Niagara Falls 



1849 If the Colossus of Rhodes could be remodelled and brought 



Bonnycastle to tne p a U s> ne leg standing in Canada, and the other in the 

 United States, there would be a company immediately formed 

 for hydraulic purposes, to convey a waste pipe from the tips of 

 the fingers as far as Buffalo; and another to light the paltry vil- 

 lage of Manchester, all mills and mint-juleps, with the natural 

 gas which would be made to feed the lamp. A grog-shop would 

 be set up in his head ; telescopes would be poked out of his eyes, 

 and philosophers would seat themselves on his toes, to calculate 

 whether the waters of the British Fall could not be dammed out, 

 so as to turn a few cotton mills more in Man-chester, as it is called, 

 which scheme some Canadian worthy would upset, by resorting 

 to Mr. Lyell's proof that the whole river might once have flowed, 

 and may again be made to flow, down to St. David's — thus, 

 by expending a few millions, cutting off Jonathan's chance. 



But it is of no use to joke on this subject; Niagara is, both to 

 the United States and to England, but especially to Canada, a 

 public property. It is the greatest wonder of the visible world 

 here below, and should be protected from the rapacity of private 

 speculations, and not made a Greenwich fair of; where pedlars 

 and thimble-riggers, niggers and barkers, the lowest trulls and 

 the vilest scum of society, congregate to disgust and annoy the 

 visitors from all parts of the world, plundering and pestering them 

 without control. 



The only really pretty thing on the British side is the Museum, 

 the result of the indefatigable labors of Mr. Barnett, a person 

 who, by his own unassisted industry, has gathered together a most 

 interesting collection of animals, shells, coins, &c, and has added 

 a garden, in which all the choicest plants and flowers of North 

 America and of Britain grow, watered by the incessant spray of 

 the Great Fall. In this garden I saw, for the first time in Can- 

 ada, the English holly, the box, the heath, and the ivy; and 

 there is a willow from the St. Helena stock. 



It requires unremitting watchfulness, however, to keep all this 

 together, for loafers are rife in these parts. He had gathered a 



1076 



