TORONTO: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 
ceeded Head, sent in his famous report, which is 
said to have been written by Charles Buller, his sec- 
retary, the friend of Tennyson and the pupil of Car- 
lyle. To this we owe the establishment of responsible 1846 
government and the abolition of abuses. As a result 
Toronto, now one of the capitals of a united Canada, 
made rapid advances, and though its prosperity was 
temporarily checked by the adoption of free trade in 
England, it received an added impetus by Lord 
Elgin’s Reciprocity Treaty with the United States. 
During these years the growth of both city and 
province had been slow but steady. The early set- 
tlers came mostly from the south, including the 
“ Pennsylvania Dutch,” of whom a number took up 
land to the north and east of Toronto, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Markham. After the war of 1812-13 
this influx ceased, and the new settlers came from 
the British Isles, especially Scotland and the north 
of Ireland. To this day Toronto is the greatest 
Orange centre except Belfast. After the famine the 
Trish came in great numbers and suffered terribly 
from the ravages of the fever and the cholera epi- 
demics which raged in 1847 and 1854. The Roman 
Catholic Bishop Power, after whom Power Street is 
named, sacrificed his life in the former year while 
ministering to these unfortunates. 
The first Toronto “boom” broke after the Cri- 
mean War in 1857. The opening of the Northern, 
Grand Trunk and Great Western Railways had facili- 
tated transportation, stimulated commerce and en- 
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