Before leaving Canadian soil, there are several things to mention, which we have observed in travelling across the continent. Canada is in many ways quite as much American as English. They have the American system at hotels of making a fixed and inclusive charge of from three to four dollars per day. They also have the varied _ménu_, which I counted at one hotel to include fifty items. True, Oolong, Ceylon, besides English breakfast, tea, and fancy bread of all sorts, is put down to swell the items. Still we have often wished that the assortment of food was smaller, but better served. The Canadians use as much ice water, and consume as largely of fruit at all meals, as the Americans. Carriages are as expensive as in America, the reason being that tramways and electric cars are universally used as means of locomotion. Their railway system of drawing-room cars, sleepers, and dining cars are identical. Nor can their mode of speech be wholly excepted, for true born and bred Canadian often speaks with an equally pronounced accent as any American, and makes use of many of their expressions, such as "on such a street, a dry-goods store," etc.
In the universal and domestic use of electric light, Canada, like America, is twenty years ahead of us. Each little city has it, but then this is a new country and there are no great monopolies as in England to be considered. It is the same with the telephone. All public buildings, offices, shops, and almost every private house in a city has its telephone. A great amount of business is transacted through it, and ladies use it for their daily orders to tradesmen. The convenience is great, but the incessant tinkling of the bell invades the sanctity of home, viz. privacy. A lady recently arrived from England rightly called it "the scourge of the country."
As in America, domestic servants are scarcely obtainable. I found most Canadian ladies thought themselves lucky with one servant, and in luxury with two. A nurse is an unknown necessity to many mothers, who tend their children entirely. This accounts for the number of children travelling (we counted nineteen in two cars on one journey) and in hotels. There is no one to leave them with at home. If unavoidable, they are none the less a noisy nuisance.