The two sights of Toronto are the Osgoode Hall and the University.  The Osgoode Hall is to Upper Canada what the Four Courts are to Ireland.  The law courts are all held there.  Exteriorly, little can be said for Osgoode Hall, whereas the exterior of the Four Courts in Dublin is very fine; but as an interior, the temple of Themis at Toronto beats hollow that which the goddess owns in Dublin.  In Dublin the courts themselves are shabby, and the space under the dome is not so fine as the exterior seems to promise that it should be.  In Toronto the courts themselves are, I think, the most commodious that I ever saw, and the passages, vestibules, and hall are very handsome.  In Upper Canada the common-law judges and those in chancery are divided as they are in England; but it is, as I was told, the opinion of Canadian lawyers that the work may be thrown together.  Appeal is allowed in criminal cases; but as far as I could learn such power of appeal is held to be both troublesome and useless.  In Lower Canada the old French laws are still administered.

But the University is the glory of Toronto.  This is a Gothic building, and will take rank after, but next to, the buildings at Ottawa.  It will be the second piece of noble architecture in Canada, and as far as I know on the American continent.  It is, I believe, intended to be purely Norman, though I doubt whether the received types of Norman architecture have not been departed from in many of the windows.  Be this as it may, the college is a manly, noble structure, free from false decoration, and infinitely creditable to those who projected it.  I was informed by the head of the college that it has been open only two years; and here also I fancy that the colony has been much indebted to the taste of the late Governor, Sir Edmund Head.

Toronto as a city is not generally attractive to a traveler.  The country around it is flat; and, though it stands on a lake, that lake has no attributes of beauty.  Large inland seas, such as are these great Northern lakes of America, never have such attributes.  Picturesque mountains rise from narrow valleys, such as form the beds of lakes in Switzerland, Scotland, and Northern Italy; but from such broad waters as those of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Michigan, the shores shelve very gradually, and have none of the materials of lovely scenery.

The streets in Toronto are framed with wood, or rather planked, as are those of Montreal and Quebec; but they are kept in better order.  I should say that the planks are first used at Toronto, then sent down by the lake to Montreal, and when all but rotted out there, are again floated off by the St. Lawrence to be used in the thoroughfares of the old French capital.  But if the streets of Toronto are better than those of the other towns, the roads around it are worse.  I had the honor of meeting two distinguished members of the Provincial Parliament at dinner some few miles out of town, and, returning back a short while after they had left our host’s house, was glad to be of use in picking them up from a ditch into which their carriage had been upset.  To me it appeared all but miraculous that any carriage should make its way over that road without such misadventure.  I may perhaps be allowed to hope that the discomfiture of these worthy legislators may lead to some improvement in the thoroughfare.