Westward with the Prince of Wales Part 8

His reception here was of overwhelming warmth; men with all manner of hurts, men on crutches and in chairs stood up, or tried to stand up, to cheer him. It was in the truest sense a meeting of comrades, and when a one-legged soldier asked the Prince to pose for a photograph, he did it not merely willingly, but with a jolly and personal friendliness.

The long road to the Exhibition pa.s.sed through the busy manufacturing centre that has made Toronto famous and rich as a trading city, particularly as a trading city from which agricultural machinery is produced. The Exhibition itself is part of its great commercial enterprise. It is the focus for the whole of Ontario, and perhaps for the whole of Eastern Canada, of all that is up-to-date in the science of production. In the beautiful grounds that lie along the fringe of the inland sea that men have, for convenience' sake, called Lake Ontario, and in fine buildings in those grounds are gathered together exhibits of machinery, textiles, timber, seeds, cattle, and in fact everything concerned with the work of men in cities or on prairies, in offices or factories, farms or orchards.

The Exhibition was breaking records for its visitors already, and the presence of the Prince enabled it to break more. The vastness of the crowd in the grounds was aweing. The gathering of people simply obliterated the gra.s.s of the lawns and clogged the roads.

When His Royal Highness had lunched with the administrators of the Exhibition, he came out to a bandstand and publicly declared the grounds opened. The crowd was not merely thick about the stand, but its more venturesome members climbed up among the committee and the camera-men, the latter working so strenuously and in such numbers that they gave the impression that they not only photographed every movement, but also every word the Prince uttered.

The density of the crowd made retreat a problem. Police and Staff had to resolve themselves into human Tanks, and press a way by inches through the enthusiastic throng to the car. The car itself was surrounded, and could only move at a crawl along the roads, and so slow was the going and so lively was the friendliness of the people, that His Royal Highness once and for all threw saluting overboard as a gesture entirely inadequate, and gave his response with a waving hand.

The infection of goodwill, too, had caught hold of him, and not satisfied with his att.i.tude, he sprang up in the car and waved standing. In this manner, and with one of his Staff holding him by the belt, he drove through and out of the grounds.

It was a day so packed with extraordinary crowds, that we correspondents grew hopeless before them. We despaired of being able to convey adequately a sense of what was happening; "enthusiasm" was a hard-driven word that day and during the next two, and we would have given the world to find another for a change.

Since I returned I have heard sceptical people say that the stories of these "great receptions" were vamped-up affairs, mere newspaper manufacture. I would like to have had some of those sceptics in Toronto with us on August 25th, 26th and 27th. It would have taught them a very convincing and stirring lesson.

The crowds of the Exhibition ground were followed by crowds at the Public Reception, an "extra" which the Prince himself had added to his program. This was held at the City Hall. It had all the characteristics of these democratic and popular receptions, only it was bigger. Policemen had been drawn about the City Hall, but when the people decided to go in, the police mattered very little. They were submerged by a sea of men and women that swept over them, swept up the big flight of steps and engulfed the Prince in a torrent, every individual particle of which was bent on shaking hands. It was a splendidly-tempered crowd, but it was determined upon that handshake.

And it had it. It was at Toronto that, as the Prince phrased it, "My right hand was 'done in.'" This was how Toronto did it in.

III

The visit was not all strenuous affection. There were quiet backwaters in which His Royal Highness obtained some rest, golfing and dancing.

One such moment was when on this day he crossed to the Yacht Club, an idyllic place, on the sandspit that encloses the lagoon.

This club, set in the vividly blue waters of the great lake, is a little gem of beauty with its smooth lawns, pretty buildings and fine trees. It is even something more, for every handful of loam on which the lawns and trees grow was transported from the mainland to make fruitful the arid sand of the spit. The Prince had tea on the lawn, while he watched the scores of brisk little boats that had followed him out and hung about awaiting his return like a genial guard of honour.

There was always dancing in honour of the Prince, and always a great deal of expectation as to who would be the lucky partners. His partners, as I have said, had their photographs published in the papers the next day. Even those who were not so lucky urged their cavaliers to keep as close to him as possible on the ball-room floor, so every inflexion of the Prince could be watched, though not all were so far gone as an adoring young thing in one town (NOT Toronto), who hung on every movement, and who cried to her partner in accents of awe:

"I've heard him speak! I've heard him speak! He says 'Yes' just like an ordinary man. Isn't it wonderful!"

On Tuesday, the 25th, the Yacht Club was the scene of one of the brightest of dances, following a very happy reunion between the Prince and his comrades of the war. Some hundreds of officers of all grades were gathered together by General Gunn, the C.O. of the District, from the many thousands in Ontario, and these entertained the Prince at dinner at the Club. It was a gathering both significant and impressive. Every one of the officers wore not merely the medals of Overseas service, but every one wore a distinction gained on the field.

It was an epitome of Canada's effort in the war. It was a collection of virile young men drawn from the lawyer's office and the farm, from the desk indoors and avocations in the open, from the very law schools and even the University campus. In the big dining-hall, hung with scores of boards in German lettering, trench-signs, directing posts to billets, drinking water and the like, that had been captured by the very men who were then dining, one got a sense of the vivid capacity and alertness that made Canada's contribution to the Empire fighting forces so notable, and more, that will make Canada's contribution to the future of the world so notable.

There was no doubt, too, that, though these self-a.s.sured young men are perfectly competent to stand on their own feet in all circ.u.mstances, their visit to the Old Country--or, as even the Canadian-born call it, "Home"--has, even apart from the lessons of fighting, been useful to them, and, through them, will be useful to Canada.

"Leaves in England were worth while," one said. "I've come back here with a new sense of values. Canada's a great country, but we _are_ a little in the rough. We can teach you people a good many things, but there are a good many we can learn from you. We haven't any tradition.

Oh, not all your traditions are good ones, but many are worth while.

You have a more dignified social sense than we have, and a political sense too. And you have a culture we haven't attained yet. You've given us not a standard--we could read that up--but a liking for social life, bigger politics, books and pictures and music, and all that sort of thing that we had missed here--and been quite unaware that we had missed."

And another chimed in:

"That's what we miss in Canada, the theatres and the concerts and the lectures, and the whole boiling of a good time we had in London--the big sense of being Metropolitan that you get in England, and not here.

Well, not yet. We were rather p.r.o.ne to the parish-pump att.i.tude before the war, but going over there has given us a bigger outlook. We can see the whole world now, you know. London's a great place--it's an education in the citizenship of the universe."

That's a point, too. London and Britain have been revealed to them as friendly places and the homes of good friends--though I must make an exception of one seaport town in England which is a byword among Canadians for bad treatment. England was the place where a mult.i.tude of people conspired to give the Canadians a good time, and they have returned with a practical knowledge of the good feeling of the English, and that is bound to make for mutual understanding.

It must not be thought that Toronto,--or other cities in Canada--is without theatres or places of recreation. There are several good theatres and music-halls in Toronto--more in this city than in any other. These theatres are served by American companies of the No. 1 touring kind. English actors touring America usually pay the city a visit, while quite frequently new plays are "tried out" here before opening in New York.

But apart from a repertory company, which plays drawing-room comedies with an occasional dash of high-brow, Toronto and Canada depend on outside, that is American, sources for the theatre, and though the standard of touring companies may be high in the big Eastern towns, it is not as high as it should be, and in towns further West the shows are of that rather streaky nature that one connects with theatrical entertainment at the British seaside resorts.

The immense distances are against theatrical enterprises, of course, but in spite of them one has a feeling that the potentialities of the theatre, as with everything in the Dominion, are great for the right man.

Toronto is better off musically than other cities, but even Toronto depends very much for its symphony and its vocal concerts, as for its opera, on America. Music is intensely popular, and gramophones, pianos and mechanical piano-players have a great sale.

The "movie" show is the great industry of amus.e.m.e.nt all over the Dominion. Even the smallest town has its picture palace, the larger towns have theatres which are palaces indeed in their appointments, and a mult.i.tude of them. In many the "movie" show is judiciously blended with vaudeville turns, a mixture which seems popular.

Book shops are rarities. In a great town such as Toronto I was only able to find one definite book shop, and that not within easy walk of my hotel. Even that shop dealt in stationery and the like to help things along, though its books were very much up to date, many of them (by both English and American authors) published by the excellent Toronto publishing houses. All the recognized leaders among English and American writers, and even Admirals and Generals turned writers, were on sale, though the popular market is the Zane Grey type of book.

The reason there are few book shops is that the great stores--like Eaton's and Simpson's--have book departments, and very fine ones too, and that for general reading the Canadians are addicted to newspapers and magazines, practically all the latter American, which are on sale everywhere, in tobacconists, drug stores, hotel loggias, and on special street stands generally run by a returned soldier. English papers of any sort are rarely seen on sale, though all the big American dailies are commonplace, while only occasionally the _Windsor_, _Strand_, _London_, and the new _Hutchinson's Magazines_ shyly rear British heads over their clamorous American brothers.

IV

Tuesday, August 26th, was a day dedicated to quieter functions. The Prince's first visits were to the hospitals.

Toronto, which likes to do things with a big gesture, has attacked the problem of hospital building in a s.p.a.cious manner. The great General Hospital is planned throughout to give an air of roominess and breadth.

The Canadians certainly show a sense of architecture, and in building the General Hospital they refused to follow the Morgue School, which seems to be responsible for so many hospital and primary school designs. The Toronto Hospital is a fine building of many blocks set about green lawns, and with lawns and trees in the quadrangles. The appointments are as nearly perfect as men can make them, and every scientific novelty is employed in the fight against wounds and sickness. Hospitals appear most generally used in Canada, people of all cla.s.ses being treated there for illnesses that in Britain are treated at home.

His Royal Highness visited and explored the whole of the great General Hospital, stopping and chatting with as many of the wounded soldiers who were then housed in it, as time allowed. He also paid a visit to the Children's Hospital close by. This was an item on the program entirely his own. Hearing of the hospital, he determined to visit it, having first paved the way for his visit by sending the kiddies a large a.s.sortment of toys. This hospital, with its essentially modern clinic, was thoroughly explored before the Prince left in a mist of cheers from the kiddies, whose enormous awe had melted during the acquaintance.

The afternoon was given over to the colourful ceremony in the University Hall, when the LL.D. degree of the University was bestowed upon His Royal Highness. In a great, grey-stone hall that stands on the edge of the delightful Queen's Park, where was gathered an audience of dons in robes, and ladies in bright dresses, with naval men and khaki men to bring up the glowing scheme, the Prince in rose-coloured robes received the degree and signed the roll of the University. Under the clear light of the gla.s.s roof the scene had a dignity and charm that placed it high among the striking pictures of the tour.

It was a quieter day, but, nevertheless, it was a day of crowds also, the people thronging all the routes in their unabatable numbers, showing that _crescendo_ of friendliness which was to reach its greatest strength on the next day.

V

The crowds of Toronto, already astonishing, went beyond mere describing on Wednesday, August 27th.

There were several functions set down for this day; only two matter: the review of the War Veterans in the Exhibition grounds, and the long drive through the residential areas of the city.

Some hint of what the crowd in the Exhibition grounds was like was given to us as we endeavoured to wriggle our car through the ma.s.ses of other automobiles, mobile or parked, that crowded the way to the grounds. We had already been impressed by the almost inordinate number of motor-cars in Canada: the number of cars in Toronto terrified us.

When we looked on the thousands of cars in the city we knew why the streets _had_ to be broad and straight and long. In no other way could they accommodate all that rushing traffic of the swift cars and the lean, torpedo-like trams that with a splendid service link up the heart of the town with the far outlying suburbs. And even though the streets are broad the automobile is becoming too much for them. The habit of parking cars on the slant and by scores on both sides of the roadway (as well as down side roads and on vacant "lots") is already restricting the carriage-way in certain areas.

From the cars themselves there is less danger than in the London streets, for the rules of the road are strict, and the citizens keep them strictly. No car is allowed to pa.s.s a standing tram on the same side, for example, and that rule with others is obeyed by all drivers.

The mult.i.tude of cars, mainly open touring cars of the Buick and Overland type, though there are many Fords, or "flivvers," and an occasional Rolls-Royce, Napier or Panhard, thickened as we neared the Exhibition gates; and about them, in the side streets outside and in the avenues inside, they were parked by thousands.

They gave the meanest indication of the numbers of people in the grounds. The lawns were covered with people. The halls of exhibits were full of people. The Joy City, where one can adventure into strange thrills from Coney Island, was full; the booths selling b.u.t.tered corn cob, toasted pea-nuts, ice cream soda, and the rest, had hundreds of customers--and all these, we found, were the overflow.

They had been crowded out from the real show, and were waiting outside in the hope of catching sight of the Prince as he made his round of the Exhibition.

The show ground of the Exhibition is a huge arena. It is faced by a mighty grandstand, seating ten thousand people. Ten thousand people were sitting: the imagination boggles at the computation of the number of those standing; they filled every foothold and clung to every step and projection. There were some--men in khaki, of course--who were risking their necks high up on the iron roof of the stand.

In front of the stand is a great open s.p.a.ce, backed by patriotic scenery, that acts as the stage for performances of the pageant kind.

It was packed so tightly with people that the movement of individuals was impossible. On this ground the war veterans should have been drawn up in ranks. In the beginning they were drawn up in ranks, but civilians, having filled up every gangway and pa.s.sage, overflowed on to the field and filled that also. They were even clinging to the scenery and perched in the trees. The minimum figure for that crowd was given as fifty thousand.

The reception given to the Prince was overwhelming; that is the soberest word one can use. As he rode into the arena he was immediately surrounded by a cheering and cheery ma.s.s of people, who cut him off completely from his Staff. From the big stand there came an outburst of non-stop Canadian cheering, an affair of whistles, rattles, cheering and extempore noises, with the occasional bang of a firework, that was kept alive during the whole of the ceremony, one section of people taking it up when the first had tired itself out.