Under the English, for a hundred years it was the centre of
Colonial civilization and refinement, with a governor-general's residence
and a brilliant, easy, and delightful society, to which the large
garrison of former days gave gayety and romance. The honors of a capital,
first shared with Montreal and Toronto, now rest with half-savage Ottawa;
and the garrison has dwindled to a regiment of rifles, whose presence
would hardly be known, but for the natty sergeants lounging, stick in
hand, about the streets and courting the nurse-maids. But in the days of
old there were scenes of carnival pleasure in the Governor's Garden, and
there the garrison band still plays once a week, when it is filled by the
fashion and beauty of Quebec, and some semblance of the past is recalled.
It is otherwise a lonesome, indifferently tended place, and on this
afternoon there was no one there but a few loafing young fellows of low
degree, French and English, and children that played screaming from seat
to seat and path to path and over the too-heavily shaded grass. In spite
of a conspicuous warning that any dog entering the garden would be
destroyed, the place was thronged with dogs unmolested and apparently in
no danger of the threatened doom.
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