HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT 19 



how prophetic it was? Do you realize that, 

 in the twenty years since then, the population 

 of Winnipeg has grown to nearly three hun- 

 dred thousand people? Do you know that 

 another great transcontinental railway, hav- 

 ing a terminus on the Pacific Coast five hun- 

 dred miles north of the terminus of the 

 C. P. R., is nearly completed and that it even 

 now passes through Winnipeg? Do you 

 realize that some day in the near future— say, 

 in another score of years — Winnipeg may 

 boast of a population of a million? The pres- 

 ent growth of this wonderful city has meant 

 the erection of large manufacturing plants, of 

 great distributing wholesale houses, the ac- 

 cumulation of rich banks and other deposi- 

 tories for the capital needed to finance the 

 movement of the crops, the building of sub- 

 sidiary lines to the trunk lines of rails, the 

 erection of schools, colleges, churches, thea- 

 ters, skating rinks, public halls, new sewage 

 disposal plants, public buildings, etc., etc. 

 What the needs of the next twenty years will 

 be, no living man may predict. It is a timely 

 thing to dwell for a little upon the fairy-like 

 story of Winnipeg's growth in a single score of 

 years, because it is an illustration of what sev- 

 eral other Canadian towns and cities have ex- 



