Early in the year 1838, I obtained an engagement as manager of the Palladium, a newspaper issued by Charles Fothergill, on the plan of the New York Albion. The printing office, situated on the corner of York and Boulton Streets, was very small, and I found it a mass of little better than pi, with an old hand-press of the Columbian pattern. To bring this office into something like presentable order, to train a rough lot of lads to their business, and to supply an occasional original article, occupied me during great part of that year. Mr. Fothergill was a man of talent, a scholar, and a gentleman; but so entirely given up to the study of natural history and the practice of taxidermy, that his newspaper received but scant attention, and his personal appearance and the cleanliness of his surroundings still less. He had been King's Printer under the Family Compact régime, and was dismissed for some imprudent criticism upon the policy of the Government. His family sometimes suffered from the want of common necessaries, while the money which should have fed them went to pay for some rare bird or strange fish. This could not last long. The Palladium died a natural death, and I had to seek elsewhere for employment.

Amongst the visitors at Mr. Todd's house was John F. Rogers, an Englishman, who, in conjunction with George H. Hackstaff, published the Toronto Herald, a weekly journal of very humble pretensions. Mr. Hackstaff was from the United States, and found himself regarded with great distrust, in consequence of the Navy Island and Prescott invasions. He therefore offered to sell me his interest in the newspaper and printing office for a few dollars. I accepted the offer, and thus became a member of the Fourth Estate, with all the dignities, immunities, and profits attaching thereto. From that time until the year 1860, I continued in the same profession, publishing successively the Herald, Patriot, News of the Week, Atlas and Daily Colonist newspapers, and lastly the Quebec Advertiser. I mention them all now, to save wearisome details hereafter.

I have a very lively recollection of the first job which I printed in my new office. It was on the Sunday on which St. James's Cathedral was burnt owing to some negligence about the stoves. Our office was two doors north of the burnt edifice, on Church Street, where the Public Library now stands; and I was hurriedly required to print a small placard, announcing that divine service would be held that afternoon at the City Hall, where I had then recently drilled as a volunteer in the City Guard.

The Herald was the organ, and Mr. Rogers an active member, of the Orange body in Toronto. I had no previous knowledge of the peculiar features of Orangeism, and it took me some months to acquire an insight into the ways of thinking and acting of the order. I busied myself chiefly in the practical work of the office, such as type-setting and press-work, and took no part in editorials, except to write an occasional paragraph or musical notice.

The first book I undertook to print, and the first law book published in Canada, was my young friend Alpheus Todd's "Parliamentary Law," a volume of 400 pages, which was a creditable achievement for an office which could boast but two or three hundred dollars worth of type in all. With this book is connected an anecdote which I cannot refrain from relating:

I had removed my office to a small frame building on Church Street, next door south of C. Clinkinbroomer, the watchmaker's, at the south-west corner of King and Church Streets. One day, a strange-looking youth of fourteen or fifteen entered the office. He had in his hand a roll of manuscript, soiled and dog's-eared, which he asked me to look at. I did so, expecting to find verses intended for publication. It consisted indeed of a number of poems, extending to thirty or forty pages or more, defective in grammar and spelling, and in some parts not very legible.

Feeling interested in the lad, I enquired where he came from, what he could do, and what he wanted. It appeared that his father held some subordinate position in the English House of Commons; that, being put to a trade that he disliked, the boy ran away to Canada, where he verbally apprenticed himself to a shoemaker in Toronto, whom he quitted because his master wanted him to mend shoes, while he wished to spend his time in writing poetry; and that for the last year or so he had been working on a farm. He begged me to give him a trial as an apprentice to the printing business. I had known a fellow-apprentice of my own, who was first taken in as an office-boy, subsequently acquired a little education, became a printer's-devil, and when last I heard of him, was King's printer in Australia.

Well, I told the lad, whose name was Archie, that I would try him. I was just then perplexed with the problem of making and using composition rollers in the cold winter of Canada, and in an old frame office, where it was almost impossible to keep anything from freezing. So I resolved to use a composition ball, such as may be seen in the pictures of early German printing offices, printing four duodecimo pages of book-work at one impression, and perfecting the sheet--or printing the obverse, as medallists would say--with other four pages. Archie was tall and strong--I gave him a regular drilling in the use of the ball, and after some days' practice, found I could trust him as beater at the press. Robinson Crusoe's man Friday was not a more willing, faithful, conscientious slave than was my Archie. Never absent, never grumbling, never idle; if there was no work ready for him, there was always plenty of mischief at hand. He was very fond of a tough argument; plodded on with his press-work; learnt to set type pretty well, before it was suspected that he even knew the letter boxes; studied hard at grammar and the dictionary; acquired knowledge with facility, and retained it tenaciously. He remained with me many years, and ultimately became my foreman. After the destruction of the establishment by fire in 1849, he was engaged as foreman of the University printing office of Mr. Henry Rowsell, and left there after a long term to enter the Toronto School of Medicine, then presided over by Dr. Rolph, on Richmond Street, just west of where Knox's Church now stands. After obtaining his license to practise the profession of medicine, he studied Spanish, and then went to Mexico, to practise among the semi-savages of that politically and naturally volcanic republic. There he made a little money.

The country was at the time in a state of general civil war; not only was there national strife between two political parties for the ascendency, but in many of the separate states pronunciamentos (proclamations) were issued against the men in power, followed by bloody contests between the different factions. In the "united state" of Coahuila and Nuevo-Leon, in which the doctor then resided, General Vidauri held the reins of power at Monterey, the capital; and General Aramberri flew to arms to wrest the government from him. The opposing armies were no other than bands of robbers and murderers. Aramberri's forces had passed near the town of Salinas, where the doctor lived, plundering everybody on their route. Next day Vidauri's troops came in pursuit, appropriating everything of value which had not been already confiscated. General Julio Quiroga, one of the most inhuman and cruel monsters of the republic--a native of the town, near which he had but recently been a cowherd (gauadéro)--commanded the pursuing force. On the evening previous to his entry, a peon (really a slave, though slavery was said to have been abolished in the republic) had been severely injured in a quarrel with another of his class, and the doctor was sent for by the Alcalde to dress his wounds. As the man was said to belong to a rich proprietor, the doctor objected unless his fee were assured. An old, rough, and dirty-looking man thereupon stepped forward and said he would be answerable for the pay, stating at the same time that his name was Quiroga, and that he was the father of Don Julio! When General Quiroga heard his father's account of the affair, he had the wounded man placed in the stocks in the open plaza under a broiling sun; fined the Alcalde $500 for not having done so himself, as well as for not having imprisoned the Doctor; had the Doctor arrested by an armed guard under a lieutenant, and in the presence of a dozen or more officers ordered him to be shot within twenty minutes for having insulted his (Quiroga's) father. The execution, however, as may be inferred, did not take place. The explanation the Doctor gives of his escape is a curious one. He cursed and swore at the General so bitterly and rapidly in English (not being at the time well versed in Spanish expletives) that Don Julio was frightened by his grimaces, and the horrible unknown words that issued from his lips, and fell off his chair in an epileptic fit, to which he was subject. The Doctor had the clothing about the General's throat and chest thrown open, and dashed some cold water in his face. On reviving, Quiroga told the Doctor to return to his house; that he need be under no fear; said he supposed the difficulty was caused by his (the Doctor's) not understanding the Spanish language; and added, that he intended to consult our friend some day about those atagues (fits). Quiroga never returned to Salinas during the Doctor's stay there, and some years after these events, like most Mexican generals, was publicly executed, thus meeting the fate he had so cruelly dealt out to many better men than himself, and to which he had sentenced our fellow-citizen.

The Doctor remained in Mexico till the French invasion in 1863, when, partly on account of the illness of his wife, and partly because of the disturbed state of the country, he returned to Toronto. He practised his profession here and became a well-known public character, still, he said, cherishing a warm love for the sunny south, styling the land of the Montezumas "Mi Mejico amado"--my beloved Mexico--and corresponding with his friends there, who but very recently offered him some inducements to return.