508 REVIEWS — THE HAND-BOOK OF TORONTO. 



Where it is better calculated, however, to add to tlie effect of tlie 

 sketch, our author knows well how to give a more specific verisimili- 

 tude, as is shewn in another little penciling, — in this case of an editorial 

 celebrity. Charles Lamb's odd tastes and sympathies put him in love 

 with the Chimney Sweeps, and led to his penning his lament " On the 

 Decay of Beggars " in the British Metropolis. An opposite grief, 

 however, weighed down the heart of a Toronto Daily editor, who de- 

 cries the beggar's calling with undisguised animosity as an intollerable 

 nuisance ; complains that in this our good city of Toronto beggary 

 has assumed the dignity of a craft, and so proceeds thus ; "To tole- 

 rate mendicancy is a false philanthrophy. It is to nurture the germs 

 of every vice that ever adorned the gallows — it is to commit a sin 

 against the youthful poor, and to neglect the duty we owe to our 

 neighbor and to ourselves." Whereupon our author thus sketches off 

 his brother of the Press : " This is putting the matter in a somewhat 

 broad light, but it may be perfectly orthodox in so far as the personal 

 experience of the editor of the 'Colonist' is concerned, for he is 

 rather complaisant and benevolent looking, dresses well, and very 

 tastefully, and is just such a person as that shrewd and wily class 

 would be ready to pounce upon with a certainty of success." 



But the most elaborate of the biographical sketches introduced into 

 the " Hand Book of Toronto," is that of the Venerable Bishop of 

 the Diocese, and in introducing this, one little paragraph occurs, 

 which, from its richness in suggestions of what might have been, pe- 

 culiarly tempts our fansy : 



" "We have already," says the author, " referred to the fact that GoTernor Sim- 

 coe, who seems to have beea a prudent, self-reliant, liberal-minded gentleman, 

 urged upon the Home Government in 1792 the propriety of establishing a Univer- 

 sity at the Seat of Government, that the youth of the province might enjoy the 

 benefits of a sound education. With a view to prepare for such an institution, he 

 gave authority to the Hon. Richard Cartwright and the Hon. Robert Hamilton to 

 secure ' a gentleman from Scotland to organise and take charge of the College or 

 University which he purposed to establish.' These gentlemen applied to their 

 friends in Scotland to select a suitable person, and they fixed upon Mr. Thomas 

 Chalmers, then completing his theological studies at St. Andrew's, but Mr. Chal- 

 mers having declined the offer, it was subsequently accepted by Mr. John Strachan, 

 then parochial schoolmaster in the parish of King's Kettle, Fifeshire." 



The distinguished position ultimately attained by the gentleman 

 thus selected, and the enduring influence he has exercised over the 

 Province, in some of the most important elements of ita develop- 



