Not a few of our farmers, feeling that they were not big enough upon their own farms, became storekeepers or manufacturers in the towns. No doubt, in the abstract this may be well for the general progress of those towns in building them up and laying the nucleus of new industries. They do not, however, as a rule, succeed in the new fields of business they have chosen, or if they do not become the principals of businesses in the towns, they sometimes lend their names as endorsers to assist those who are principals of such businesses. Endorsations were sometimes very easily obtained by the glib-tongued business man, and for a time all went on well, until some financial crisis overtaking the business man, consequent ruin came to the farmer. These instances have been so many that I speak of them as exemplifying another phase of life in the country. Latterly, however, the landowners are becoming more conservative of their means and credit, and are disposed to “paddle their own canoe.”
Since the law of primogeniture was abolished in Canada, the hold upon land has become very slight, and the examples of large landed estates being retained in the same families for over two generations are so very rare that they need scarcely be mentioned. In some cases our rich men make a terrible mistake in bringing up their families. They are not taught to labor, but live a life of ease, with the idea that the family property will be sufficient to support each individual member. But with the nomadic habits of our Canadians, and the light stress usually heretofore laid upon the paternal acres, each individual share soon vanishes, leaving them to learn to fight the battle of life at a terrible disadvantage, because frequently they are then past their first youth at least.
My wood fire still burns brightly as I turn to my morning mail with its treasures of current literature. Talk about your city bustle compared with this, in my cosy seat beside the fire and all these treasures at my elbow! There are no gas bills to pay, nor water rates, and the mail comes to me daily, just as regularly as your city mail does. Then what do we want with your city?
Speaking of the post-office reminds me to say that the meanest hovel in the land can to-day put itself in almost daily communication with the best minds of the age. Such service the mail hourly and regularly performs for us, and is such a great factor to the pleasure of our lives, and yet we scarcely bestow a thought upon it. No, I do not propose to try to assume that life in the country would be very pleasant or desirable away from the mails. Given a daily mail and a comfortable country-seat, and easy access to the train, so that I may come to the city quickly and easily, if you have therein any real intellectual treat, and I yet fail to see what are the inducements to make one prefer life in the city to the free life in the country.