Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' book, Nicholas Nickleby. Donald's mother was the sister of the Canadian explorer John Stuart, partner of the North West Company who rose to become Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Smith was educated at Anderson's Free School and on leaving at age sixteen he was apprenticed to become a lawyer in the offices of Robert Watson, Town Clerk of Forres. By the age of eighteen, Smith chose another career path: offered entry into mercantile life at Manchester, and a career in the Indian Civil Service, his choice was to pattern himself
Dickens in America an emotional reading of “Ode to an Expiring Frog.” The show finishes with a visit to Eastern State Penitentiary, a prison that Dickens talked about at length in "American Notes". Dickens wrote how the prisoners had to wear a hood when arriving that prevented them seeing the path from the front gate to their cell, so they had no concept of where in the building they were. Miriam attempts to do the same but can’t go far before she gets too uncomfortable to go on. The prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, with only a bible to read. Naturally many