Studies in the South and West, with Comments on Canada

My dear Mr. Alden,—It was at your suggestion that these Studies were undertaken; all of them passed under your eye, except “Society in the New South,” which appeared in the New...

Duluth, though as yet with only about twenty-five to thirty thousand inhabitants, feels itself, by its position, a rival of the cities on the Mississippi. A few figures show the...

There are several reasons given for this discouraging state of the book-trade. Perhaps it is true that people accustomed to newspapers full of “selections,” to the flimsy public...

New Orleans has never been called a “strait-laced” city; its Sunday is still of the Continental type; but it seems to me free from the socialistic agnosticism which flaunts itse...

At Winnipeg we come into the real North-west, and a condition of soil, climate, and political development as different from eastern Canada as Montana is from New England. This t...

The public-school system of the State is slowly improving, hampered by want of Constitutional power to raise money for the schools. By the Constitution, State taxes are limited...

The singing ceased, The doctor’s wife passed round the hat for contributions, and the ceremony, which had lasted nearly an hour and a half, was over. The doctor retired exhauste...

We might as well go to the bottom of this state of things, and look it squarely in the face. Under reconstruction, sometimes owing to a tardy acceptance of the new conditions by...

Leaving the Milk River Valley, we began to curve southward, passing Fort Assiniboin on our right. In this region and beyond at Fort Benton great herds of cattle are grazed by Go...

Another fact is noticeable. The South is not and never has been disturbed by “isms” of any sort. “Spiritualism” or “Spiritism” has absolutely no lodgement there. It has not even...

In this quarter are many of the churches, of the average sort, but none calling for special mention except St. Paul’s, which is noble in proportions and rich in color, and conta...

There cannot be a more interesting study of the “misfits” of humanity than that offered in the Institution for Feeble-minded Youth, under the superintendence of Dr. G. A. Doren....

Under these circumstances the city resorted to a novel expedient. It surrendered its charter to the State, and ceased to exist as a municipality. The leaders of this movement ga...

This point is a favorite rendezvous for the buzzards. Before I reached it I heard a tremendous whirring in the air, and, lo! there upon the oaks were hundreds and hundreds of bu...

The present tendency of legislation, pushed to its logical conclusion, is towards a practical confiscation of railway property; that is, its tendency is to so interfere with man...

Our host, an old man over six feet in height, with spare, straight, athletic form, a fine head, and large clear gray eyes, lived here alone with his aged spouse. He had done his...

The chief interest to me, however, was the character of the settlers. Most of them were poor, used to hard work and scant returns for it in Switzerland. What they have accomplis...

Finally I asked this intelligent company, every man of which stood upon his own ability in perfect self-respect, “What do you want here in the way of civil rights that you have...

If the city itself could substitute gas fuel for its smutty coal, I fancy that, with its many solid homes and stately buildings, backed by the picturesque hills, it would be a c...

No one, however, can see the mass of colored people in the cities and on the plantations, the ignorant mass, slowly coming to moral consciousness, without a recognition of the m...

Some philosophers say that the character of a people is determined by climate and soil. There is a notion in this region that the underlying limestone and the consequent succule...

Next in importance is Tower Grove Park, an oblong of 276 acres. This and Shaw’s Garden, adjoining, have been given to the city by Mr. Henry Shaw, an Englishman who made his fort...

Let the reader look on the map, at the ranges of mountains running from the north-east to the southwest—the Blue Ridge, the Alleghanies, the Cumberland, and Pine mountains, cont...

Chicago has a physical peculiarity that radically affects its social condition, and prevents its becoming homogeneous. It has one business centre and three distinct residence pa...

It is difficult to analyze the impression Kansas City first makes upon the Eastern stranger. It is usually that of immense movement, much of it crude, all of it full of purpose....

Socially as well as commercially New Orleans is in a transitive state. The change from river to railway transportation has made her levees vacant; the shipment of cotton by rail...

One in the heart of the city has not to drive three or four miles over cobble-stones and ruts to get to good driving-ground. When he has entered Michigan avenue he need not pull...

Returning to the French element, its influence is not only felt in the province of Quebec, but in the Dominion. The laws of the Dominion and the proceedings are published in Fre...

In addition to these parochial schools there are a dozen academies and convents of higher education for young ladies, all under charge of Catholic Sisterhoods, commonly with a m...

Another institution, which promises to have still more influence on the city, and indeed on the whole North-west, is the Newberry Library, now organizing under an able board of...

The railway follows down the river, between the splendid ranges of the Selkirks and the Rockies, to the mouth of the Beaver, and then ascends its narrow gorge. I am not sure but...

This decrease in altitude from our northern boundary makes Canada a possible nation. The Rocky Mountains fall away north into the Mackenzie plain. The highest altitude attained...

To the country at large Springfield is distinguished as the home of Abraham Lincoln to an extent perhaps not fully realized by the residents of the growing capital, with its eve...

The general policy of the Conservative Government may fairly be described as one for the rapid development of the country. This leads it to desire more federal power, and there...

The Christian religion is fundamental in the educational system. In this province the public schools are Protestant, the separate schools Roman Catholic, and the Bible has never...