230 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



liar name "Sarnia," -which is the old classical name of Guernsey, given by Sir John Colborne to 

 a township on the St. Clair river, in memory of his former government. 



After Russell SqiTare, on the left, came an undulating green field ; near the middle of it was 

 a bam of rural aspect, cased-in with upright, unplaned boards. Tliis field was at one tune a 

 kind of Camjms Martius for a troop of amateur cavalry, who were instructed in their evolutions 

 and in the use of the broadswoi'd, by a veteran, Capt. Midford, the Goodwin of the day, at York. 

 Nothing of note presented itself until after we arrived at the roadway which is now known as 

 Bay Street, with the exception, perhaps, of two small rectangular edifices of red brick with 

 blight tin roofs, dropiied, as it were, one at the south-west, the other at the nortli-west, angle of 

 the intersection of King and York Streets. The former was the office of the Manager of the Clergy- 

 Beserve Lands ; the latter, that of the Provincial Secretary and Registrar. They are noticeable 

 simply as being siiecimeus, in solid material, of a kind of minute cottage that for a certain 

 period was in fashion in York and its neighbourhood ; little square boxes, one storey in height, 

 and witliout basement ; looking as if, by the aid of a ring at the apex of the four-sided roof, 

 they might, with no great difficulty, be lifted up, like the hutch provided for Gulliver by his 

 nurse Glundalclitch, and carried bodily away. 



As we pass eastward of Bay Street, the memory comes back of Franco Rossi, the earliest 

 scientific confectioner of York, who had on the south side, near here, a depot, ever fragrant and 

 ambrosial. In his specialties he was a superior workman. From him were procured the fash- 

 ionable bridecakes of the day ; as also the noyeau, parfait-amour, and otlier liqueurs, set out 

 for visitors on New Year's Day. Rossi was the first to import hither good objects of art : fine 

 copies of the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvidere, the Perseus of Canova, with other classic groups 

 and figures, sculptured in Florentine alabaster, were disseminated by him in the community. 

 Rossi is the Italian referred to by the author of "Cyril Thornton " in his " Jlen and JIaiiuers in 

 America," where speaking of York, visited by him in 1S32, he says : "In passing through the 

 streets, I was rather surprised to observe an afficlie intimating that ice-creams were to be had 

 within. The weather being hot, I entered, and found the master of the establishment to be an. 

 ItaUau. I never ate better ice at Grange's " — some fashionable place in London, we suppose. 

 Our outward signs of civilization must have been meagre when a chance visitor recorded his 

 surprise at finding ice-cream procurable in such a place. 



Great enthusiasm, we remember, was created, far and near, by certain panes of plate glass 

 with brass divisions between them, which, at a period a little later than (Capt. Hamilton's) Cyi-il 

 Thornton's \'isit, suddenly ornamented the windows of Mr. Beckett's Chemical Laboratorj% close 

 by Rossi's. Even Mrs. Jameson, in her book of "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles," 

 referring to the shop-fronts of King Street, pronounces, in a naive, English, watering-place 

 way, "that of the apothecary" to be "worthy of Regent Street in its appearance." 



A little fai'ther on, still on the southern side, was the first place of public worship of the 

 Wesleyan Jlethodists. It was a long, low, wooden building, running north and south, and 

 placed a little way back frem the street. Its dimensions in the first instance, as we have been 

 informed by Jlr. Fetch, who was engaged in its erection, were 40 by 40 feet. It was then 

 enlarged to 40 by 60 feet. In the gable end towards the street were two doors, one for each 

 sex. Witliin, the custom obtained of di^^ding the men from the women ; the former sitting on 

 the right hand of one entering the building ; the latter on the left. This separation of the sexes 

 in places of public worship was an oriental custom, still retained among the Jews. It also 

 existed, down to a recent date, in some English Churches. Among articles of Inquiry sent 

 down fi'om a Diocesan to churchwardens, we have seen the query: "Do men and women sit 

 together indifferently and promiscuously ? or, as the fasliion was of old, do men sit together on 

 one side of tlie church, and women upon the other?" (In English churches the usage was the 

 opposite of that indicated above : the north side, that is, the left on entering, was the place of 

 the women ; and the south, that of the men.) In 16S8, we have Sir George Wheler, in his 

 "Account of the Churches of the Primitive Christians," speaking of this custom, which he says 

 prevails also " m the Greek Church to this day :" he adds that it "seems not only very decent, 

 but nowadays, since wickedness so much abounds, highly necessary ; for the general mixture," 

 he continues, " of men and women in the Latin Church is notoriously scandalous ; and little 

 less," he says, "is their sitting together in the same pews in our Loudon churches."— The Wes- 



