Preservation of the Falls 



"Pagoda is now open to visitors and perfectly secure. . . . Admit- 1347 

 tance 25 cents. ... 1st April, 1845." Warburton 



1849 



BoNNYCASTLE, Sir RlCHARD Henry. Canada and the Canadians. 1849 

 Newed. Lond.: Colburn. 1849. 1:233-244. Bonnycastle 



But, gentle reader, although it be a well-worn tale, I had 

 not seen the Falls for five years, and I wish to tell you whether 

 they are altered or improved; and most likely you will take 

 some little interest in so old a friend as the Falls of Niagara; 

 for you must have read about those before you read Robinson 

 Crusoe, and have had them thrust under your notice by every 

 tourist, from Trollope to Dickens. They say, on dit, I mean, 

 which is not translatable into English, that this is the age of 

 Materialism and Utilitarianism. By George, you would think 

 so indeed, if you had the chance of seeing the Falls of Niagara 

 twice in ten years. They are materially injured by the Utilitarian 

 mania. The Yankees put an ugly shot tower on the brink of the 

 Horseshoe at the beginning of that era, and they are about to 

 consummate the barbarism, by throwing a wire bridge, if the 

 British government is consenting, over the river, just below the 

 American Fall. But Niagara is a splendid " Water Privilege," 

 and so thought the Company of the City of the Falls — a most 

 enlightened body of British subjects, who first disfigured the 

 Table Rock, by putting a watermill on it, and now are adding 

 the horror of gin-palaces, with sundry ornamental booths for the 

 sale of juleps and sling, all along the venerable edge of the preci- 

 pice, so that trees of unequalled beauty on the bank above, trees 

 which grow nowhere else in Canada, are daily falling before the 

 monster of gain. 



What they will do next in their freaks it is difficult to sur- 

 mise ; but it requires very little more to show that patriotism, taste, 

 and self-esteem, are not the leading features in the character of 

 the inhabitants of this part of the world. 



1075 



