St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-08-12
FLIES ON MONTREAL.
THERE ABE NO MOSQUITO VETS IN
THE OLD TOWN.
EVERYTHING IN 1T rRENCHY
Small, Nervous, Suave-NTannered
Little Fellows Abound - The
Women Have Small, Sharp,
Piercing Eyes and Dark Hair
An Ordinance stopping Street
Railway Traffic on Sunday.

Railway Traffic on Sunday.
Special Correspondence OF the Globe.
MONTREAL, Can, Aug. IL am mere
in the Hochelaga of old-the Montreal
OF today, with its quarter-million souls,
Its clear olive depth of rushing, rolling
st. Lawrence; its Mount Royal, or Mont
Real-as Jacques Cartier designated it
IN l53o-ItS magnificent cathedrals. the
grandest structures devoted to Worship
III all this continent-eXcepting only the
Mormon temple-its cosmopolitan trade
and traffic, and all its fascinating his
tory-lts weird and fanclful Indian
legendary lore. The city and its
peOple-drawn from all over the world
is study of psychicaI concreteness.
Here you will observe the old
France re-enacted i'll all its
typical quaintness and color and Gus
tom. You must know that to the French
belongs the honor of the founding and
eventual establishment OF this Amer
lean France, the olden-time Vile Marie,
as the city was consecrated in 164l by
MaiSOnneuve. Today the French pre-
dominate here. The French language
IS heard from a hundred tongues where
one will express the English. France is
ever present to the student. The men
the great mass of them-are small,
nervous, suave-mannered little fellows
whose limbs in our land would lay them
liable to arrest for vagrancy-because
they have no visible means of support.
The women are of that suall, impulsive
type which Is principally the embodi-
ment of small. sharp. piercing eyes,
dark hair and homely viyacity OF
cOuntenance. They are in the great
majority. and men are rara avis COM
paratiyely.
But the French are purely the life
blood of Montreal and all Eastern Can
ada. They are the lab0rerS, the Shop
keepers, the mechanics, the human
power of manual exercise. The English
are the builders, the bosses, the Johnnie
Bulls who direct the municipal and
political and commercial policy of the
city and the province. The people
here hold few tastes I'D common with
the masses of the States. That glamour
of old and conservative precedent which
falls upon an old community hedged by
tradition, and enlivened only by neces-
sity, is still the element which inspires
the very old manners and the very
awkward, Old-fashioned means the OBJ
servation OF which by an American
strikes him as so oddly picturesque.
For an instance, who in the States
would venture to carry IA cup of coffee
from hotel dining room to the rOtunda
and sip it there in the Ogling crowd for
an hour while smoking a Turkish
cigarette with all air of dolce
far .niente which would madden
the busy heaveD-and-earth-enc
ing American? What American
street railway company would arm
its little French conductors with little
hand slot machine, in form and fashion
not unlike Spanish brigand's Dlunder-
buss, into which the passenger is
obliged to deposit his fare. These di-
minutive servants of the street car com.
pany are not held IN the highest esteem
for honesty evidently, for when asked
one of them why it was that they were
forbidden to handle fare, he became
so loquaciOuS upon the subject that
asked him for a transfer-the only
seeming means of radiance at hand.
There are no transfer checks. no fare
registers, no uniforms, no light, speedy
cars, but all is conducted in the most
ili-conceived and awkward fashion an
elastic mind can fancy.
1t must be most effective way of
keeping down the dividend on street
railway stock to permit hundred pas
sengers to scramble from one car to an
other OIL the pretense of transfer
You leave the st. Catherine street car
at Park avenue and wait ten minutes
for the car which carries one to Mount
Royal, from the summit of whic h a
vista OF sixty miles disclOses magnifi-
cent panorama. While waiting
fifty other persons congregate. The
Park avenue car arrives and all
get aboard. The conductor inquiries Of
the crowd ''All transfer?' and some one
grunts ''Ouir' That settles it, and
away we go up tie slope TO get birds
eye view of the old city which takes its
name from the mountain.
But Montreal is a clean place, and
for its cleanliness and fervid religious
att itude upon the tenetS of ST. Suipice,
its varied forms of religious devotion, it
is to be commended. 1t is crafty old
place for a. that. You reach the city on
Sat urday night and you are locked in
till Monday. Trains do not break the
Sabb ath with the rumble of rails. and
if you have a trunk in the baggage
room which you desire to possess, you
MI OF hida titno All
sides this Canadian autocratic way of
things which concern the public liberty
and ease, the railroad officials, such as
ticket agents in depots, the passenger
agents, the baggage men, and in fact
every degree of railroad functionery,
closes his department dozen times
day on the slightest concern of his own
personal convenience or caprice. This
keeps one in Canada despite ones plans
to leave. Canada usually profits by
what at first blush seems most
the Sabbath. In Toronto. today, the
populace is up in arms against
the council which some time ago
decreed that all Street-car traffic should
cease on midnight OF Saturday to sun
rise Monday. The poor and struggling
masses are thereby virtually gagged and
chained in their homes. The rich can
always avail themselves of that very
we'll equipped single-horse coupe serv-
ice or'which Canadian cities are noted.
Thus, in the city of Toronto. the masses
have risen in just rebellion against the
fiat of the Toronto council which effected
this sehseless state of city government.
Butwhile such features of city life
appeal adversely to ones sense of sound
governmental theory. there are some
provisions in the Canadian cities which
American cities might adopt with re-
sultant advantage. In Montreal, as In
Paris, you will find planted here and
there on street corners metallic boxes,
resembling large letter boxes, which are
designed for the deposit of garbage and
all sorts of street and house litter. They
are labele with poetic eecutheon
bearing tn is inscription: For Nc.rure 3;
a nuthinr dead Nnnl1 ~ = n