The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-12-31
tM0NTREAL'S MILLI0NAIRES.
IHEIR LOOKS, THEIR HOMES,
 THETR PICTURE GALLERIES.
Their Public spirit.

"I believe that the population of Can-
 ada will be eighty millions by the end
 of the next century, and then we shall
 only be at the beginning" Such was
 the characteristic hope expressed to me
 last night by Lord Strathcona, the
 Grand Old Man of Canada, who wears
 his eighty years with all the buoyaney
 of eternal youth. l need not enter into
 his reasons for this conviction, based
 on a belief ill the fertility and habita-
 bility of the great cold lands of the
 northwest, scarcely yet touched by the
 pioneer and still given over for the most
 part to the trapper and fur-hunter,
 You may think Lord Strathcona too
 sanguine; perhaps we shall have to
 wait longer before the warm lands fill
 up and the great flow of humanity sets
 ill toward the north For the present l
 am more interested in the man, the old
 gentleman whose life-career is virtual
 ly an epitome of the modern develop
 rnent of Canada. For whether as Lord
 Strathcona, the Canadian high commis-
 sioner in London, or as Sir Donald
 Smith, the intrepid fnancier, or plain
 Donald Smith, the boy who came out
 from Scotland in the thirties and served
 for many years as lonely servant or
 the Hudson's Bay company, he stands
 out among the makers of Canada as the
 most romantic figure in the whole
 group.
 We know him in London-the old
 man with the shaggy white brows and . s,,5 +ho tho rnGt1aSS
 tive figure. He has spoken in the
 House of Lords; he is accessible at the
 Canadian office; he is a genial and
 kindly host in his London or his Scot
 tish home. But to be known properly,
 he should be seen among his own peo-
 pie, For the past month he has been in
 Canada on short stay, and the elec-
 tions have not eclipsed his visit. He
 has been feasted at Toronto, dined at Ottawa, and on Thursday next the peor
 rle of Montreal determined not to be
 outdone, will present him with an ad- dress and ask permission to raise his
 statue during his lifetime. Throughout his stay he has in his own characteris- tic fashion rushed about this great country from point to point, ending up on Saturday with a record spin In a special which took him from here to Ot- tawa at the rate of seventy miles an hour for a part of the way, and for one short space, I am told at the rate of ! seventy-eight For they are giants on this continent, and delight in these tri- | umphs over their great enemy Space. | Lord Strathcona, the complete Canadi- | an, is always happiest on the move.
 Montreal is full of palatial mansions on which the millionaires of New Can ada, prouder of their own country than the feeting millionaires of South Afri- ca, spend their wealth and ingenuity The city contains at least three collec- tfons of pictures which would be the envy of any European connoisseur- those of Sir William Van Horne, MT. James Ross-and Dr. Drummond. There is nothing that delights any of these happy possessors more than to show shem to an English visitor, and thus I have seen here pictures of infinite beau Reynoldses. Romneys, Teniers, Cuyps, Corots, Titians-in short, specimens of every great Euro pean school. The rich Canadians seem to run race in collecting, and the old world must have care, lest she lose all her treasures to the new Lord Strathcona has given the lead in this, as in other matters, to the rich men of Canada. His pictures are mostly away at present, either at the Paris exhibi- ton or in his London house; but his house in Dorchester street-one of those ( warm, simple, cosey mansions, substan- tially built and beautifully lighted, in which Montreal aboundsstill contains ] an admirable collection of pictures and I unique museum of Chinese and Japa- , nese art Much of his Japanese pottery Is of almost priceless value, and the l Japanese government has offered im- ( mense prices for 1t in vain But it is not the upholstery of the man, or his ( vast wealth, that sets him apart from I others. This continent is full of mil who have developed among ' Hem all sorts of peculiar and out-of { he-way methods of spending money; l md often the burden of their wealth C seems as heavy and as difficult to bear I IS the poverty of the poor. Lord strathcona made his money by rail- V ways, like most of the other rich Cana t iians It would be absurd to pretend t hat you have here qu1te, lnduStflOuS d apprentice who has stepped to fame and I wealth by mere desk application, The V syes and mouth bespeak a combination g If shrewdness and energy-the energy if the man who hits hard; the shrewd- s less of the man who does not hit in ( yain. It is that type which comes to n he front in a new country; it is such b nen who make at once a career and a t. ation. This town itself, for that mat a CT, could witness that Lord Strathco- T. a's wealth is well spent-on hospitals, 2 cilools, philanthropies galore. Much c uch are merely the trappings of the II nan. The picture am trying to draw $ that of no hero. scholar or philan- hropist, no fancy millionaire for fash )nable portrait-painters, but of rug ed old pioneer who came, in middle q fe out of the vast white solitudes of T he north and stepped forward to siege 0. )rtune by the forelock and help to w uild the Canada we know. It is diffi- a. ult to get him to talk of his eXperi- aces in the north but his friends will | M