or 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 prone to the parish-pump attitude 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 multitude
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-p