The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-07-07

hundred yards at a venture-when we
came to a oll-gate. / got out your roll |
of greenbacks. A sweet little freckled- |
faced Canadian beauty came to the door
and charged me fifteen cents. Another
hundred yards, another toll-gate. l can
not mention them all, there were too
many. We dragged our way along.
Half way up the three miles ON the
Canadian side we stopped before the
great Niagara Falls Museum, big frame
building with a big garden, and bears
and monkeys skipping about unclaimed,
huge canvas painting Of Indians and
camels and cataracts, stretched across
the front of the building, giving an air
of grandeur to the whole.
"This is the Museum of Indian Curl
osities," said the driver. "Will you 60
in?"
No, no Indian curiosities. We drove
on till a man with handful of tin-types
stepped into the middle of the road and
stopped us with:
"Take your picture this morning, sir?
The only view of the entire falls can be
had from this point Take the carriage,
the falls and yourself, all in the same
picture, for one dollar"
There were some advantages in having
| the picture taken. If the publisher should
| find fault with trifing bill of three or
four hundred dollars for expenses, and
say (only in jest, of Course) that he didn't
believe I'd ever been here anyhow,
could quietly lay the picture on his desk.
! So the picture was taken, and we drove
on again.
In few minutes we stood in front of
the Horseshoe Fall. 1t was very rapid.
A man and woman, both dressed in yell
low oil-cloth, and each carrying a long
staff, came out of a little shanty that
crossed the entrance to a stairway that
led down beneath the fall. They were
the guides who take visitors under the
falls, and l was their victim. Fare, one
dollar.
Then we turned around and started
back. | was Just wondering where en-
thusiastic tourists got their ideas of the
grandeur of the falls whenI saw sign,
nailed to tree:
nowhere Can-the subli-
NIFTY and Grandeur of
The Falls
be seen, but from
the great elevator.
80 cents.
This, of course, explained it, and
took fifty cents worth of grandeur and
sublimity from 1.-THE great elevator" 1t
must have been, ! should think, almost
as high as the third story of a building,
and objects fifty or sixty feet away were
distinctly visible.
We started for home again. 1t was
after eleven, and my business with sew
cral millionares required that | should
be in the hotel by twelve. 1t was more
than an hours drive, by the suspension
, bridge. We were almost in front of The
entrance to the new suspension bridge
which spans the river just below the falls
? and | suggested to the driver that WI
cross by that.
, 80 no." said he, that wouldn't do
The tolls a dollar on that bridge"
: little mild eXpostulation induced him t
t take dollars worth of the new bridge
{ In ten minutes we were in front of tn
: hotel again, having been gone tritit
over three hours The driver generousl,
| volunteered to "call it three hours"
, annex the bill for three hours of wha
they facetiously call amusement at Mag
ara Falls:
[ Carriage for three hours. ............ Sc o.
, Suspension Bridge toll ............... 2
Four tOll-gate fees. Observation-Disclosures. b
One tin-type picture. l u
Guide under the falls ............... l O
J SublimiJy from the elevator. ......... 5
Toll over the new bridge. ............ 0
Total ......................... $40 3
There is not included in this little bill
the twenty-five cents entrance fee to tn
park surrounding the edge of the Ameri
can Fall, because | did not 60 in. 1t i
the lineal descendants of the Revolu
tionary owners of this land who hav
enclosed the American side of the falls
, and who charge a dollar toll on thei