colors the arrival
of a company of performing women. Of these posters, one represents
Cleopatra in a bark drawn through the water by nude female slaves.
Another shows a cavalcade of women dressed in little more than a
fig-leaf. Yet another represents the booking-office of the theater
stormed by a crowd of _blase_-looking, single eye-glassed old _beaux_,
grinning with pleasure in anticipation of the show within. Another
poster displays the charms of the proprietress of the undertaking. You
must not, however, imagine any harm of the performers whose attractions
are so liberally placarded. They are taken to their cars in the depot
immediately after the performance and locked up; there is an
announcement to that effect. These placards are merely eye-ticklers. But
this mixture of churches, strict sabbatarianism, and posters of this
kind, is part of the eternal history of the Anglo-Saxon race--violent
contrast.

* * * * *

Aschool inspector has kindly shown me several schools in the town.

The children of rich and poor alike are educated together in the public
schools, from which they get promoted to the high schools. All these
schools are free. Boys and girls sit on the same benches and receive the
same education, as in the United States. This enables the women in the
New World to compete with men for all the posts that we Europeans
consider the monopoly of man; it also enables them to enjoy all the
intellectual pleasures of life. If it does not prevent them, as it has
yet to be proved that it does, from being good wives and mothers, the
educational system of the New World is much superior to the European
one. It is essentially democratic. Europe will have to adopt it.

Society in the Old World will not stand long on its present basis. There
will always be rich and poor, but every child that is born will require
to be given a chance, and, according as he avails himself of it or not,
will be successful or a failure. But give him a chance, and the greatest
and most real grievance of mankind in the present day will be removed.

Every child that is born in America, whether in the United States or in
Canada, has that chance.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Destroyed by fire three days after I left Toronto.

CHAPTER XXII.

WEST CANADA--RELATIONS BETWEEN BRITISH AND INDIANS--RETURN TO THE
UNITED STATES--DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY--ENCOUNTER WITH AN AMERICAN
CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFI