direction of Lord Mount Stephen, Lord Strathcona and R.B. Angus, after which it was continued by Lord Shaughnessy and Sir William Cornelius Van Horne. Celebrating their success, they spared no expense on their homes, with interiors decked in detailed mahogany and private art galleries housing works of the likes of Raphael, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Constable and Gainsborough etc. Van Horne's collection of Japanese pottery brought connoisseurs from Britain, the United States and Japan; and the Old Masters collection belonging to James Ross was frequently loaned out for public exhibition around the world. Ashton Oxenden was Bishop of Montreal from 1869 to 1878. As an Englishman, previously well travelled in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Spain, he paid a high complement to "this flourishing and wealthy city" when he stated that, "upon the whole, I prefer Montreal, as a place of residence, to almost any town that I have ever seen." Oxenden particularly enjoyed the "picturesque city's cheerfulness (and the) kindness of its inhabitants": There is an abundance of charitable institutions at Montreal (and) all well managed.. among the Roman Catholics especially there are many institutions on an enormous scale.. I have hardly seen a beggar in the streets or in the country. There is a great absence of poverty, except perhaps among the lowest French population.. Happily there is at present (1871) a kindly feeling between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, each pursuing their own course without molesting the other. The general cost of living (is) much the same as in an ordinary English town.. Dinner parties are frequent in Montreal. There is perhaps a little too much expense devoted to them; and this prevents all but the wealthy from indulging in such hospitalities. The Upper parts of the town are of more recent growth, and contain commodious and detached houses, belonging to the men of business and persons of fortune. The streets in this part of the town are as yet incomplete, showing at present certain gaps, which will ere long be filled up with handsome houses. They are all flanked by trees, chiefly maples (which) greatly add to the beauty of the town. The Montreal builders are excellent. They not only run up their houses at an indescribable speed, but they build them well and substantially. Aside from the men at the very top, the CPR had also brought about another housing boom to the Square Mile: In 1885,