The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People - Sir John George Bourinot (best book recommendations TXT) 📗

of the past. In order to do this, let the people of Ontario determine to establish a national University which will be worthy of their great province and of the whole Dominion. Toronto University seems to have in some measure around it that aroma of learning, that dignity of age, and that prestige of historic association which are necessary to the successful establishment of a national seat of learning, and will give the fullest scope to Canadian talent.


CHAPTER III.


JOURNALISM.

In the development of Canadian intellect the newspaper press has had a very large influence during the past half-century and more. What the pulpit has done for the moral education of the people, the press has accomplished for their general culture when schools were few and very inferior, and books were rarely seen throughout the country. When the political rights of the people were the subject of earnest controversy in the Legislatures of the Provinces the press enabled all classes to discuss public questions with more or less knowledge, and gave a decided intellectual stimulus, which had a valuable effect in a young isolated country like Canada. In the days of the French _regime_ there was not a single printing press in Canada, though the _News Letter_ was published in Boston as early as 1704. [Footnote: The first printing press in America wag set up at Cambridge, in the ninth year of the Charter Government (1639); the first document printed was the 'Freeman's Oath,' then an almanack, and next the Psalms.--2 Palgrave, 45. In 1740, there were no less than eleven journals--only of foolscap size, however--published in the English Colonies.] It is generally claimed that the first newspaper in Canada, was the Quebec _Gazette_, which was published in 1764, by Brown & Gilmour, formerly Philadelphia printers, with a subscription list of only one hundred and fifty names. The first issue appeared on the 21st June, printed on four folio pages of 18 by 12 inches, each containing two columns of small type. The first article was the prospectus in larger type, in which the promoters promised to pay particular attention 'to the refined amusements of literature and the pleasant veins of well-pointed wit; interspersed with chosen pieces of curious essays, extracted from the most celebrated authors, blending philosophy with politics, history, &c.' The conductors also pledged themselves to give no place in the paper to 'party prejudices and private scandal'--a pledge better kept than such promises are generally. There was a very slender allowance of news from Riga, St. Petersburg, London, New York and Philadelphia; but there was one ominous item, that Parliament was about imposing taxes on the Colonies, though they were without representation in that Parliament. The latest English news was to the 11th April; the latest American to the 7th May. Only two advertisements appeared--one of a general store, of dry goods, groceries, hardware, all the _olla podrida_ necessary in those days; the other from the Honourable Commissioner of Customs, warning the public against making compositions for duties under the Imperial Act. This sheet, for some years, had no influence on public opinion; for it continued to be a mere bald summary of news, without comment on political events. Indeed, when it was first issued, the time was unfavourable for political discussion, as Quebec had only just become an English possession, and the whole country was lying torpid under the military administration of General Murray. It is, however, a fact not very generally known even yet, except to a few antiquarians, that there was a small sheet published in British America, called the Halifax _Gazette_ [Footnote: In a letter of Secretary Cotterell, written in 1754, to Captain Floyer, at Piziquid (Windsor), he refers to M. Dandin, a priest in one of the Acadian settlements: 'If he chooses to play _bel esprit_ in the Halifax _Gazette_, he may communicate his matter to the printer as soon as he pleases, as he will not print it without showing it to me.--See Murdoch's History of Nova Scotia, vol. 2, p. 234] just twelve years before the appearance of the Quebec paper. From 1769 we commence to find regular mention of the Nova Scotia _Gazette and Weekly Chronicle_, published on Sackville Street by A. Fleury, who also printed the first Almanac in Canada, in 1774. One of the first newspapers published in the Maritime Provinces was the _Royal Gazette and New Brunswick Advertiser_, which appeared in 1785 in St. John, just founded by the American Loyalists. The first paper appeared in Upper Canada on the establishment of Parliamentary Government, and was published by Louis Roy, at Newark, on the 18th April, 1793, under the title of _The Upper Canada Gazette, or the American Oracle_. The sheet was in folio, 15 by 9-1/2 inches, of coarse, but durable paper--not a characteristic, certainly, of our great newspapers now-a-days, of which the material is very flimsy; the impression was fairly executed; the price was three dollars a year. In 1794, the form was changed to a quarto, and one Tiffany had become the proprietor. When the _Gazette_ was removed to York, in 1800, with all the Government offices, the Messrs. Tiffany started the _Constellation_, which, Dr. Scadding tells us, illustrated the jealousy which the people of the Niagara district felt at seeing York suddenly assume so much importance; for one of the writers ironically proposes a 'Stump Act' for the ambitious, though muddy, unkempt little town, 'so that the people in the space of a few months, may relapse into intoxication with impunity, and stagger home at any hour of the night without encountering the dreadful apprehension of broken necks.'

The _Constellation_ only lived a year or two, and then gave way to the _Herald_ and other papers at subsequent dates; and it is an interesting fact, mentioned by the learned antiquarian of Toronto, that the imposing stone used by Mr. Tiffany, was in use up to 1870, when the old _Niagara Mail_, long edited by Mr. W. Kirby, at last ceased publication. The _Gazette_ and _Oracle_ continued to be published at York by different printers, and, like other journals in America, often appeared in variegated colours--blue being the favourite--in consequence of the scarcity of white paper. The title, _American Oracle_, was dropped from the heading when Dr. Horne became the publisher, in 1817; it continued to publish official notices, besides meagre summaries of general news, and some miscellaneous reading matter.

The second paper in Upper Canada was the _Upper Canada Guardian_ or _Freeman's Journal_, which was edited and printed by Joseph Willcox, who fell under the ban of the Lieutenant Governor, for his Liberal opinions. It was printed in 1807, and exercised much influence for a time as an organ of the struggling Liberal party. Like others, in those days of political bitterness, its editor was imprisoned, ostensibly for a breach of parliamentary privilege, though in reality as a punishment for presuming to differ from the governing party; but, able man as he undoubtedly was, he marred his career by an infamous desertion to the Americans during the war of 1812, before the expiration of which he was killed. The first newspaper in Kingston, the third in the province, was the _Gazette_, founded in 1810, by Stephen Miles, who afterwards became a minister of the Methodist denomination, and also printed the Grenville _Gazette_, the first journal in the old town of Prescott. [Footnote: Morgan's 'Bibliotheca Canadensis,' Art. Miles.] The first daily paper published in British North America, appears to have been the _Daily Advertiser_, which appeared in Montreal, in May, 1833--the _Herald_ and _Gazette_ being tri-weekly papers at the time. The _Daily Advertiser_ was issued in the interests of the Liberals, under the management of the Hon. H. S. Chapman, subsequently a judge in New Zealand. One of the chief inducements held out to subscribers was the regular publication of full prices current and other commercial information. The _British Whig_, of Kingston, was the first newspaper that attempted the experiment of a daily issue in Upper Canada.

It is a noteworthy fact, which can be best mentioned here, that the first newspaper in Three Rivers was the _Gazette_, published by one Stobbs, in 1832, more than two centuries after the settlement of that town, which has always been in the midst of the most thickly settled district of Lower Canada. At that time, newspapers were rapidly gaining ground in Upper Canada--districts not so old by months or weeks even as Three Rivers had years, and with a more scattered population, not exceeding one-fifth of that of the Three Rivers district, could boast of, at least, one newspaper. [Footnote: Quebec _Mercury_, 1832.]

In 1827, Mr. Jotham Blanchard, the ancestor of a well-known family of Liberals in the Lower Provinces, established the first newspaper outside of Halifax, the _Colonial Patriot_, at Pictou, a flourishing town on the Straits of Northumberland, chiefly settled by the Scotch.

In 1839, Mr. G. Fenety--now 'Queen's Printer' at Fredericton --established the _Commercial News_, at St. John, New Brunswick, the first tri-weekly and penny paper in the Maritime Provinces, which he conducted for a quarter of a century, until he disposed of it to Mr. Edward Willis, under whose editorial supervision it has always exercised considerable influence in the public affairs of the province. The first daily paper published in the Province of Nova Scotia, was the Halifax _Morning Post_, appearing in 1845, edited by John H. Crosskill but it had a brief existence, and tri-weeklies continued to be published for many years--the old _Colonist_ representing the Conservatives, and the _Chronicle_ the Liberals, of the province. The senior of the press, in the Lower Provinces, however, is the _Acadian Recorder_, the first number of which appeared in 1813.

The only mention I have been able to find of a newspaper in the brief histories of Prince Edward Island, is of the appearance, in 1823, of the _Register_, printed and edited by J. D. Haszard, who distinguished himself at the outset of his career by a libel on one of the Courts before which he was summoned with legal promptitude--just as printers are now-a-days in Manitoba--and dismissed with a solemn reprimand, on condition of revealing the authors of the libel. The remarks of the Chancellor (who appears to have been also the Governor of the Island), in dismissing the culprit, are quite unique in their way. 'I compassionate your youth and inexperience; did I not do so, I would lay you by the heels long enough for you to remember it. You have delivered your evidence fairly, plainly and clearly, and as became a man; but I caution you, when you publish anything again, keep clear, Sir, of a Chancellor. Beware, Sir, of a Chancellor.' [Footnote: Campbell's Hist, of P. E. I.] Many other papers were published in later years; the most prominent being the _Islander_, which appeared in 1842, and continued in existence for forty-two years. This paper along with the _Examiner_, edited by the Hon. Edward Whelan, a man of brilliant parts, now dead, had much influence over political affairs in the little colony.

The history of the newspaper press of British Columbia does not go beyond twenty-two years. The first attempt at journalistic enterprise was the Victoria _Gazette_, a daily published in 1858, by two Americans, who, however, stopped the issue in the following year. The next paper was the _Courrier de la Nouvelle Caledonie_ printed by one Thornton, an Anglo-Frenchman, who had travelled all over the world. The somewhat notorious Marriott, of the San Francisco _News-Letter_, also, in 1859, published the Vancouver Island _Gazette_, but only for a while. It is a noteworthy fact, that the Cariboo _Sentinel_--now no longer in existence--was printed on a press sent out to Mgr. Demers, by the Roman Catholics of Paris. Even the little settlement of Emory has had its newspaper, the _Inland Sentinel_. The best known newspaper in the Pacific Province has always been, since 1858, the