. It is flat as a board, with not
so much as a hillock to break the dead monotony of
plain. It is badly off for trees and even its two rivers-
the Assinoboine and the Red River—achieve the, for
rivers, difficult task of looking ugly. The very name
Winnipeg—like most Indian names, graphic and eeores-
ive —means "dirty water." Besides, one of Winnipeg's
strongest points is the marvellous rare'Laity with which
it has grown and is still grosl,:iog..., and this cannot be
appreciated by a n:e N'Prjaier who sees it for the first
time. One is rep-,nded of the old lines—
" Ivf'd se:.l these roads before they were made,
..nave lifted your hands, and blessed General Wade."
.o.ll,yorie who had first seen Winnipeg ten os even
Seven years ago and saw it for the second time
how, might, indeed, lift his hands and bless any-
body and everybody connected with its progress—
bless, above all, his own foresight and lucky stars
if he had bought land here. Ten dollars then
might., perhaps, be worth ten times ten dollars
now. Bus the cold, critical stranger, possibly a little
sore at the thought that he had never bought land
here, or it may be, bored by hearing Winnipeg
everywhere as much talked about and belauded as
Aristides, is at first inclined to lift up, not his hands,
but his nose at the odd, unsightly jumble of shabby
shanties and showy stores, of cabins and would-be
palaces—wood, brick, and stone, in ill-matched con-
fusion, as if they had been tumbled half-finished out
of a bag on to the flat plain, and somewhat damaged
and knocked out of shape by the fall.
It requires, however, little reflection to see that
these first impressions are not only superficial, but
unfair. Winnipeg looks unfinished simply because
it is unfinished—is in the growing, hobbledehoy
stage which may be full of promise, but cannot
well be pretty. And after all what matters the
Perishable, deceitful gift of beauty? Who asks if
an heiress fabulously rich has good looks, or who
Would take the whole of the lovely Lake of
Woods (unless, indeed, its vicinity to Winnipeg,
When the railway is finished, makes it good ground
for hotels) if he were offered, instead, a few acres
here? One has only to look at the soil—black,
loamy, and three feet deep—to see that it is rich-
neiss and fertility embodied. There has been no rain
to speak of since we came, but veracious witnesses
declare that, after a heavy shower, you can scarcely
walk across country without risk of leaving your
shoes in the mud. Good judges pronounce the soil
of the Red River valley the finest in the world—
M any rate for growing wheat. I hear of land
Which has been cropped for 40 years in succession
Without being manitred, and which yields good wheat
still. Not less important than the soil of Winnipeg
is its situation, since on this mainly depends its
future. Will it be outstripped by fresh and
still younger rivals further west, called into
existence by the advance of the Canadian
Pacific, or, at best, have to share its profits
and glories with them? So far as one can judge from
Its situation Winnipeg looks as if it could hold its
eWn against corners. Success will lie with what-
ever town may prove the best emporium to which the
farmers can send their grain—the best distributing
Market whence it can be forwarded La t r south, as
current price-lists may dictate? For such distribution
louth and south-east throughout the States, Winnipeg
is first in the field. Taking into consideration not
only its vicinity to the States, but also the wondrous
start it has obtained, no town can be considered to
have a chance of getting in between it and the fron-
tier. . . •
Winnipeg, therefore, like the good boy who pros-
Pered because he chose his parents well, has secured
succees by its clever choice of its four cardinal points.
• • . . Then, again, Winnipeg is soon to be the centre
of no less than four railways. But enough has, perhaps,
been said to show that the confidence of the Winne.
Peggers in the future greatness of their town rests on a
lirm foundation. This confidence is, perhaps, just now
being overdone in the high prices paid for land. There
is what Americans calla " boom "—a very big boom—
here. Wherever one goes one hems stories, each more
marvellous than the last, of the profits made by the
simple process of buying land for, say, 5,000 dole. on
Monday, to sell it for 7,000 dole, on l'uesday, and
Oblige a friend who is going to sell it for 9,000 dole. on
Wednesday. Sanguine speculators have persuaded
theinselves—and, for aught I know, with good reason
--that in ten years Winnipeg will contain 100,000
inhabitants, or ten times its present population, and
are naturally prepared to give almost any price
for ground in the business part of the city large
enough for a store. If they have not the purchase-
Money themselves, they get it from a loan society,
and, as this involves payment of high interest—to
84 Y nothing of the cost of building, furnishing,
and so on—there are croakers who maintain that
the " boom " must end in a "fizzle," and that a
good many worthy people whose ambition is
greater than their judgment will get caught. But,
even if these prophets of evil are right, the
catastrophe, however painful for individual suf-
ferers, will not permanently affect the general
weal, since it cannot injure the quality or
diminish the quantity of the first-class land which
Is the real basis of Winnipeg's success. Meantime,
the " boom" goes on and money is made and spent in
" big piles." A good building site fetched not long ago
Uearly £l5O the "running foot "—that is, one foot of
Width and (in this particular instance) 220 of depth—
Which usually varies from 120 ft. to 150 ft. This price,
owever, was exceptionally high, and £lOO per
running foot" would be nearer the average—not such
bad average, after all, for a city scarcely out of its
'teens and witk only 10,000 inhabitants. . . . Little
girls gamble in lots for dolls-houses, and when two
youthful partners begin whispering earnestly in the
Intervals of a dance the chances are that their
theme is not love, but land. You find that your
'hackney coachman is a landowner and cease to feel
ebrprised at this when he declines to drive you five
ranee for less than 4 dole, or to drive you at all at any
but his own pace. The high rate of wages makes every
one independent. A common labourer may get from
2 dole, to 2i dols, a day. In a big job now pending
the contractors are sorely afraid of having to pay
their navvies 3 dole, a day. This is the usual pay
of a mechanic. A cook may get 40 dole, a month,
With her board, or, say, nearly £lOO a year, and
she is just as likely to be very bad as to be a
'cordon-bleu. But a laundress will charge little more
than 6e. per dozen articles, provided they are not
such as to give much trouble to wash—in which case
she feels bounds to protect herself by high rates.
'Vet prices are not at all high as one might expect.
Butcher's meat, indeed, costs Is. a lb., but flour
IS rather less than 258. the barrel (2001 b. while
clothes—at any rate, those of a rough kind, fit
for working men—are not very much dearer than in
%land.
Winnipeg, in short, is a paradise for pushing men,
'Who want to make money and are quite prepared to
Work for it. A new-comer is at once struck by the
number of young men who have come, like the wise
Inen, from the East, chiefly Ontario to make their
fortunes, and singular stories are told of the slender
~.esginnings from which they rise to wealth
Ine young are the most suitable as well as the most
numerous settlers. For old or delicate people the
cold in winter is too severe, though there are many
Who would stoutly deny this. But for the young and
the strong Winnipeg is healthy enough, or rather, it
Would be healthy if the drainage were properly looked
after.
...It would be unfair to leave people to suppose that
winnipeg was wholly given up to material considera-
tions and the pursuit of wealth. It is, for so young a
community, most creditably rich in churches and
schools, arid has even a university, which has aocom-
Plished a feat not, I believe, accomplished by any
other university in the world. It has affiliated to it
4enominational colleges of different sects, sinking
their differences in order to work together for the end
Which they have all alike in common, a first-class
fiducation—the rights of each sect being secured by its
having a representative on the governing body.
Another thing of which Winnipeg may be justly
Proud is the way in which it put down lawlessness
and rowdyism. It was just the sort of go-ahead place
'attract that class of adventurers who in the States
bring so much trouble and disgrace upon young com-
munities until at last they have to be stamped out
by lynch law and private committees of public safety.
By taking the evil in time and inflicttng the severest
penalties of the law on the first few offenders Winni-
peg escaped this unpleasant necessity, and its popula-
lation is said to be now as orderly and law-respecting
as that of the old towns in the east.