TORONTO OP OLD. 155 



one thousand j'ears before Julius Csesar, to the year 1793," now lying before us, two full-length 

 portraits of the Duke and Duchess are given. — New York and Albany, in the adjoining State, 

 had their names from titles of a Duke of York in 1664, afterwards James II. His brother 

 Charles II., made him a present, by Letters Patent, of all the territory, from the western side of 

 the Connecticut river to tlie east side of Delaware bay ; that is, of the present States of Con- 

 necticut, New- York, Delaware and New-Jersey. 



On tlie green-sward of the bank between Princes Street and George Street, the annual military 

 "Trainings" ou the Fourth of June, "the old King's birthday," were wont to talie place. At a 

 later period the day of meeting was the 23rd of AprU, St. George's Day, the fete of George IV. 

 Military displays on a grand scale in and about Toronto have not been uucomniou in modern 

 times, exciting the enthusiasm of the multitude that usually assembles on such occasions. But 

 in no way inferior in point of interest to the unsophisticated youthful eye, half a century ago 

 unaccustomed to anything more elaborate, were these motley musterings of the militia compa- 

 nies. The costume of tlie men may have been various, the fire-arms only partially distributed 

 and those that were to be had not of the brightest hue, nor of the most scientific malce ; the 

 lines may not always have been perfectly straight, nor tlieir constituents well matched in height ; 

 the obedience to the word of command may not have been rendered with the mechanical pre- 

 cision which we admire at reviews now, nor with that total suppression of dialogue iu undertone 

 in the ranlis, nor with that absence of remark interchanged between the men and their officers, 

 that are customary now. Nevertheless, as a military spectacle, these gathermgs and manoeuvres 

 on the grassy bank here, were effective : they were always anticipated with pleasure and con- 

 templated witli satisfaction. The officers on these occasions — some of them mounted — were 

 arrayed in uniforms of antique cut ; in red coats with wide black breast lappets and broad tail 

 flaps ; high collars, tight sleeves and large cuffs ; on the head a black hat, the ordinary high- 

 crowned civilian hat, witli a cylindrical feather some eighteen inches high inserted at the top, 

 not in front, but on one side (whalebone surrounded with feathers from the barnyard, scarlet at 

 base, white above). Animation was added to the scene by a drum and a few fifes executing 

 with liveliness "Tlie York Quickstep," "The Reconciliation," and "TheBritisli Grenadiers." 

 And then, in addition to the local cavalry corps, there were the clattering scabbards, the blue 

 jackets, and bear-skin helmets of Captain Button's dragoons from Marldiam and Wiitchurch. 



In the rank and file at these musterings — as weU as numerously amoiig the officers, commis- 

 sioned and non-commissioned — were to be seen men who had quite recently jeopardized their 

 lives in the defence of the country. At the period we are speaking of, only some six or seven 

 years had elapsed since an invasion of Canada from the south. "The late war" for a long 

 whUe, very naturally, formed a fixed point 'in local chronology, from which times and seasons 

 were calculated ; a fixed point, however, which, to the indifferent new-comer, and even to those 

 who, when "the late war" was in progress, were not in bodily existence, seemed already a thing 

 of a remote past. An impression of the miseries of war, derived from the talk of those who had 

 actually felt them, was very strong in the minds of the rising generation ; an impression accom- 

 panied also at the same tune with the uncomfortable conviction, derived from the same source, 

 that another conflict was inevitable in due time. The musterings on " Training-day " were thus 

 invested with interest and importance in the minds of those who were summoned to appear on 

 these occasions, as also in the minds of the bojdsh looker-on, who was aware that ere long he 

 would himself be required by law to turn out and take his part in the annual militia evolutions, 

 and perhaps afterwards, possibly at no distant hour, to handle the musket or wield the sword 

 In earnest. 



A little further on, in a house at the north west corner of Frederick Street, a building after- 

 wards utterly destroyed by fire, was born, in 1804, the Hon. Robert Baldwin, son of Dr. WUliam 

 Warren Baldwin, ab-eady referred to, and Attorney-General in 1842 for Upper Canada. In the 

 same building, at a later period, (and previously in an humble edifice at the north-west corner 

 of King Street and Caroline Street, now likewise whoUy destroyed,) the foundation was laid, by 

 weU-directed and far-sighted ventures in commerce, of the great wealth (locally proverbial) of 

 the Cawthra family, the Astors of Upper Canada. It was also in the same house, prior to its 

 occupation by Mr. Cawthra, senior, that the printing operations of Mr. William Lyon McKenzie 

 were carried on at the time of the destruction of Ms press by a party of young men, who con- 



