lately the temporary political capital of Canada, formerly the political, and still the commercial capital of Canada West, is built on the edge of Lake Ontario, about 30 miles from its western end. A peninsula, stretching for some miles in a long flat arc, almost parallel with the land, at a distance of somewhat more than a mile, forms a broad and beautiful harbour, which first decided the site of the present city. From the water little is seen of the town, on account of the flatness of the ground near the lake, but a gentle slope upwards to the north, of about 1 foot in 50, relieves the view at some distance back, till, at a mile and a half or two miles, an irregular ridge of sand, rising to the height of low hills, once the beach of the lake, but now covered with verdure and dotted here and there with houses, serves as a border to the picture.

The first houses in Toronto were built in 1794, the site having been chosen the year before by Governor Simcoe, the first governor of Upper Canada. The advantages of the bay, and of the fact that, by opening a road to the north, the waters of the Georgian Bay, a part of Lake Huron, would be reached, and an avenue thus secured for trade with the whole western parts of the continent, were held by that clear-headed and far-sighted man more than a counterbalance to the natural defects of the locality. One of the first settlers describes it as "fitter for a frog-pond or beaver-meadow than a habitation of human beings." A broad marsh at the eastern end of the bay was fruitful of ague, and everywhere there was too much swamp for comfort or health. Two families of Indians were the only population at that early day; but the bay was alive with wild-fowl, while a dense and beautiful forest clothed the soil to the water's edge. The long wars of the end of last century, and the first fifteen years of this, were fatal to the rapid growth of colonies, by destroying the men who would have been emigrants, and hence the growth of Toronto, or York, as it was then called, was at first very slow. Nearly thirty years after its foundation, there were only 1336 inhabitants; and even so late as at the time of the rebellion in 1837 it was still very insignificant. From that time, for a number of years, it grew rapidly, until, in 1856, the population was over 40,000. The universal commercial crisis of 1857, however, and the removal of the seat of government to Quebec in 1859, have for a time not only checked its advancement, but reduced its population to not more, at the most, than 35,000.

Like all new cities, Toronto straggles greatly at its edges, and is closely and continuously built for any great distance on only a few streets. It is well laid out in rectangular blocks, the two main thoroughfares being King Street, which runs east and west at a short distance from the lake, and Yonge Street, which strikes down on it from the north, about the middle of the city. In both these are excellent shops, King Street boasting the more fashionable. All the principal streets, and many of the less important, are lighted by gas, which the citizens enjoy in their shops and dwellings at 13s. 4d. per 1000 feet. Water is also provided for the principal streets; steam-engines driving it up by force-pumps, unfiltered from the bay, which, while it yields the water of the city, receives its sewerage. Only from 900 to 1000 buildings take the water thus provided, the rest of the 8000 houses, of which the city consists, depending on numerous private wells, which, at no great depth, afford an abundant supply. For soft water, very many depend on the rains. The principal streets are macadamized, and have pavements of thick plank, except where, here and there, a short stretch of paving-stone, brought from Kingston or Ohio, has been laid down. The houses are generally of red brick, many of them, of late years, flat roofed. A large number of the better class have latterly been built of white brick, made from clay found in the neighbourhood, and a few of the more ambitious warehouses and shops, and some of the public buildings are faced with stone brought from a distance. The drainage of the city has been greatly improved within a few years back, and this, with an opening made by the lake in the east end of the peninsula, which has dissipated the stagnant waters of the marsh formerly existing there, has wholly removed any charge of unhealthiness once made against it. The population is about one-third Episcopalian, a fourth Roman Catholic, a seventh Presbyterian, and an eighth Methodist, the fraction which remains distributing itself into the various other bodies. In 1856 there were 57 clergymen of all denominations, and twice as many lawyers. Toronto is governed by a council of 14 aldermen and 14 councillors, with a mayor chosen by the direct vote of the people. The municipal franchise is L6, but, from the high rates obtained by landlords, this is nearly equivalent to universal suffrage, and the results are little in favour of the system. Many of the municipal authorities are chosen from the dregs of the people, the mob electing them as like themselves. The value of property assessed in the city was, in 1857, L359,909 of real property, and L64,050 personal property; in 1858, L357,064 of real property, and L56,719 of personal; in 1859, L331,427 of real property, and L45,296 of personal. From the fall of rents, and general commercial depression, the accounts for 1860, which are not yet published, will be very considerably less in both real and personal property. 1860 has, so far, been the worst year Toronto has seen, perhaps, in its whole history. The city possesses property to the value of L6800 a year. The city debt, contracted nearly altogether within the last few years, has reached the enormous amount of L458,888. The city taxes for 1857 were 2s. 6d. on the pound; for 1858, 2s. 11d.; for 1859, 2s.; and for 1860 they will not be less than 3s. 6d. on the pound. But this is less than in almost any other Canadian town at this time. Unlimited liberty of borrowing has tempted nearly every municipality far beyond its depth. In 1858 there were upwards of 500 licensed and unlicensed houses for the sale of intoxicating drinks; but this great number has since decreased, the public outcry having forced the authorities to limit the evil. They are now only about half that number. By the police returns, it appears that 4593 cases were brought before the magistrates last year. One half of these were for drunkenness. Sixty-four per cent. of all arraigned were Irish, and 117 were coloured people. Hitherto the city prisoners have been confined in the county jail, which is in Toronto, but a new jail for the city alone is being built, which, with the land attached, will cost L40,000. The land, 119 acres of sand, two miles from the city, cost, by a job, L8000.

Education is liberally provided for in Toronto. The Roman Catholics have separate schools, to which a provincial and municipal grant is made in proportion to the attendance. For the rest of the population, eight schoolhouses have been built—six of brick, the others of wood; the average cost of each of the brick houses, with its site and furniture, has been about L2500. These are the "common schools" for "primary" education. They are entirely free, the expense of maintaining them being met by local taxation aided by a government grant. They are under the direct control of a board of trustees, 14 in number, half of whom are chosen each year by household suffrage for two years' service. The average daily attendance in 1859 was 2150. The cost of each child was L2, 8s. a year. The total expense of the schools for 1859 was L5188. The system is not very efficient as a means of universal education. Neither the middle class nor the very poor use its advantages, the one wishing more select schools, the others none. The richer classes have to pay for the children of mechanics and others who could quite well pay for their own families, and private schools are wellnigh extirpated. A monopoly of "free schools" might do for a republic, but for a British people they are largely unpopular, and deservedly so. There are no fewer than three high schools in Toronto; the Upper Canada College, with twelve masters, largely attended and liberally endowed; the Toronto Grammar School, with one master and three assistants, ably taught but scantily aided; and the Model Grammar School, with a number of masters, richly endowed from provincial taxes though just established. It owes its existence to the political influence of the chief superintendent of education, whose theories would suffer by the humbler but better plan of improving already existing institutions.

The university of Toronto is a very fine building in the Norman style. It has cost about L100,000, derived from the sales of part of its very rich endowment of university lands over the province. University College enjoys the use of this fine structure, and is worthy of the building. It has a staff of ten professors, all from Europe, and a Hebrew and a classical tutor. It offers great inducements to students, by large bursaries freely given, liberal and numerous prizes, and fees only nominal where they are taken at all. The number of matriculated students is not large, but many more attend particular courses as occasional students. Trinity College, an institution established in connection with the Church of England on the secularization of University College, is also in Toronto. It is an elegant building, has six professors and a provost, and is modelled after Oxford. The Free Church likewise has its college in Toronto, but it confines itself chiefly to theological studies, its students attending University College for general branches, excepting logic and philosophy, which are ably taught by Professor Young. The United Presbyterians and the Congregationalists have each a theological seminary in the city. In medicine, Toronto has two rival schools—that of the Hon. Dr Rolph with most students, and the "Toronto School" with most professors. As the head-quarters of the educational system of Canada West, Toronto is ornamented by the large and handsome buildings devoted to the different offices of the educational scheme. The main structure is occupied in different parts by a collection of paintings and plaster busts and casts bought by the superintendent in Europe, and as much criticised as praised; by the "depository," in which he keeps an immense stock of books, maps, apparatus, &c., to sell to libraries, teachers, and scholars, to the great injury of business, and in violation of all sound policy; and by the special offices of the superintendent and his subordinates.

There are three daily papers published in Toronto, at three halfpence currency each (a little over a penny); five weekly, and seven monthly, including two denominational magazines. The daily papers are very different from their prototypes in Britain, politics in a small province too often degenerating into personalities, and the circulation and price... not warranting the same expenditure on literary excellence as in a denser population.

Toronto has many charitable institutions. The General Hospital, supported by a revenue from its lands and an annual grant of the legislature, is a fine building, and could accommodate many more sufferers than it does, but for the inadequacy of its means. The Provincial Lunatic Asylum, also a very fine building, erected by the province, and supported by an annual provincial grant, and by a municipal tax of one penny on the pound, is a credit to Canada. Over 400 lunatics are frequently gathered together in it and in a branch asylum, which it has been found necessary to open in addition. Various other charitable institutions, supported in most cases more or less by government grants, attest the prevalence of right feeling in the community at large. Juvenal speaks of the number of fires in Rome; had he lived in Toronto the complaint would have been equally just. The outhouses being very generally of wood, and many roofs being covered with shingles (split pine wood), lead to many. Incendiarism takes advantage of the fact, and in dull times, like the present, is very often at work. The fire department, however, though very inferior in organization, discipline, and subordination to British fire companies, is active. Its expenses are borne by the city, which pays a captain L160 a year, other officers in proportion, and the men L8 each. There are 240 men enlisted in the force. Toronto is the chief seat of law in Canada West. The Court-house is a plain but massive building, and Osborne-hall, where Chancery and the Courts of Common Pleas and Queen's Bench sits, and where the library and offices of the Law Society are established, is still finer in its appearance. The Law Library numbers about 3000 volumes. Toronto has a Mechanics' Institute with a library of 4000 volumes, and the "Canadian Institute," which is the equivalent to British "Royal Societies," and the like. The Board of Agriculture has its offices in Toronto, and in many ways, labours to advance the interests of the province. Under its care a permanent "Crystal Palace" was built in 1858, 256 feet in length, and 96 in width. The railroads starting from Toronto, or passing through it, furnish every facility for travel. The Northern Railroad runs back to Lake Huron; the Great Western to Hamilton, to the Suspension-bridge at Niagara Falls, and to London and Windsor; and the Grand Trunk runs to Port Sarnia to the west, and to Montreal, Quebec, and Portland to the east. The effect of this rapid travelling has been disastrous to the shipping of the port. Formerly the bay was filled with steamers and sailing vessels, but now it is hardly used more than it was forty years ago. There is at present only one steamer running from Toronto; it sails to Niagara. The railways all run along a level tract reclaimed from the lake, and called the "Esplanade," to make which has cost the city not less than L140,000. The railroads, of course, ought to have made their own way, but jobbery carried the day. That so much of the freight formerly brought to Toronto is carried by the Grand Trunk straight through to Portland or Montreal, hurts Toronto greatly. Wholesale business is likewise drawn by the easy communication from it to the latter places. The amount of imports entered at the Toronto customs was for 1856, L1,390,926; for 1857, L1,017,092; for 1858, L753,787; for 1859, L803,842. The great falling off after 1856, and the slow recovery, are very striking. The exports show similar characteristics. They were for 1856, L441,067; for 1857, L130,133; for 1858, L127,436; for 1859, L181,096. The bad harvests of 1857 and 1858 left terrible traces in these figures. The exports are chiefly flour, wheat, oats, pease, barley, wool, planks, and shingles. Toronto has no manufactures of any importance. A distillery is in operation in the east part of the town, and there are a furniture factory and one or two stove foundries. Like all the rest of Canada West, it is nearly altogether dependent on agriculture. One of the Toronto's larger imports is coal brought from Ohio, which has, to a large extent, taken the place of wood as fuel. The public buildings, besides those already enumerated, are the City Hall, the House of Providence, a Roman Catholic hospital, St Lawrence Hall for public meetings, &c., the New Mechanics' Institute a very fine building, the Post Office, the Masonic Hall, the Exchange, the Temperance Hall, the Rossin Hotel an enormous building, which is only partially used, the old Parliament Buildings a range of three large plain red brick houses. Besides the English and the Roman Catholic cathedrals, there are 17 Protestant and 3 Roman Catholic churches. The cemeteries, by a wise arrangement, lie outside the city. The Church of England and the Roman Catholics each have one, and a third, the Necropolis, receives the dust of those whose friends decline the funeral services of these bodies.

The Toronto banks have stood the terrible trial of the past three years without flinching. They are—the Bank of Upper Canada, established in 1821, while Toronto was yet only a small village; the Commercial Bank of Canada, the Bank of British North America, the Bank of Montreal, the City Bank of Montreal, the Bank of Toronto, the Quebec Bank, and Molson's Bank. There are, besides, two savings-banks. There are 20 fire insurance, and 11 life assurance agencies—a number of offices taking risks of both kinds.

The situation of Toronto, its present size, the presence of the courts and of the university, will prevent its growing much less at any time than it is; but what its future size may be, it is hard to conjecture. In the meantime it is trying to raise itself slowly from the commercial calamities of the last three years, and promises itself that it will enter on a new career of prosperity, if the province be blessed with good harvests. That it should ever be a large city seems unlikely. Its position, its want of manufacturing facilities, the smallness of the market open to its products if it had any of importance, the precariousness of its main support the wheat harvest—all seem to indicate a respectable rather than a splendid future.