52 ONTARIO. 



The hotels in Canada are very fair, and the charges 

 reasonable, viz. from $2 to $3 per diem. In Toronto 

 there are two excellent hotels. Hotel life is pleasant 

 enough for a short time, until one gets tired of the crowd, 

 the racket, and the din. The ordinary crowd in the dining 

 room of a large Canadian hotel is an interesting study. 

 There are the commercial travellers who do congregate 

 together, and are charged at lower rates than the ordi- 

 nary travelling public, as are also the residents, who are 

 boarded by the week or the month at less than half the 

 rates charged to tourists. Uncle Sam is sure to be there 

 with his wife and daughters, who dress to astonish the 

 natives, and succeed. There is the travelling theatrical 

 or operatic troupe, the members of which are contracted 

 for at so much a head ; the temperance men, who make 

 up for no drinking by eating enormously, and who get a 

 little surreptitious stimulant out of the pudding sauce, 

 which the cook, who knows their tastes, furnishes in 

 gallons ; the burly senator from the country, who carries 

 his senatorial labours lightly ; the M.P.'s and M.P.P.'s, 

 who, perhaps, enjoy themselves all the more as their 

 grateful country pays the bill ; the judge on circuit ; the 

 militia colonel on his rounds, and the English tourist and 

 his wife ; the former is strictly on the defensive, and the 

 latter shows her sovereign contempt for the smartness of 

 the ladies by her austere simplicity of costume ; and last, 

 but not least, there are the inevitable bride and bride- 

 groom. These unfortunate persons have always the 

 knack of blundering or simpering into the great dining 

 hall in such a way as to attract as much attention as 

 possible. 



