Those were the days of pugilistic Ontario. Let there be a ploughing match, for instance, a fight was sure to take place at it. Indeed, a “raising” or a bee of any kind was never complete without a fight. It would appear that persons would take that plan of settling old feuds or grudges, and whiskey-fights were considered as much a matter of course as it was for men to assemble.
Annually during one day in June all the able-bodied men of military age had to assemble for drill in Toronto, and I have it from some old men who used to go from these parts, that at every such training there were fights in the morning before they commenced and likewise in the evening when they were dismissed from drill. They tell of a big bully at one training in Toronto who boldly dared any one to fight, and who finally succeeded in arousing a small but plucky man to stand before him. A ring was formed, and the bully punished his small opponent shamefully. There was a man from this locality who had his feelings irritated by the unequal and harrowing spectacle. He happened to remark, “I wish he’d serve me so,” and the bully took him up. It is needless to add that they had all been drinking more or less. Our man quickly pulled off his coat and stepped before his big antagonist. This time the bully had aroused the wrong man, for our hero possessed the strongest arm and hand anyone was known to have in the locality, and in a few blows he thrashed the bully clean and fair, felling him to the ground, and giving the prostrate man a vigorous kick as a parting salute. But this was a fair fight, whereas generally in those days they did not scruple to “strike below the belt,” while gouging, biting and kicking were common accompaniments.
But the picture is not a pleasant one, and I shall not further dwell upon it. Surely we should be thankful that our Province has improved in its ideas of temperance and conduct, as the world at large has in the great march of reform ideas.
[Illustration: AWKWARD SQUAD. FENIAN RAID, 1865.]
In this fast nineteenth century, in these days of divorces and of free love, it is really a pleasing spectacle to be able to point to one of our elderly Canadian couples, who had been companions, one and inseparable, for sixty years. They were married at twenty-two, and at once began clearing a Canadian forest farm. During the previous fall the expectant bridegroom alone had chopped and cleared some five or six acres out of the dense forest, and erected a log-house in the clearing.