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AT THE FORKS OF THE GRAND Certain visionary cranks would urge the establishment of Electric Lights, Street Railways, Zoological Gardens, and Museums. The council refused to increase the grant beyond $150.00. Fortunately for the town of Paris, when a crisis was reached in Ig02, the directors were able to get a grant of $io,ooo from a fund - : established by Andrew Carnegie for the erection of free public- libraries. According to the agreement, the grant was to be made ul 'te'o'a h on condition that the town council should guarantee to pay the library an annual grant of $i,ooo, and that no fees should ever be charged. When the library by-law had been approved by 224 voters and, rejected by only i i, the directors of the year I903 asked for tenders for the erection of the present Paris Public Library. This building is a memorial to all the men who strove during 63 years to create "an effective means for diffusing useful knowledge and creating an intelligent community". Apart from the library and the debating-society, there is little to record about the cultural life of Paris. A number of Parisians who left town after growing up have argued that there is little to record because culture here has generally been regarded with sus- picion and disdain. Whatever the truth, there have been a few cultural forces. "History of Brant County, 1884" states that: Literature . . . is well represented in the three newspapers of Paris; besides these, the Rev. Dr. Townley's contributions to periodical literature during the last twenty years have made his name well known throughout Upper Canada. Nor has art been unknown in this town. Poor Tom Rhodes, an artist of the true Bohemian type, wandered hither. When he could get no sale for his pictures, Tom was not above painting signs .... Everybody in Paris liked him; but alas, he chiefly sought after those friendships which begin and end with the whiskey jar. Paul Giovanni Wickson (i86o-i1922), an artist of Dominion-wide repute, made his home in Paris. He married Elizabeth Hamilton, daughter of Norman Hamilton, and lived at Hamilton Place. Some of his paintings were exhibited in the Royal Academy, London, and in American galleries. When one painting, "The Advance of Civil- ization", was bought for a Buffalo art-gallery, a Buffalo newspaper stated that "Mr. Wickson, the Canadian painter, enjoys the distinc- tion of being the first son of the great Dominion to achieve a reputation as an artist outside his own land." Another painting was bought by the Marquis of Landsdowne, the Governor-General of Canada. Mr. Wickson was a great lover of horses. At one time he owned race-horses and entered them in steeplechases. His love of horses led to his making them the subject of many of his later paintings. Now and then dramatic societies flourished for a short time, and produced plays in the Opera House. Occasionally they chose some- 152