CL ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



tion of American leather, both from Canada and the States, has built up 

 within and around it a very extensive manufacture of boots and shoes, 

 now probably finding employment for about 10,000 people — perhaps a 

 larger number than engaged in any other single industry in the city. 



Engineering works, cabinet works, clothing factories, brush manu- 

 factories, collieries, and many other branches of industrial occupation, 

 are all represented in our city, and it is generally acknowledged that an 

 old Bristol firm produces the finest oil cloth in the world. 



Printing is also carried on at a high pitch of perfection, and it may 

 be interesting to state in passing that the head of one of the publishing 

 houses in the city is one of the honorary secretaries of the Cabot 

 Memorial Committee in Bristol, and was the printer and publisher of two 

 volumes, " Called Back " and " Dark Days," which, to use an American- 

 ism, '■ caught on," and resulted in an issue practically without rival in 

 the last half century — I refer to J. "W. Arrowsmith. The diversity of 

 the industrial pursuits of Bristol is a great advantage to the city in this 

 respect, that it prevents the population from experiencing in its greatest 

 intensity those difficulties which occasionally arise in those districts 

 dependent on merely a staple industry. 



Philanthropy and Education. 



It might be convenient at this point to refer very briefly to three or 

 four of the Bristol j^hilanthropists, in order to make you acquainted with 

 some of the sights which you might see in the streets of Bristol to-day. 



John Carr founded Queen Elizabeth's Hospital — now, and for a long 

 time past popularly known as the City School. The boys who ai-e boarded 

 in this school wear long blue coats, short trousers, yellow stockings, shoes 

 with buckles, and a cloth hat with a yellow band. The custom is, we 

 presume, that of the period of the founder, and is similar to that worn by 

 the boys of Christ's Hospital in London. In the next century there were 

 two other distinguished Bristol citizens who founded schools, viz.. Alder- 

 man John Whitson, who founded a school for forty women children, to 

 be under the care of a serious matron — these girls wear red cloth dresses, 

 and are known as "the Red M^ids School." This good alderman desired 

 to do for girls what the previous alderman had done for boys. 



The next was Edward Colston ; the bequests made by this the greatest 

 philanthropist of Bristol wei-e many and various — he founded alms 

 houses, and made large gifts for the poor of Bristol — in addition to the 

 different schools which he established for the education of the children. 

 His name was reverenced in the city to such an extent that societies were 

 formed for perpetuating his memory. In the beginning the societies were 

 entirely of a non-political character, but as politics became more mixed 

 in the life of the people, there were off-shoots from the parent society, 



