Besides The Usual Variety Of Churches, There Is A Grammar-School,
And Also Four Large Common Schools, Which Latter Are Free Schools,
Being Supported By Assessments On The People Of The Town.
Every Saturday, which is the great day for business from the
country, the streets are crowded with farmers' waggons
Or sleighs,
with their wives and pretty daughters, who come in to make their
little purchases of silk gowns and ribbons, and to sell their butter
and eggs, which are the peculiar perquisites for the females in this
country. The counties of Hastings and Prince Edward are celebrated
for female beauty, and nowhere can you see people in the same class
more becomingly attired. At the same time there is nothing rustic
about them, except genuine good nature and unaffected simplicity
of manners. To judge by their light elastic step and rosy smiling
countenances, no people on earth seem to enjoy a greater share of
health and contentment.
Since the establishment of the county municipal councils, plank and
macadamised roads have branched out in all directions from the
various central county towns, stretching their ramifications like
the veins of the human body, conveying nourishment and prosperity
throughout the country, increasing the trade and the travel,
connecting man with man and promoting intelligence and civilisation;
while the magnetic telegraph, now traversing the whole length of
the country, like the nervous system, still further stimulates the
inhabitants to increased activity.
The people of this county have not been behind their neighbours in
these improvements. The first plank-road which they constructed was
from Belleville to Canniff's Mills, a distance of three miles over
a road which at the time was often knee-deep in mud, with a solid
foundation of flat limestone rock, which prevented the escape of the
water. So infamous was this road, that, on some parts of it, it was
a matter of serious doubt whether a boat or waggon would be the
better mode of conveyance. Notwithstanding the badness of this road,
it was the greatest thoroughfare in the county, as it was the
only approach to a number of mills situated on the river, and to
Belleville, from the back country. It was, however, with the utmost
difficulty that the warden could induce the other members of the
county-council to sanction the construction of a plank-road at the
expense of the county; so little was then known in Canada of the
effects of such works.
The profits yielded by this road are unusually large, amounting,
it is said, to seventy or eighty per cent. This extraordinary
success encouraged the people to undertake other lines, by means
of joint-stock companies formed among the farmers. All these
plank-roads are highly remunerative, averaging, it is stated,
fourteen per cent. over and above all expenses of repair. More than
thirty miles of plank-road is already constructed in the county.
In a few years plank or gravel roads will be extended through every
part of the country, and they will be most available as feeders to
the great line of railway which will very soon be constructed
through the entire length of the province, and which has been
already commenced at Toronto and Hamilton.
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