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Tous las autras axamplairas originaux sont filmAs an commandant par la pramlAra paga qui comporta una amprainta d'imprassion ou d'illustration at an tarminant par la darnidra paga qui comporta una taila amprainta. Un das symbolas suivants apparaftra sur la darniara imaga da chaqua microficha, salon la cas: la symbols -^ signifia "A SUIVRE ", Is symbols V signifia "FIN ". Las cartas, planchas, tablaaux, etc., puuvent Atre film6s k das taux da reduction diff6rants. Lorsqua la document ast trop grand pour Atra raproduit an un saul clichA, il ast film* A partir da I'angla supAriaur gaucha, da gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'imagas nAcessaire. Las diagrammas suivants illustrant la mAthode. rata elure. 3 32X 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 312 [March, A FEW NOTES ON CANADIAN MATTERS. Part I. AN Italian Avith a grievance broods moodily over it with his hand on the hilt of his knife ; a Greek smiles on his enemy and'strikes him secretly ; a Frenchman gaily hums a tune and drowns his sorrows in eau sucree. An Englishman writes to The Times : grimly does the true- born Briton cling to this glorious privilege — firm is " ' universal panacea, the reach of the nurses his wrath enables him to send it Printing-house-squarc- his faith in his If he be beyond penny post, he till his return all hot to I remem- ber on one occasion, near Avignon, a son of Cockayne, with touching belief in the universal efficacy of newspapers, requested me to trans- late into Frencn an indignant epistle he had addressed to the editor of the Moniteur on the subject of some supposed attempt at extortion on the part of his enemy, the landlord of our hotel. But in truth the great redresser of grievances is but a reflex of public opinion, not a leader of it ; and the secret of its success lies in its publication of complaints which afi'ect a class, not a mere individual, of the community. When old Mr. Brown is garrotted in Islington, on his way home from the Freemasons' dinner. The Times inserts his dramatic account of the robbery, and informs the public that Brown has bought a revolver, and intends to use it; all Brown's friends buy revolvers, too, and their hearts palpitate beneath their white waist- coats as they hurry home. The grievance aft'ects all elderly gentle- men who are too short of wind to wrestle confidently with a couple of ticket-of-leave men. There are, however, anomalies in our social system, affecting souiemil- lions of our fellow subjects, upon which the newspapers are silent. Of this kind are the disadvantages and complaints of our colonies : a daily dissertation on some colonial grievance, however great or however true, would probably, if persevered in for a week, bring down the cir- culation of a paper. Occasionally, when a political cry is wanted at home, or a 'ministerial crisis ' occurs at the antipodes, an editor rakes a thousand and one letters from a pigeon-hole labelled Australia, in which they have been collecting for a month, and the gentleman who does the colonies writes athunderer fromthese materials, denouncing the Home Government. Men lounging over the paper at their club, say that such-and-such a paper seems ' d->vilish well informed on colonial matters,' and turn with a yawn to the City article, or the state of the odds about the Derby. The fact is, the subject does not interest them. Why should itP ' Despatches were received yester- day at the Colonial Office from the Governor of New Zealand.' Ofcourse the Colonial Office, which is paid for the purpose, knows all about it ; so the newspapers do not write what their readers do not care to read, and the Government does not attend to colonial grievances while there is no pressure from without. But in sober earnest, is it not a mistake that we English commit, to care more, as we undoubtedly do, for an ascent of Mont Blanc, or a quarrel about some isolated scrap of the Eubric, than for the fate of the millions whom our high civilization las sent to find their bread ebe- where ? Ofl'shoots from our stem have founded on the shores of the lakes of the West, and in the islands of the Southern Seas, commonwealths, on the model of our own. These have doubled and trebled their population within the nieniory of men now living. They arc governed by our laws, trained to the greatness they are now rapidly attaining by our own time-honoured institutions ; and it is a fact worthy of note, that even the native-born inhabitants of these distant lands still talk of our island as ' home.' Throughout our colonial posses- sions there is now no vexed question which produces any real ill-feeling or excitement against the mother country : no question on which the whole energetic heart of the masses in any of our great dependencies is intently fixed. There is peace. 1857.] Enf/land's Colonial PoUcjj. VAZ I '} thank Goil, bct\vec]i us and om* children. But it is against all logic, and contradicted by every lesson tau,\'e treat them rather as Lord Privilege did Peter Simple in the novel. Peter came home from sea prepared to kiss his grandfather, and that nobleman gave him one finger to shake, and made him a bow instead. We live under a new order of things. Self-govern- ment, mIucIi has been conceded to the colonies, was the inauguration of a new and better policy. "NV'e can- not any longer blame the Colonial Office for what it does, but only for Avhat it leaves undone. We have left off active interference, and run per- haps into the opposite extreme. In- dinerence may be as injurious as tyranny, though of course it cannot be so cneruetically and promptly resented. The true path leads be- tween the t\A o extremes. We have up to a certain time refused conces- sion till angrily demanded ; now we say, ' Do Mhat you please; we do not care, and will not interfere.' Is not indifference almost as bad as unkind- ness F "\Miat is the good of retaining the affectionate name of the mother country, if it be not to give a kind word of sympathy and approval in due season ? Four colonies on the north of the St, Lawrence are still our owti. They are inhabited by a race whoso loyalty is as much more active than our own. as feeling is stronger than habit. In the nature of things they will not remain as they are for ever. Face boldly the question of their ultimate fate, which must sooner or later arise. Determine whether it is desirable that they should always remain part of our body -politic. If it be so, what terms can we offer them in order to secure their ac- ;uieseence in that arrangement? f it be not, consider whether we are educating them, so to speak, for a mutually pleasant and advan- tageous separation. Is it right that a great nation should consider her colonies as mere dependencies, an appanage of her regal character, a means to justify the boast that on her dominions the sun never sets, as part and parcel of her state — to be at all risks and at any expense detained ; or are they to be considered as offshoots from the parent stem — children to be carefully guarded, helped, and re- strained in their nonage, but as they approach maturity to be gradually freed from restraint, taught to see in the mother country their most natural protector, the best customer for tlieir goods, the people most kindly interested in their welfare ? Surely the last is the more reason- able of the two alternatives, and in some degree we have ado]>ted it. AVe have freed our colonics fi'oni the restraints of their youth ; but in the kindly intercourse, the seasonable encouragement, more than all, the acts of kindness graciously received, which would bind them to us as with bars of steel, mc fail utterly. In tlie hist war, while we raked together the off'scoui'ing of the Gernnm jiopulation among the un- willing United States, wliile we embodied Piedniontese and Italian refugees, we refused the eagerly proffered services of our Canadian brothers, in whose veins flow Anglo- Saxon blood, and who inherit to the full extent the bone and sinew, the nerv(! and the courage, of their English sires. They are too jiroud to com])hiin ; but when next we need such assistance, will they offer it as readily '( Such familiarities reverse the old i I 1857.] Bouge ou Noire. 315 1 T proverb, and breed no contempt. They are like intercliangcs of good offices with our own kitb and kin in private life — they conduce to a better understanding of each other's foibles, and a more affectionate and intimvte mutual regard. I make these sug- gestions and inquiries, not in order to give my own answer like an Irish echo, but as a sort of apology for the following pages. It is per- haps natural that one who feels the importance of a subject, should wish to persuade others at least to see and judge for themselves. Steamers riui from Liverpool every Saturday, which will deposit the adventure! within ten days, if he so please it, in London, County Middlesex — the only diffei'ence being tluit the London in question is in the backwoods of Canada West, and not in England. It may be an inducement to the genuine son of Cockayne to know that he may there wander or the banks of the Thames, cross Blackfriars- bridge, pass down Cheapside, Covent-gardcn, and so on to Pall- mall, Piccadilly, Oxford-street, St. Jamcs's-street, and Grosvenor- street ; he may attend divine service at St. Paul's, and visit our mutual friends Messrs. Brown, Jones, and llobinson, who have stores in St. James's-street.* I see by a recent London Canada West paper, that the English jour- nals of the i6th of the mouth were on sale at ' Austin's News Depot' on the 26tli. Why, then, does not every one with money and leisure, instead of making mechanically the usual Con- tinental tour next summer, like a blind horse in a mill, determine to put his faith in Nature instead of 'Murray,' to see wonders in pro- gress instead of castles in decay ; and to vary the entertaiimient by a trip to tlie New World, with a view to a passing glimpse at England's Yankee cousins, and a little more extended acquaintance with her Canadian sonsr* He will find there generous and cordial hospitality ; and be his hobby what it may, a chance to ride him. The lawyer, the statesman, the wit, — every Roland will find an Oliver ; and Roland must be very sharp or very stupid if ho can learn nothing new. Is he an artist? I remind him of Montmorenci, a stream like the Thames at Richmond, leaping sheer down a precipice of two hun- dred feet ; Niagara ; the Thousand Islands. There are long ages of Indian history, illustrated by tombs, coins, weapons ' known only to the hunter ' or the chance wan- derer in the wilderness, that would well repay the antiquary. Tliere is still honour and amusement among Canadian rocks and wild-flowers, for many a fellow-worker in the field with Logan. I must here gravely premise, for the special benefit of the Corpora- tion of the City of London, that the natives of Canada have no affinity, either in their religion or the colour of their skins, with the aborigines of the woods and prairies. They are white, and more or less Christian. A little anecdote, which is also a true one, will prove that this is no superfluous information. A lady of my acquaintance was in England, on a visit to a friend, who took her, among other sights, to a ball at the Guildhall. During the evening the amiable chaperon, with the intention of introducing her charge to the Lady Mayoress, dispatched her husband to find the said charge, while she asked the neces- sary permission. ' A Canadian ! oh I shall be so charmed. She is a Christian, of course ? Does she speak much English P' said the Lady Mayoress, with an uneasy thought of^ what was to happen if she didn't. Up came my pretty friend, and made her bow. • Bless my heart !" exclaimed lier ladyship, in consternation. ' I — I beg your pardon — I thought she was a black.' I say nothing of the year in which this incident happened, because perhaps, in the retirement of private life, the worthy dame has had h?i8ure to look up ' Canada' in her geograpliy book. So I hope has a gentleman who asked me ' whether the natives did not call it Candia * Vide London C. W. Directory for 1856, an amusing evidence of Canadian progress . 316 A Few Notes on Canadian Multcrs. [March, and if it wasn't doosocl hot in Iho Mediterranean. ' On looking; back at the time when the countries of Europe Mere still unclaimed from the forest, we find a state of society inconceivably barbarous and fierce. ' Centuries of obscure endeavour,' says Ciu'lyle, •which, to read history, you would call mere obscure slaughter, discord, and misendcavour, of which all that the human memory after a thousand readings can remember is, that it resembled what Milton termed it, the flocking and lij^hting of kites and crows.' Such is the picture constantly before the mind. The old chronicles ring with the din of arms, the feuds of nomade tribes, the loves and hates of petty chiefs, the Jnuscular strength of one, the barbarous murder of another. Ap- E ailing revenge, hard knocks, tur- iile.'it misrule, fill these quaint records of a time out of joint. But on the other side of the Atlantii- you may see a whole nation contending with the natural diili- cultiea which beset the bai-barous hordes of early Europe, preseutuig in some respects the germ only and outline of civilization, and in others its full and complete develop- ment. It is like a man who by reading and thinking has forced himself intellectually through youth into middle age. To one accustomed to our crowded country, perhaps the most striking fact, or rather process of the West, ia the distinctness with which its gradual development is visible. That era in the life of a nation which corresponds to the first sketch of a picture, is now going on under his eyes. This process is nevertheless hard to understand at first. A Euro- pean of a speculative or inquisitive turn may puzzle out, as regards the Old AVorld, the problems which tlie American praclically and naturally solves. In the New World you may watch the method by which polities, industry, lawsuits, and a thousand other causes, silently and actively work to fomijoae the geography and char;iL'ter of the country. In Eurojjc a man grows up unaccustomed to connect tlie actual boundary of a country \vit!i its physical geography or its politienl history. ]Nor does it often occur to any but a laborious historian to reflect how they came there, m ho fixed them, or why they were not somewhere else. A boy learns by rote from a dull book, ' France, capital Paris, on the Seine ; chief towns, Lyons and Amiens.' Does it ever occur to his pastors and masters to i)oint out why Paris is the capital of France? Why iho capital is not Lyons or Ilouen. or more than all, Marseilles P Yet French history since the days of Louis VI. is a commentary on the reason. I can say for my own part, that it was only when the wish to account for such facts came with the everv-day habit of thought of the Western World, that' it ever occurred to me to think of matters. Who troubles himself to reflect whether the present position of London is a geographical neces- sity, or Avhy it could not just as well have been at llichmond or afc Margate ? Thqre are few, however, from the other side of the Atlantic whose habits of thought have not at once suggested similar questions on every place they go to. The fact is, tliat the Canadian or the American has worked out his geogi"a])hical i)roblem3 not by map and book, but on the face of an uncultivated land. He does not see a fair city seated in an advan- tai.'^eous locality, which ho views without caring why it came there. Almost every town has groNAU up within Itis own, or at auy rate his father's recollection ; he knows whether it is succeeding or not, and the reason why. If he Mishes to settle, he has to choose his own home, and the making or marring of his fortune depends upon the correct- ness of his judgment. It ia this habit of complete self-reliance, of dependence only upon what his o\^n acuteness, in- dustry, or invention can discover or bring about, that is the true source of the inquisitive disposition m hich the inhabitant of the New World so often exhibits, to the annoyance and astoni.shnient of the European. The American, in his turn, wonders alike at the helplei^s dependency of the master and the obsequious civility of the servant ; he has never seen auyt'.iing but a baby require or receive such care. The first emotion of a European I 1857.] Bunning xip a Town. 817 is one of rallicr atupid astoniBlimcnt. He sees a country in a state of breathless progress ; but the motive power of tliat progress is new, the machinery strange, tlio whole con- dition of life a problem worked on data unknown to him. It is only when ho has time to examine matters in detail, and has caught some of the inquisitive spirit of the hemi- sphere Jie is in, that he begins to obtain the clue. These conditions are best learned and most easily appreciated by a beginner in the backwoods. There you may see a society which, from its locality, vroulcf be as barbarous as Britain under ihc Eomans, but for the genius of the nineteenth century, which brings the appliances of advanced civilization to aid its primitive contest witb the wilder- ness. A backwoods town exhibits in an amusing way this union of sobd civilization with a rude outside. Originally created by the wants of the scattered pioneers of a fi*on- . tier district, its site is not un- commonly decided by one of those speculators who form a class pecu- liar to the New World. Trained by long habit to discover by a slight indication the elements of future success, the adventu- rous individual buys the spot on which his fancy has raised a castle, and forthwith proceeds to realize his dream. The surveyor, with axe and compass, ' blazes ' a road through the woods — that is, notches the trees every twenty or thirty yards in such a fashion that the traveller, keeping all the notches on his right or left hand, as the case may be, is piloted through the track- less woods. He uext lays out on paper the destined site into town lots ; numbers corresponding to those oil the ])lan are marked on the trees at the corner of the various lots. A flaming advertise- ment appears in the newspapers, setting forth the immense advantage to be obtained by settling on the favoured spot, and advertizing a sale by auction. The terms of payment are usually very easy, the whole amount of purchase-money being spread over from four to seven or even ten years. If the tried judg- ment which selected the new town plot has not failed — if the surround- ing soil be fertile, a fact easily ascer- tained from the lumberers, whoso winter-long residence in the woods makes them ac(|uainted with every acre. — or from intending speculators, who go out in large parties to ' pro- spect' — the pioneers soon llnil them- selves no longer in solitude, and, according to thecustomof their class, sellout their improveineiitsand move further ofl'. The new town begins to thrive. At lirst, while the axo is ringing in the neighbouring woods, on»^ of the two or three log-huts that have formed the nucleus of the town, starts a small store ; openings in the trees, where a lot has been cleared for building, become more frequent, and a corduroy road re- places the blazed line to the settle- ment where advancing civilization made its last halt. Now it is that the natural advan- tages so carefully looked to by the original projector come into play. There is a fertile back country, whose grain iinds in the new town a ready market, or passes by its w harves. There is good water com- munication \\ith the, lakes or great rivers, and soon steamers find their way up, whose first trips are conspi- cuously chronicled in the newspaper, which is sure to commence a bi- weekly issue in the first year of the existence of the town, whose Baniici' or Star it proclaims itself. If the new settlement be situated at the head of a lake, or where some stream forms a natural and commodious harbour, its progress is all the more rapid and certain. The whole province is studded with towns which prove this. The city of Ottawa, whose original name of Bytowu was altered, by an Act of the Canadian Parliament during the session of 18,^4, to that of the noble river on which it stands, was, twenty-five years ago, a collection of log-huts and sheds. The ground on which the city is built was sold for the large sum of eighty pounds. It now contains ten or twelve thousand inhabitants, and its credit, shown by the value of its municipal debentures, is hardly second to that of any town in the province. This is not an iso- lated history. I know a gentlemau who built one of the farst three brick houses in Toronto, now the . m t hn t mmts m si ' ui. t t. i^ 318 A Few Nb/es on Canadian Matters. [March, capital of Canada. New York ia popularly supposed to be the most Srosperouf" city in the world, but 'oronto has increased in population and wealth nearly twice as (juickly. A brother otlicer of a friend of mine killed a bear, which attacked him while walking with two Indies, on the spot where the J3ank of Upper Canada now stands. I also know a gentleman who settled in Hamilton when there was nothing there but a k\y Indian wigwams. At a recent sale, land which ho had purchased at a dollar an acre was sold at one hundred dollars a foot. Hamilton has now, I believe, about twenty-live thousand inhabitants. The cities of the United States, about whose un- exampled prosperity so much has been said, can show no increase like this. The striking difference Avhich exists between the present state of Canada and that described by Lord Durham in 1838, cannot but o<'cur forcibly to the mind oF any one acquainted with Canadian affairs. Lord Durham says : — By deacribing one side, and reversing the picture, the other would be also ilc- scribed. On the American side all is activity and bustle. The forest has been widely cleared ; every year numerous settlements are formed, and thou ,and8 of farms are created out of the waste ; the country is intersected by connnon roads ; canals and railroads are finished, or in the course of formation ; the ways of conniiunication or transport are crowded with people, and enlivened by numerous carriages and large steam- boats. The observer is surprised at the number of harbours on the lakes, and the number of vessels they contain ; while bridges, artificial landing-places, and connnodious wharves are formed in all directions as soon as required. Good houses, warehouses, mills, inns, villages, towns, and even great cities, are almost seen to spring up out of the desert. Every village has its school- house and place of public worship. Every town has many of both, with its township builduigs, its book-stores, and probably one or two banks and newspapers. The cities, with their fine churches, their great hotels, their exchanges, court- houses, and municipal halls of stone or marble, so new and fresh as to mark the recent existence of the forest where they now stand, would be admired in any part of the Old World. On the British side of the line, with the excei)tion of a few favoured spots where some approach to American prosperity ia apparent, all seems waste and desolate. There is but one railroad in all Uritish America ; and that, running between the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, is only fri'toen miles long. Tlie ancient city of Mon- treal, which is naturally the commercial capital of the Canadas, will not bear the least comparison in any respect with Buffalo, which is a creation of yesterday. But it is not in the difference between the larger towns on the two sides that we shall find the best evidence of our own inferiority — that painful but unde- niable truth is most manifest in the country districts through which the lino of national separation passes for a thou- sand miles. Tliere, on the side of both the Canadas, and also of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, a widely scattered population, poor, and apparently unen- terprising,thougli hardy and industrious, separated from each other by tracts of intervening forest, without towns and markets, almost without roads, living in mean houses, drawing little more than a rude subsistence from ill cultivated land, and seemingly incapable of im- proving their condition, present the most instructive contrast to their enter- prising and thriving neighbours on the American side. Now hear the other side of the question, as stated in a prize essay on Canada, written by Mr. Hogan, a Canadian gentleman, in 1855 • — The World's Progress, published by Putnam, of New York, a reliable autho- rity, gives the population and increase of the principal cities in the United States. Boston, between 1840 and i8;o, increased forty-tive per cent. Toronto, within the same period, in- creased ninety-fire per cent. New York, the great emporium of the United States, and regaided as the most pro- sperous city in the world, increased, in the same time, sixty-six per cent, being thirty-five loss than Toronto. The cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati, which have also experienced extraor- dinary prosperity, do not compare with Canaila any better. In the thirty years preceding 1850, the population of St. Louis increased fifteen times. In thirty-three years preceding tiie same year, Toronto increased eighteen times ; and Cincinnati increased, in the same period given to St. Louis, but twelve times. Hamilton, a beautiful Canadian city at the head of Lake Ontario, and founded much more recently than Toronto, has a,lso had almost unex- ( T 1857.] Urhem quam dicuitf.' 819 T umploil iirnsjiority. In iS,^^, its popu- liitioti was but 2846, in 1854, it was upwarilH of twenty tliousaml, Jjonddii, Htill further west in Upper Canailii, and a yet more recently foundod city than llaniiltun, beinj,' wurveyed aa a wilderness little more than twenty-five years ago, liaH now upwards r)f ton thuusand inhabitants. The city of Ottawa, recently called jvftcr the magnificent river of that name, and upon which it is situated, huH now altovo ten thousand inhabitants, although in iSso it had but one hundred and forty houses, including mere sheds and shanties ; and the property upon which it is built was purchased, nut many years before, for eighty pounds. The town of Hrantford, situated be- tween Hamilton and London, and whose site was an absolute wilderness twenty- five years ago, has now a jiopulation of si.x thousand, and has increased in ten years upwards of three hundred per cent., and this without any other stimu- lant or cause save the business arising from the settlement of a fine country adjacent to it. The towns of Belleville, Coburg, Wood- stock, Goderich, St. Catherine's, Paris, Stratford, Port Hope, and Dundas, in Upper Canada, show similar prosperity, some of them having increased in a ratio even greater than that of Toronto, and all of them but so many evidences of the improvement of the country and the growth of business and population around them. TJiat some of the smaller towns in the United States have enjoyed eijual pro- sperity I can re.adily believe, from the circumstance of a large population sud- denly filling up the country contiguous to them. Buffalo and Chicago too, as cities, are magnificent and unparalleled examples of the business, the energy, pud the progress of the Uniteil SUites. But that Toronto should have quietly and unostentatiously increased in popu- lation in a greater ratio than New York, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, and that the other cities and towns in Upper (./'anada should have kept pace with the capital, is a fact creditable alike to the steady industry ard the noiseless enterprise of the Canadian people. As sliailo in a picture brings a llffure into relief, so doe.s Lord Durham's gloomy view bring out more strongly tlie essayist's picture of joyful ijrosperity. AVliut a change hat been efl'ected in nine- teen years I The latter and more rapid strides of the colony have been due mainly to the remodelling of the enervatiug policy of our colonial system, and the introduction of ono«liicli substitutes enterprise and energy for an idle reliance on din'crential duties in favour of co- lonial iigricidtural produce. The advantages of fre*' trade are never more entirely displayed than by such facts as these. Any dcpnrturo from its strict laws brings w ith it its OMii retribution. Hefore I1S46 wo erred by protectinj? Canadiini pro- ducts against Anu^rican cou'petition. A\'e now err. as 1 shall have occasion to show further on, by subsidising ships to run to American ])ort9, thereby forcibly diverting the great trade of the West from its naUiral highway of the St. Lawrence and Canadian railroads, and driving it perforce through Americancliannels. But we have left the town whose develojiment we Mere watching al- most long enough for it to have become a city in the backwoods — a city being fixed by imiversal custom in America, at a population of ten thousand souls. During the next ten years the stream of population pours steadily from the centre to the extremities, inundating the em- bryo town, and overflowing into the surrounding coiintry. It will now probably contain several hundred inhabitants, two or three saw-mills, the same nimi'>' . of churches of difl'erent denominations, about twenty times as many groceries, Anglice grogshops, and th(,' otlices of at least four most violent news- papers. A few half-pay oliicers have cast anchor in the neighbourhood, which is also ornamented by the presence of a county-court jndge. A railway, v\'\{\\ horribly reckless curves, is in progress, and steamers trade dailj"^ down the river to the lake shore. Stumps, the remainder of the primaival forest, still stand in the streets, and turn the bui lock- wagons out of their course as they creak along. A doctor's buggy, with a knowing-looking wiry nnimal in the shafts, more than three parts thoroughbred, bumps at the rate of ten miles an hour in and out of the ruts and over the stumps, regardless of bones or springs. The young ladies and gentlemen of the town, attired in the newest Toronto-Parisian fashions, dash rapidly by in light wagons with 'spans' of good-looking horses, under 820 A Few Kotea on Canadian Matters. [March, the Ramo conditions aa the n. .ical gcntlennm in point of humnii and carriiijjo aniitoniy. I need hardly explain that a pleasure - waf^on Ih a sort of lea-trny, cunninjfly sus- pended on four wheels of enornioua cliamelcr and slight emistruetion. An attempt to turn suddenly infal- libly results in an iipstt. Know- ledge of this eircurastanee of course greatly tends to the fuliihnent of Solomon's precept, to keep yoiM'; ladies and f^entlemen in tlio ^^ ay they should go. Indians and squaws enveloped in blankets, bouu> of the latter with unfortunate papooses strapped to boards and slung upon their shoukL-rs, loiter about the flour and spirit stores. Active, clean • limbed lumberers hi red flannel sbirts, flung opeii at the chest, parade the streets. They have pro",. \bly stopped their rafts to take in provisions, and to repair damages incurred in shooting the Falls above the town. They have bivouacked all the winter on their * timber limits' up the country, and ai'e now on their toilsome way to load the Fall fleet at Quebec. There are pianos in most of the houses, and very pretty young ladies to play upon them. Everything within betokens high civilization — every- thing witlioufc society in its lirst elements. Eut follow into the woods one of the roads Mhich now on all sides diverge still furtlierfrom civilization, and you obtain a better insight into the means by whicli the pro- sperity you have just witnessed has been attained. Much as we must appreciate the rapid growth of towns in Canada, and however true it may be that the statistics of their pro- gress aflbrd the most startling view of Canadian prosperity to a casual observer, it must not be forgotten that the plough is her real source of wealth. Unskilled, but honest and persevering, labour will always meet with a more than adequate reward. The speculator may amass a rapid fortune, but he is a unit among thousands. Tiie fact ihat the great majority of criigrants, who in despair of providing even the common ne- cessaries and decencies of life iu the Old World, can here be certain of obtaining its luxuries, carries with it more solid consola* u and more cheering prospects to those who niay think of treading in their steps. The (pudities of energy and perseverance, useless unless backed by capital in the overstocked labour market of Europe, will alone insure success to their possessor, though his sole wealth be his sinewy arms and a determination to exert the patient endurance for which his class is celebrated. To the good settler may be ajjtly applied the words of the poet : — IIo shall not dread misfortuno's iingry mien, Nor fucl)ly sink liencatli her tempest rude, Whoso soul hus learned througli many a trying scene To sniilo at fate, and sntfor unsubdued. In tlie rough school of billows, clouds, and storms Nursed and matured, the pilot learns his art ; Thus fate's dread ire througli many a conflict forms The lofty Hi)irit and enduring heart. It is worthy of remark that the Canadian farmer ucfpiires a knowledge of the scientilic im- proveinents in his art more easily and with less trouble than one of any other country. ^Nowhere else can you see so many dill'erent nationalities peaceably settled side by side. The industrious and plod- ding German, the farmer with more energy than capital from the scien- ti'ic Lowlands of Scotland, settle side by side with the thoroughbred backwoodsman, and bring each his quota of the information which commands su(;cess. There are few improvements in machinery, or mode of cultivation, brought into general ixse in Europe, that do not soon afterwards make their appearance on the other side of the Atlantic. Stock of all kinds has been exported from tJiis country, and the most approved breeds of horses and every kind of cattle thrive and multiply exceedingly in their Western home. While tlie settler such as we have above described enjoys deserved prosperity, one with the smallest particle of pride in his composition experiences the proverbial fate of that passion. The man who, unlike Mr. JJarkis, is not ' willin' ' to put his hand to the plough, and to bend at ouce his back and his ambition to \ 1857.] ^Jvan Bull et Jean Bapli.'ilc.'' 321 J tlio aj^rocablo tusk of fcllinp; a fow ncivs of fort'st trccH, will liiid Iiim- fit'lt' c'oiiipi'lk'il to si'll hill iiii])rovo- iiR'iits ti) II li'sa flouring; nature at a ruinous lusa, and will jirubuhly end liis practical c;i3ay on cnii^ration ill a lit of ildlfiiiiii tninens induced by Canadian whisky. I have known Bcveral specimens of young gm- tleiiien who, being unsuccessful at home, were considered by their ijurcnts and guanlians as t ininenlly ikely to succeed in Canada, and who finding farming dillicult, took to di'inlc instead. If English Char- tist leaders, iustoail of urging their hearers to demand political rights and a slip of Dartmoor Common, were to tako into cou- sidei'alion the fact that men of thews and sinews arc at a high premium in the colonies — that by going out to those colonies they may secure high wages and abundance of the luxuries of life — if they would understand that the conuuand of two meat meals a-day is of more importance to them and their fami- lies than universal suilrage, and were to agitato for a free passage across the seas, instead of for the establishment of a Utopia at home, — they would do the State good service. An EngliiU mechanic is a good- iiaLureel and at heart an orderly fellow. He would work if he could ; and as work is })h'ntil'ul and hands are wanting in Canada, ho would both secure independence for himself by going there, and benetit those who remain by displacuig the pre- sent pressure of the labour market. Tlie diilereuce between the ad- vanci'd notions of the Upper Cana- dian farmer and the conservative pre- judices of the more remote districts of Lower Canada is very striking. The JIabitau, as the Upper Canadian is called, has all the virtues and most of the prejudices of a very primitive state of society. In this he ditl'era from the cosmopolitan settler of the West, who has no prejudices what- ever. The feudal, or seiguorial tenure under which the greater part of the Lower Canadian lands have been held till very lately, the provisions of which seemed framed for the one object of ren- dering the acquisition of property almostimpossible, contributed much, no doubt, to this state of things. The tenure of land is encnmi)ered with conditions whose very namen are unknown in our laws, lliough even they are not too straight- forwaril. A Ti'nancier. or Censi- tuire, under the old French l.w, besides a small rent, would probal)ly piiy his landlord in addition, a pig, or a goose, or a fowl, or a bushel of wheat. The druit dv batnilitr con- ferred on the seigneur the right to a I'onrteenth ])art of the tenant's \ioY\\, under the name of niuu/ure, or grinding dues. The foifn et rciifci gave him one-twelftii of till' purcliasc-money of every estate ^Aitliin his seigniory which changed hands by sale. The whole aeig- ntirial teiuire has been lately done away with, and lands can be held in fee simple in the same way as in Ui)i)er Canada, and be aa easily acquired. A move in that du'ection was made somewhere about the year 1790, by intro- ducing the free and common soc age tenure, but this has never bn u popular among the conservalivo Ilabitans, who cling with tenacity to the patriarchal rule of tliLir ancestors. Doubtlciss the repeal of the seiguorial rights will ellect a revolution in the quiet, and it must be confessed comparatively back- ward, agricultural inhabitants of the Lower Province. The native politeness of even the poorest among the French popula- tion, and the truly French grace and freedom from awkwardness with which their hospitality is dis- pensed, have been remarked by all who come in contact with them. The subdivision of property among all the children which takes place on the death of a parent, and the demarcation of the new boundaries so as to give every sharer an equal frontage on tlie highway or an equal portion of the wood or water behind, give a curious appearance to some of the villages ; they are not clustered together, but extend, with a few yards' interval between every house, for miles, and a long narrow field stretches out behind the house, perhaps a mile long and thirty yards wide. Standing on the citadel at (.Quebec and looking towards Montmoreiici, the whole road — some thirteen miles — is 322 A Few yotcs on Canadian Matters, [March, marked by a white line of houses, with fences stretcliing away to the river ou one side, and to the woods on the other, giving it the appear- ance of a long white centipede. It seems, however, that the rage for agricultural improvement has at last reached Lower Canada, for at an agricultural exhibition held at Quebec a year or two ago, there was a most creditable show of cattle and implements of husbandry. It was attended by large numbers of people, and spoke well for the animus with which improvement begins to be regarded. I read in a Canadian newspaper a few days ago, that a gentleman, who, judging from the results of his labour, must be an indefatigable archasologist, has re- cently traced back by means of marriage registers and notarial papers, the Lower Canadian families to their original homes in France. He states, giving the proportions, that most of them come from Paris ; the next greatest nmnber from Normandy ; all are from the north of France. I wonder if the fisher- men of the St. Lawrence, and the lumberers of the Ottawa know that they are 'Parisiens d'origineP' The destination of the emigrant to Canada is entirely at his own discretion, the only exceptions being the large numbers who have no intentions or plans at all. These forlorn individuals may, however, obtain every information gratis from the emigration agents, whose printed instructions contain most valuable and reliable information on all points interesting to them. * Passengers are particularly cautioned not to part with their ship tickets.' Such is the golden rule viith which Mr. Buchanan, the chief emigi'ation agent, begins his advice. The neglect of this precaution has many a time been productive of untold discomfort, and sometimes worse, especially to unprotected females. In Canada, as everywhere else, in- terested advice is often offered ; and if the unfortunate victim is per- suaded to remain in Quebec instead of going up the country immediately, he A\ ill learn to his cost, that among the dens of the ' Lower Town ' Diogenes would have found no reason to extinguish his lantern. It is quite inconceivable on what slen- der information a ' boy ' from the Emerald Isle will proceed. ' Where are you going to settle, my man P' 'Well, thin, yer honour, I'm going up to join Barney Magee, that's doin' mighty well, gloiy be to God, in these parts — lastewise I'm tould so.' ' What part of the country is Barney in r ' Faith, thin, I disremember en- tirely, yer honour.' This, with the country as full of Barneys as an egg is of meat. The inconvenience of the present system has long been patent to all ; numerous societies have been formed, at the various ports in the United States and ^xsewhere, at which emi- grants usually land, with the object of protecting those helpless and, it must be admitted, rather thick- headed individuals. I see by the Canadian journals that Mr. S. P. Bidder, the general manager of the Grand Trunk Kail- way of Canada, has turned his atten- tion to the subject, and brought his large practical expcience to bear most usefully upoK it — rem acu tetigit, he has hit the right nail on the head — arrangements have been made by which i)assengers, whether emigrants or others, are to be passed to any part of Northern or Western America, on tickets issued to them in Europe. Thus, passengers who purchase through- tickets from the agents of the Grand Trunk Railway at Havre, Antwerp, Cork, Bremen, or Aberdeen, in short, at any port trading with Montreal, Quebec, Portland, or Boston, will be conveyed to any point in Canada to which a railway runs, or to any place in the Unitetl States where there is a station, with- out the lU'cessity of an inquiry or a moment's unnecessary delay. Each f)asseuger is to be supplied, besides lis ticket, with a man of his I'oute, and even a time-table, which will tell him within a few minutes the time at which he will reach his settlement in the Western woods ! Tlic emigration agents at all the principal towns will furnish every information relative to lands open for settlement, routes, distances, and expenses of conveyance. Labourers, artisans, and meclianics can learn from them the best directions in V *^ 1857.] To Parties about to ' Settle: 323 1 respect to employment, the places at which it is to be had, and the rates of wages. The agents being in constant communication with each other all over the province, can, better than any private person, direct the skilled or uuskilled labourer to the exact spot where, from local or temporary causes, a demand exists for the kind of labour he is competent to supply. An emigrant possessed of sufficient capital to support him during the first year, may afford to buy a tract of land at once, and the sooner he goes to work the better. During that period the labour of getting up a house and clearing a small portion of his farm will fully occupy his time, and prevent him from getting any crop, except, perhaps, a few potatoes. If he be unprovided with money to make a good start, lie had better go into service for a time.* By this means he will not only avoid a dispiriting failure at first starting — such as many a good man has never been able to retrieve — but he will learn the habits of the country, and be able to bide his time for a start on his own account, which the high rate of wages (averaging from four shillings and sixpence to five shillings a-day currency for labourers, and seven shillings and sixpence to ten shillings a-day for mechanics) will soon enable him to accomplish. Women-servants re- ceive, according to their skill in household work, from fifteen to thirty shillings a month. Passengers are allowed by law to remain forty-eight hours on board after their arrival, and are to bo landed free at the usual landing- place, between certain hours. The practice used to be to bundle emi- grants ashore in the middle of the night and at any place most con- venient to the captain. An act of the Canadian Parliament now regu- lates both time and place. The captains are compelled to anchor ' within the following limits — to wit, the whole space of the Iliver St. Law- rence from the mouth of the Eiver St. Charles to a line drawn across the said river from the flagstaff on the citadel on Cape Diamond ' — that is, within half a mile either way of the usual landing-place. The time of landing is between six o'clock a.m. and four o'clock p.m. The emigrant who intends to farm had better buy a small improved fiirm than a more extensive tract of wild lands. Large numbers of farms are constantly passing out of the hands of their lirst occupants, who have either failed or desire to move farther off. An abode, with a little clearing in the woods and a house, however rude, ready built, is much less disheartening to the settler than a bivouac under a ' lean-to ' of sticks and leaves, till he can clear a place for a shanty in the bush. He had better not, as a general rule, go too far from the older settlements at first. The real backwoods pioneer is a character distinct from the settler. He sells out and goes farther on as soon as civilization reaches his loca- tion in the wilderness. He is usually a native-born Canadian, or a very restless importation fi'om home. The Englisli settler must look to ready access to a market for his produce, if he wish to ])rospcr ; aud the further he leaves civilization behind him the more will he have to pay for the necessaries of life, and the more will the cost 'of carriage diminish the profits of what he has to sell. The only exception to this is the farmer who follows in rear of tlie lumber-men. He finds in their wants a ready market, 'not only at a price equal to that procurable iu the ordinary marts, but increased by the cost of transport from them to the scene of the luuiberiug opera- tions. 'f * The Price of Ckavhifj Wild Lands, and how Chared, — The clearing' of wild laud is ahvaya to be iindcrstood as clearing', fencing, aud leaving it ready for a crop in ten-acre fiul.i.s, the stumps aud roots of the trees aloue being left to enouuiber the operaticus of the farmer. The price varies greatly, according to circumstances, but may be quoted at present as £5 currency ])er acre. The pay- nieut is always understood to be made in cash, except a sjieeial written bargain to the contrary is entered into. Timber is now becoming scarce aud valuable iu some locations, and near liie railway the value of timber is equal to the cost of clearing the laud. — Caniida Cijinjxtnys Pamphlet. t Lord Elgin's Denpatcl), ijtli Sept., 1853. ^^^^Bw^"" 324 A Few Notes on Canadian Matters. [March, The clircction taken by the stream of cmijjfration in the United States is much influenced by Government. A few years ago it ■was directed chiefly towards Michigan; the next points were Nebraska and Minne- sota. Talking of Michigan, a curious instance of an advantageous posi- tion securing to a town continued prosperity, in face of legislative enactments, and such-like forcible means, is to be found in the case of Detroit, I tell the tale as it was told to me on the spot. A blunder- ing act of the State Congress en- deavoured to deprive it of its then fosition of capital town of Michigan, t was determined to remove the seat of Government. All the State deputies, except those from Detroit, determined that there should be a move somewhere ; but aa each claimed the honour for his own abode, and peremptorily refused to fix on any other, they eventually placed it in the exact geographical centre, miles from any human habi- tation, and called the name of the place Lansing. Shanties — one of them a hall for the Congress of the State — sprang up like mushrooms ; and although there was in 1854 no carriage road to the capital, a rail- road will soon run there, if it is not already in operation. But nothing can injure Detroit. The United States' plan of form- ing a railroad, and paying for it, seems to me a good one, and one that might be advantageously in- troduced into the wilder parts of Canada. It is, to give the com- pany contracting for the work legal titles to a belt of land extending in some cases as much as twenty miles on each side tlie proposed line ; the laud at the time of grant- ing is of course worthless, but the presence of tlio line gives it value directly, as tlie only condition of success of which a backwoods settler is not secure is a ready access to a market for his produce. The land is soon settled. This monopoly is not so dangerous as it might appear, for the company's interest is not to raise the price of land, but to lower it in order to attract settlers. The canal which eoimects Lake Superior with Lake Michigan, and which enables ships of heavy tonnage to pass the fulls called the Sault St. Marie, a difference of level of more than eighty feet, was made in this manner. Pending the fulfilment of the contract, when they receive legal titles, between seven and eight thousand acres were set aside, under the name of the ' canal reserve,' and could not be touched by either party. Before that time vessels were conveyed over the portarjc on rollers ; anything seemed to be good enough for the Far-Westers, one of whom alluded to the vessel on board which we were traversing Lake Superior in company as being * darn'd old and leakysome ;' but he added cheerfully, ' I guess they will run her till she sinks or busts up — and God help the crowd the last trip ! ' The emigrant's first home in the bush is a desolate and lonely object to look upon. The rude log-jiut, like the abode of some mariner shipwrecked among the huge green waves of the woods, affords small promise of the comfortable frame- house that will take its place in a year or so. Still less does the scanty crop of Indian corn that struggles on among the roots of the forest trees foretell the golden harvest that will ere long wave there. Well might the emigrant's heart sink and his courage fail as he struggles on against such odds, were it not thnt he knows right well that thousands such as he have fought the same fight and conquered. It appears impossible to a spectator tliat a single arm should, unaided, fell and remove the acres of timber that as yet cover up the site of his intended farm. Great, ponderous giants, blackened and scorclicd by the fires which he has lit to clear away the brnsliwood, or • stagging,' as it is there called, lifting their limbs to heaven, naked and dead from tlie notclies which have girdled their trunks the year before, seem to represent the very ideal of inert resistance. But the primitive cus- tom of backwoods life affords a means of escape from the dilliculty. It is an undei'stood thing that every neighbour shall give a day's \Aork in consideration of a return in kind when he may happen to want it. W^hen, therefore, an acre or so of trees has been felled, the settler summons his friends for a certain \ r, 1 i i } 1857.] ^Ex ligno fit Mercurius.' 325 t S day to a 'lo^'ginj; bee.' This will be a great foto. His wife will meet her gossips, and his children their playfellows. Great store of sub- stantial viands does the good dame lay in, and potent is the home-brewed whisky that she distils for the occasion. At the earliest dawn the settlers assemble, and after an early breakfast proceed to work. Each one has brought a team of oxen and a stout chain, to drag away the felled trees, and pile them in con- venient heaps. It is the glorious privilege of the urchins to set fire to them. He who wishes to see a thoroughly honest day's work done, should assist at a ' log-rolling bee.' No shuffling here, but honest men, knowing the value of what they give, and giving it with all their hearts. No one ever saw a hirehng work in such a manner. The scene of con- fusion as the day advances bafiles description : the snouts and struggles of the farmers and their oxen ; the crackling flames ; the pungent smoke of green burning wood impreg- nating the air for miles ; the wild figures begrimed with smoke and dirt, till they look like demons ; the clearing itself surrounded like an amphitheatre by the sombre forest, with the settlers' shanty on its verge, — form a curious picture. By the way, the municipal roads, when civilization has arrived sufficiently near to the settler to bring him within the limits of a municipality, are made on much tlie same prin- ciple. Every inhabitant is obliged, either personally or by deputy, to furnish a certain number of days' labour upon them. As you advance farther into the woods", clearings become less fre- quent, and the roads, bad at the best of times, finally narrow away, as the Yankees say, to a squirrel track, and run iq) a pine-tree. Isothing but a slight trail, like the run of some wild animal, and the blazes on the trees, shosv that it has been explored. Here and there, at wide intervals, a day's journey perhaps apart in the woodf!, you may see the huts, de- serted in the summer, where the lumberers store provisions for their fall and winter operations. These huts are generally to be found near some stream which runs into a navigable river, and on whose banks the finest timber groH*8 and the richest soil is to bo found. Every one acquainted with the back settle- ments must have been struck by the picturesque appearance of these lumberers, with their peculiar cos- tume and habits. They appear in the great towns sometimes, generally late in the summer, and conduct; themselves there much like sailors ashore after a cruise. Like them, they ai'c, as a body, recklessly ex- travagant in squandering the high wages obtained in their rough and dangerous calling; they have the same whimsical kind of generosity, and a most alarming partiality for rough frolics and practical jokes. A near view of the calling of these hardy pioneers strips it of all the poetry with which fancy naturally invests a life of hardship and adven- ture. The reality is hard and stern enough. Its danger and excitement naturally contribute largely to at- tract and form the magnificent race of men which they undoubtedly are, as far as thews and sinews are con- cerned. The trade is one of the greatest im])ortancc to Canada, and probably will continue to furnish for the next hundred and fifty years a large proportion of her material wealth. Winter is the time when the lumbering operations are carried on in tlie v.oods ; the frozen snow then presents smooth and firm path- ways in every direction over the face of a country which would other- wise be impassable for horses and for tlie felled trees which they drag to the sides of the streams. The summer and autumn afford time for the necessary preparations. The Ottawa district is one of the most important of those which rely almost entire]}' upon their timber; indeed the beautifully situated city of that name, whose rapid development I have alluded to above, owes its advancement almost entirely to the timber trade. A journey up the Ottawa for the purpose of witnessing the mode of carrying on this curious trade, will amplj' repay any one w ith a good constitution, a strong diges- tion, and a thorough appreciation of the beauties of nature. He will find ample scope for developing these three qualities before he gets back to civilized life. The Ottawa was the route by 320 A Few Kotes on Canadian Matters. [Marcli, which tlie Eecollet Father le Cnron first succeeded in reaching llic West ; Champlaiii had preceded him in 1615 aa far as Lake Nipissing. Though forming, as a glance at the map will show, hy far the most direct route to the Great West, the falls and rapids which obstruct its course have hitherto opposed an insuperable barrier to navigation, and the trade whicli under other circumstances would have passed over its waters, has been forced into less direct channels. A large outlay has been made by the Canadian Government to perfect the timber slides by which the rafts arc safely brought over the rapids ; but it would require an enormous sum, and one which the present uninha- bited condition of the Upper Ottawa does not warrant, before it can claim the distinction to which its geogra- phical position entitles it, of the direct water route to the West. To render it completely available for the pur- poses of trade, locks must bo formed to overcome the shallows of French Eiver, a broad but shallow stream which connects Lake Nipissing with Georgian Bay ; a ship canal must traverse the jjortagc between Lake Nipissing and the head waters of the Ottawa ; and the falls and rapids of that magnificent river must be overcome. Doubtless, ere the present generation has passed away these conditions will be fulfilled, and ships, ' outward hound' for England, will carry the grain of i^ebraska and Minnesota, without once breaking bulk, from the very centre of the American continent to the ports of Europe. It may, however, be received as an axiom, that wherever the lumber- man leads the way the settler is sure to follow; the wants of the former creating a favourable market for the pi'oduce of the latter. It may, therefore, be conQdently predicted that this magnificent country will not long remain uncultivated. More- over, the soil, which produces the timber most in request — viz., rock elm and oak, is also best adapted to agricultural pursuits. Mr. Buchanan, in his advice to emi- grants, strongly insists on the ad- vantage of the Ottawa as a place to settle. In the meantime, if you intend to accompany one of the men sent on in summer to ' prospect ' or decide on tlie scene of the winter's labours, sundry pi-eparations are absolutely necessary, though no greater mis- take can be made than to encumber yourself with unnecessary luggage, remembering that half the time you will have to carry your ' possibles' on your back, with your canoe into the bargain, through foi'ests where roads are not. Yet as those forests are singularly empty of game, in Avhich point they resemble all the American forests that I have seen, provisions must be carried, and a great ei-Vambrance they arc. The flour-bags look very large, and are decidedly inconveniently heavy when they are turned out of the canoe at the first portage ; but the extra weight, which soon diminishes as the party eat their way through them with backwoods appetites, is a smaller evil than being half starved. My note-book furnishes a list of articles which I took when out on one of these backwoods expeditions with a friend. We had four men, and were going to far more distant regions than those now under con- sideration. We expected to strike a settlement where we could get pro- visions in about ten days ; failing in this hope, we sufl'ered severely. We carried three hams, 281b. ; bacon, 3olb. ; green tea, alb. ; sugar, one loaf and 4lb. ; pepper and salt ; biscuits, lolb. ; brandy (to be used medici- nally, or as a ' nightcap' while sleep- ing out in wet weather), .3 pints ; flour, i6olb.; axes, guns, and knives, camp kettle, four saucepans and tin cups fitting into each other ; plates to fit into camp kettle, lantern and candle- : one blanket a-piece ; a large square of oilcloth to spread on the ground and sleep on. It keeps the damp from rising, and is very valuable in a sanitary point of view. Pipes, tobacco, and a good store of lucifer-matches. The list may be useful to any one starting on a journey into the woods, as his preparations must be made on the outskirts of civilization, where reliable advice is not always at- tainable, the backwoodsman's love of fun being often stronger than liis desire to teach woodcraft to a novice. The mode of travelling would, wevo it not for the variety and beauty of 1857.] 'Snaffs and Sawyers!' 327 the scenery, be rather dull after the first novelty had worn off. Far north, and near the confines of the Hudson's Bay territory, where my canoing experience has been gained, the guides are mostly half-bred Indians, who are still called by their old Canadian name of Voyageurs. Many of them come from the Red Eiver Settlement, and are thoroughly acquainted with forest life. The same class of men, as far as skill and hardihood are concerned, are employed to explore the timber regions, though I believe tlipy are mostly native Canadians. The way of life is the same. Up at daybreak; strike the tent if there is one, or carefully roll up the blankets, and take a swim in the stream. Your men examine the canoe, and care- fully repair with gum or resin (an indispensable necessary) any damages that may have been in- flicted on its fragile sides by the sharp-pointed rocks in the shallows. Then breakfast, which will con- sist of rancid bacon, very nasty bread (made of flour and water, rolled round a stick, and roasted before the fire), and a tin mug of green tea, strong enough, as the lumberers say, to carry a horse, and rough enough in flavour to peel the tongue of a buffalo. Breakfast des- patched, stow away the ' plunder,' and paddle steadily till you come to a fall or rapid. It it be possible to pole or paddle up the latter, the most exciting scene follows. The whole party, puffing volumes of tobacco smoke, and uttering wild shouts and screams, tug at the paddles with desperate energy. Sometimes for half a minute the canoe will hang just on the crest of a rapid. AVoe be to the light craft and everything she contains if the man who holds the steering paddlo allows her head to sway an inch from its direction straight upstream ! -Down she "-'^"s, hurled from rock to rock, pas I vUiich she was guided with such difficulty, and the dripping wigiits wend their wenry waj' back to the nearest settlement, through the woods. But if the steersman possesses a practised eye and a steady hand, tlie momontar}' pause is followed by a davt forward into smootli water, and a breatliing space, during which the panting crew may VOL. LV. NO. CCCXXVII. look back to the scene of their ex- citing struggle. Sometimes a fall or a long reach of the river obliges the party to land, in order to make a portage through the woods or over the rocks, and to launch again higher up. The voyageurs, in their charac- teristic red shirts and moccasons, staggering with the canoe and bag- gage on their shoulders over the steep rocks, would make a pretty subject for a ])ainter. The novice is startled at first to hear the warn- ing sound of the rattlesnake as it glides off the path apparently just where his foot Mould at t\v next step have fallen among the leaves. I never trod on one, nor does such a thing often happen ; but I once, in jumping from one stone to ano- ther, pitched right on the head of a garter snake \\hich was lying there asleep. I never was in sucli a fright in my life, thinking it at first a 'rattler.' At noon you halt for dinner. Pork, broad, and tea again ; camp at sunset. In some of the small streams, the trees which fall across from bank to bank often block further advance, and a way has to be cut with axes. Another source of danger to the canoe are what Mississippi l)oatmeu call ' snags' and ' sawyers.' Both are trees, washed into mid-channel by the winter currents, and forming snags when tiieir sharp broken branches point up stream, and sawyers when they turn down, both being equally fatal to small craft. I am inclined to think that the fullest development of what Orientals call 'kaif takes place when the camp fires burn brightly at nigiit, and you lie, smok- ing peacefully, and gazing dreamily upwards through the tree-tops at the star-sjiaiiglod sky. Often, in such a scene, ere night's Sweet child, Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Whispered like a noontide bee, Shall I nestle by thy side ? have I lain, witli thoughts far away in the distant fatherland, listening iiily to the rippling stream, till the spUish of some bear or deer in the water, jarring like a In'oken chord on quiet thouglits, brought nn^ back from dreamland to the camp-fire and the rifle. Arrived at the place near which the lumberers' winter quarters are Y 828 A Feto Notes on Canadian Matters. [March, to be established, the voyageun commence their search for the places in which the finest timber grows. These men, though often unable to read or write, manage to make a tole- rably correct, and often exceedingly graphic, map of the country. They note down, after their own fashion, the run of streams and character of soil, and exhibit an amount of know- ledge of woodcraft signs, by which timber of the desired quality are discovered, which resembles intui- tion, and greatly puzzles a stranger. As soon as the first snows have fallen, men and horses appear on the spot, and the heretofore silent forest resounds with the din of a hundred axes. The logs are roughly trimmed and dragged over the snow-roads to the nearest stream, where they lie till, at the breaking-up of the frost in the spring, they are floated down by the first freshet into some river or lake, where they are made up into rafts, and taken over perhaps a thousand miles of water to Quebec. If the water in the stream where the logs are first deposited is insuf- ficient to float them, the lumberers, taking example from the beaver, raise a dam lower down, and sud- denly breaking away the obstacle, •flush' them over the shallows. The huts in which the men live, and which in summer are used to store provisions and materials, are fitted with banks or sleeping places like the cabin of a ship, and the chorus of snores which salutes the ear of any wakeful member of the party is rather astonishing, and speaks well for backwoods lungs. Sometimes a restless spirit will awake, and, as a natural consequence, instantly feel hungry. He will turn out and con- sume a pound or so of salt pork and a jorum of cold green tea before lighting his pipe and resuming his slumbers. Tne tea-leaves are never removed from the great kettle. Fresh tea is always added, and the kettle kept continually boiling over the fire, which, in consequence of the intense cold, is, of course, alight night and day. The natural infe- rence is, that lumberers have no nerves — if they had, such tea would assuredly destroy them. I suppose the awful work tney endure counter- acts its effects. The conveyance of the rafts down to Quebec in the spring and summer is the most adventurous and dan- gerous part of the trade. It is a slow process. Bafts from the most distant stations occupy some< times more than a year (that is more than that part of the year during which the river navigation is opened), and do not reach Quebec till the second spring. In their long and arduous voyage the lumberers live entirely on their rafts, or at night camp beside them. They shoot the most formidable rapids with a precision and nerve that it requires long training to acquire. Sometimes they come upon a timber jam, where some raft, broken up by a rapid, has gone to pieces, and one of me sticks as they are called has been caught on the rocks, all succeeding logs become entangled and form a heap of gigantic spellicans across the river. Then a volunteer, the man of the most active form and coolcw nerve, with tightened waistband and wary step, climbs axe in hand over the mass, and selecting with a practised eye the tree, often only slightly poised, which is the key of the whole, begins to cut it away. Suddenly there is a crack. Now, run! — Garde a toi — Look out for your life ! shout the watchers on the bank. The adventurer leaps like an antelope from log to log of the falling timber ; one moment's delay, one false step, and the whole jam, thousands of tons of forest trees, will be down on his head. A moment more, either like Horatius Codes, *on dry earth he stands,' or, with a sickening sensation of impotent despair, the bystanders see the mass crushing and straggling above him ; and Avhen the tumult has subsided, they commence among the rocks and timbers below a fruit- less search for a mangled body from which the adventurous spirit has been crushed. SSXA MiKBON. ■nppiiai ;i i ou^ [May, I A FEW NOTES ON CANADIAN MATTERS. Paht II. ASEMICIECLE drawn towards the south, with a radius of some eight hundred miles from a Soint about the centre of James's lay, would indicate the general direction of a lino of hills which forms the northern boundary of the Canadas. These hills rise gradually from the shores of Hudson's Bay, like the seats of a huge amphi- theatre, of which its waters repre- sent the arena. Their southern slope forms the valley of the St. Lawrence, which, with the great lakes, describe another and larger semicircle round their common centre. Near the head of Lake Superior, the mountains run suddenly some two hundred miles towards the south, and touching the American frontier line, define the western limit of the Upper Province. At this moment, when public at- tention is directed towards the Hudson's Bay territory, the country to the north of this boundary pos- sesses an unusual interest.* TJie press in Canada has raised an almost unanimous voice against the renewal of the privileges of the Great Fur Company. It has been stigmatized as a gigantic monopoly, as a cruel and inhuman despotism, exercising a * Lynch Lsuv' au- thority, and committing, in the name of an illegal charter, murder and wrong by the sole right of physical force. We have neither time nor inclination to recount a tithe of the horrors which are related as having been perpetrated by the officials of the Company ; we can but take a hasty glance, first, at the subject of contention, and then at the contention itself. The whole country from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from the forty-ninth parallel of latitude to the North Pole, belongs to Great Britain. That portion which lies between the Pacific and the Rocky Mountains, for the most part unex- Elored, marches on the north with Lussia, on the south with the United States. The remainder naturally falls into three general divisions. The region between the Rocky Mountains and Hudson's Bay, extending towards the south as far as Peace River and Lake Arthabasca, is barren. From that point, as far east as Lake Winnipeg and the rivers which con- nect it with Hudson's Bay, and as far south as the frontier line, the country is a continuation of the vast prairies which are watered by the Mississippi and the Missouri. Eastward from Lake Winnipeg, and over the Canadian frontier to the shores of the St. Lawrence, there is a succession of impenetrable forests. The desert portion is, on account of its climate and soil, of no use for the purposes of colonization. The character of the forest land may be guessed at by its analogy with Canada. But on the proper de- velopment of "the prairie district depends the future greatness of British North America. A writer iS observed — It is quite true that only a small portion of the Hudson's Bay Company's territories is fit for colonization, and indeed for anything but the chase ; but it may be, and is true, tliat that small portion is a country sufficiently large and fertile to support all the popu- lation of Great Britain and all her dependencies. Along the valley of the Saskatch- ewan (which runs through fifteen degrees of longitude from the Rocky Mountains to Lake Winni- peg) at no distant period must pass the traffic from the West. If the Pacific is ever connected in British territory with the Atlantic seaboard, the track must pass through a gap in the Rocky Moun- tains near the head waters of the Columbia and of the Saskatchewan. These rivers, one of which flows westward into the Pacific, and the other eastward to the Atlantic, rise so near each other that Sir Georgo Simpson was able to fill his kettle for breakfast from both at the same I V * For full information on the anti- Hudson's Bay Charter side, see Fitzgerald's Jliuhon's Bay and Vancouver's Island, r" 1857.] Hubert's Land. C55 time. Tkc country is magnificent, and is varied with inimenae plains, woods, and mountains. It is watered by innumerable st reams, and abounds in wild animals and fish. Its value for the purposes of colonization is therefore manifestly very great. Now, it is argued by the opponents of the Hudson's Bay Company, that by their charter an inconsiderable number of fur traders are enabled to exclude British colonization and trade, and to shut them in within the narrow limits of the Canadas, while they exercise an usurped sovereignty over lands in which all Britons have an equal interest by right of birth. They further declare, translating diplomatic into familiar English, that King Charles II. made no such grant as that now claimed ; that if he did, the land was not hia to give ; that even if the grant were legal, its conditions have not been fulfilled, and that it has conse- quently lapsed : that the Company are excluded by the terms of the charter from much of the territory they claim under it, and last but not least, that they (the Canadians) will not stand it any longer. Looking at the question with the eyes of a dispassionate inquii'er, it seems a hard thing that so extensive and magnificent a territory should bo shut up as a hunting ground. The Hudson's Bay Company's char- ter was granted in 1670. At that time, France appears to have had at least an equal riglit of possession with England — that is, they both claimed it. France was first in the field, for Henry IV. in 1598 granted letters patent to the fSieur de la Koche, making him lieutenant- governor over the countries of Canada, Hochelaga, and Labrador ; the last named of which is claimed by King Charles's grantees. Again, in 1627, Cardinal Eiclielleii granted a charter to a society eallod the ' Compagnie de la jS'ouvfiii) France,' giving them a monopoly of everything — adniinistration of jus- tice, founding of cannon, trade in peltries, and niiuiy other curious rights. Tlie limits of La Nouvolio France were to extend from the Labrador coast to the Pacific, and from tlie GiUf of Florida to tho Arctic Sea ! Charles II., who eeems to li .vo known as little as may be of "ho geography of the country he grantc 1, and to have been somewhat uneas/ in respect of his ownership thereof, Avhile bestowing on the Company the sole trade of all the countries ' into which they shall find entrance or passajje hy water or land, out of t!ie territories, limits, and places aforesaid' (which may be construed to mean all the world), exnressly excepts those ' that are alrcauy pos- sessed by or granted to any of our subjects, or possessed by tho sub- jects of any other Christian princo or State.' If, therefore, the Crown of France had a right to the landa it granted away so royally in 1627, it follows that the English king, by the very terms of his grant, excluded tho Hudson's Bay Company from the territory they now claim under it. This question of ownership had been decided in the preceding reign. By the treaty of St. Gennain-en- Layc, in 1632, Charles I. had re- signed to Louis XIII. the sove- reignty of New France,* Acadia, and Canada. The Treaty of liyswick, by which it was agreed that Commissioners should be appointed to decide tho rights and pretension ' which cither king of the said kings hath to the places situated on Hudson's Bay,' expressly gave back to the French certain forts which had been seized by the Chevalier de Troyes during the peace which preceded tlio wai", and which had been during the war retaken by the English, implying clearly that the ownership of these forts was so well acknowledged that there ■'•"as no need for the (Commis- sioners Lo trouble themselves about them. The forts were those on James and Hudson's Bay, which had been built by tiie lIudson'.s Bay Company on the faitli of Charles the Second's grant. The claim of France must have been indecLl indis- putable, if the aggression of the Chevalier do Troyes during' a time of peace was recognised and justified * Tlie English wlio siL,'!iuil the treaty of St. Uerinain-eu-Laye, must have forniofl a difft'ieut idea of tho limits of La Nouvelle France from that meiitioued above, else why wa.s it referred to the [tleuipotentiavies of Ilyswick ' VOL. LV. >0. CCCXXIX. o o iM A Few Notes on Canadian Mailers. [May, by treaty, on the ground that the country occupied by tlicsc forts then belonged to the French Sovereign, and that their English possessors had no business there. It would seem, therefore, tliat the country did not belong to England, and was consequently expressly excepted from the charter as being in the ])os8e88ion of subjects of another Christian king. The Hudson's Bay Company's charter must have possessed great vitality to carry it through so many dangers. During the eighteen years between the Treaty of Kyswick and that of Utrecht, its rights slumbered. In 1 7 14 the whole country was made over to England; Hudson's Bay then became for the first time undis- putedly a British possession, though not till many years after the date of the charter. While the English were driving aprecarious trade on the confines of Hudson's Bay, and possessing their small limits only by the sufierance of the Chevalier de Troycs, the Canadian voyageurs of their rivals were hunting furs through the length and breadth of the valley of the Saskatchewan. Thomas Simpson* records that ' agricult\ire was carried on, and even wheel carriages used; in fact, that they then possessed fully as many of the attendants of civilization as the Hudson's Bay Company do now after the lapse of a century.' The Montreal Fur Company fol- lowed in the footsteps of the Com- pagnie de la If .nivelle France ; and ultimately pushing their enterprise beyond thoIlockyMountains.opcned a prosperous trade to the Pacific coast with the Indian tribes in the valley of the Columbia. That trade passed cither by the Saskatchewan into Lake AViunipcg, or by the western trail, over the 51ains to the south of that river, "he Hudson's Bay Company found themselves eventually unable to contend on equal terms with the French Canadian Company ; their stock became at a discount ; and for the first time they bethought them- selves of the charter. Lord Selkirk, a man of iron will and unscrupulous temper, governed the councils of the Company. Boldly quitting the shores of tke bay to which tliej- had hitherto clung, he traversed the plains to the south, and at a distance of a thousand miles inland esta- blished a body of the trappers and servants of his Company at the Red Iliver, in the direct route of the north-western trade. The French Canadians, cut off* from their supplies by this act of generalship, engaged in a long and Bomctimcs bloody quaiTcl with their rivals. The contest ended in their shaking hands, and together defend- ing their joint monopoly against all the world. The Montreal, thus be- came absorbed in the Hudson's Bay, Company. In 1838 an act wa» f)a88ed through the Imperial Par- iament, by which the exclusive privilege of trading with the Indian* in any part of British North America not previously granted to the Hudson's Bay Company by charter, was given to the united Companies for twenty-one yeara. That licence expires in 1H59. As, therefore, it appears probable that the Hudson's I3ay charter can be? proved illegal, and as the renewal of the monopoly now enjoyed by the unitedCompanieswillbe strenuously and no doubt successfully opposed by the Canadians, whose direct in- terests must of course sutler by its rontiimance, nothing very formi- dable will exist to fight about at the end of that time. But many vested interests are involved in the extinc- tion of the monopoly. The large holders of Hudson's Bay stock would be ruined by such a proceeding on the one hand, and on the other the Canadians would not know what to do with such an enormous extent of country, supposing it to be forthwith annexed to the province. The learned Judge whom Canada has sent over to represent the views of her people, will no doubt announce them in due time. Mcan^Thile we may speculate what would be moat advantageous for her. Tlie possession of the prairie dis- trict from Lake Superior to the llocky Mountains, through which will eventually run the Pacific rail- road, and whose fertile plains are fit for the reception of large numbers * Life and I'raicls of T/iomas i^lnq^son. t 1857.] Vox Populi vox Dei! 667 4 of colon iHts, could alone be of nny use to t'linudii. The Hudson's Bay Company iniiy liuve no loRal claim fur coiiincnsatitm, but tho blow would fiill none the leas heavily on those \\ ho have invested in the im- dertakinj,', believinj; it to be IcRal, if they were deprived of their rights without coninensation. A conipro- miso would oe tlie fairest way of settlinf,' the matter, and doubtless the Hudson's 13ay Company would be perfectly ready to accede to any proposition of the kird. The licence to trad- might bo renewed for a limited time, on the condition that any portions required by Canada, cither for opening out facilities for trade or for purposes of colonization, were to be given up to her. As the licence ex])in's in two years, tlie sum that could fairly be demanded by the Company for the surrender of two years' authority over the small portion of territory that Canada could require iu that time, could not l>' very lat^c. There is another subject ■which has not been touched upon in these pages, because it involves the ques- tion of the truth or untruth of the accusations brought against the Company, respecting their ill treat- ment of the Indian.s. These ques- tions are under the scrutiny of a Parliamentary committee, andshould not be prejudged. At the same time, it is self-evident that good security should be demanded from the Company for their proper treat- ment of the Indian tribes, whom they are bound, by the charter under •whicli they claim, to protect and educate ; but who, to use the mildest language, are still entirely un- civilized. Since the above was written, the distiolution of Parliament has put an cuil to the labours of the Hudson's Bay Committee. Do not let us i)ri'judge the question, but; for the sake of our national honour, let not the jK^ople of Enuland allow the accident of the dissolution to stifle inquiry into it. Let us rcmeml)er what the alle- gations against tho Company arc. It is aH8ertll)olowthe hridj^o — w ith iced champagne in a basket unch'r tlio driver'H knees, and materials for a pic-nicouGoat [sland inside — ld' diil'ei'ential duties, ex- 5S2 A Few Notes on Canadian Matters. [ISIay, ceeclcd those by way of the United States. Merchandize, as a natural conaeqnence, was forced through American channels. Of course the repeal of the dif- ferential duties was assailed with vehement abuse by a certain class of politicians. Experience has hoAV- ever shown that the bcginninj;f of Canadian prosperity is coincident ■with the destruction of the false support on whicli she leaned. Her merchants hare from that eventful moment devoted tlieir whole ener- gies to the task of raising her in the scale of nations, with a patri- otism and unanimity unexampled, and with success which has well repaid them. But they have con- tended against enormous odds, and Lave had to engage their enter- prising neighbours across the lines on very unequal tei'ms. The machinery which the United States was enabled to put in motion in 1846. has even now hardly been equalled ia Canada. The Americans have conse(i'ionily had at least ten years' clear start. Lakes Ontario and Erie had been connected with the Hudson Eiver more than twenty years, and a network of railways united New York and various points interme- diate and remote, with the Great Lakes, at Buffalo. Canada had then — as was shown by an extract, quoted in tlie iirst jiart of these •Notes,' froni Lord Durham's Re- port — oidy fifteen miles of railroad in tlie whole province. The canals which now surmount the rapids of the St. Lawrence were not nearly completed. It may, therefore, be stated, that the United States had no rival which could contest with her the carrying trade of the "West ; and when that trade began to acquire its great aud rapidly increasing importance, it fo\ind its way naturally over the beaten tracks. Looking at the helpless state of Canada at that time, the British Government, on establishing the North American mail steamers in 1839, had no option but to send them into the American ports of New York and Boston. The assistance enjoyed by this comiiany amounts to tlie large sum of i; 186,000 a year. The LTnitcd States subsidize an American line at about an equal annual cost. Canadian enterprize, assisted by private British capital, has now placed her in a position to compete with the States, if unfettered . but she finds herself totally unable to contend against twosubsidizcd rivals — one assisted by a foreign Govern- ment, and one by her own. It be- hoves British capitalists — especially those who have invested in Canadian Grand Trunk Kailway Stock, much of which is held in this country, and the value of which will depend nmch on the success which may attend tho endeavour of the St. Lawrence route to attract the increasing "Western trade — to examine this question with attention, and to see whether tho burdens entailed on Canada by the unmaternal attitude of the Home Government will not militate against the success of the undertaking they have engaged in. The last few years have seen an enormous difference in the value of imports and exports from the Western States andl^ppcr Canada, but the portion of that trade which passed tlnough the St. Law- rence is almost the same now as it was ten years ago. Canada, then, is overweighted iu the race. It would be an anomalous spectacle to see a mother country throw her influence into the scale to crush the rising trade of one of lier colonies. The justice of England would not tolerate such a course. The only excuse for continuing the system would be the impracticability of any other. If, however, the Cana- dians can show that tho St. Law- ice route aifords greater facilities in every respect tlian that by the United States, they will have made out their case, and be fully justified ill praying for the non-renewal of the Cuiiard contract, which expires in 1862. Our colonists rightly ima- gine that it would be useless to advocate tlie only really fair course — viz., tiiat the English Govern- ment should subsidize a Canadian line to the same amount as they now do that to the United States. Of the £800,000 annually paid for tho Mail Steam Packet Service to our various colonics, Canada, they saj', has never yet received anything, Avhich, as such matters are arranged, is an It 2>i'iori argument that sho t I i i i ! t 1 i t 1857.] Ocean JIail Steamers, 503 never will. Setting aside, tlieu, that full moasuro of justice, the next best thinf^ would be to adopt the cheap plan of not favouring cither. Mean- time, Canada must go on as she can — onl}' it will be lucky for British, and other shareholders of Canadian Stock, if the finances of the country — which have already been strongly tried to build the railroads now in operation — stand the continued strain of ««-free competition. The case in point is thus ably stated by the Honourable John Young.* one of the members of the Canadian Parliament for ]\lontreal, and one of the most straightforward and <\ir-sceing guides of the com- mercial policy of his country : — I shall now show (he says) that with vessels of equal speeiJ to those runiihig to New York and Boston, the mails between Eritain and any part of the United States can be delivered in less tinin by the St. Lawrence during navi- gation, and in winter by way of Portland. . A careful examination of the matter will demonstrate that, in order to secure the most rapineraliy printcnl and largely circulated I)efore the vessel which brought it has dropjjed her anchor. The number of miles already at work is about 3500, of which the r 606 A Few JVofes on CamaUan Matters. [May, t^ Montreal Company* has 2783 in operation. An additional 147 miles are in course of construction. It has four miles of submarine wire, and at the head office the average is 750 messages a-day ; its stock is at 15 per cent. }jremiuni, and for some years it has given 10 per cent, to its shareholders. Canada has as yet had no time to devote to literature and the arts. She has so receutlj'^ passed out of a condition of hard struggling ' for the dear life,' that she has not as yet thought of the merely ornamental part of it. She has many able "nriters ; but their topics are gene- rally local, or at any rate Canadian ; and though many say what they have to say in a nervous, business-like way, they evidently prefer matter to style, and write like business- men in a hurrj' — as they are. As Macaulay says of Milton — * there is no elaborate imitation of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the ceremonial clearness which characterizes our academical Pharisees.' The uthor does not attempt to polish and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. The newspaper press absorbs most of this kinci of talent ; and as in other parts of America, a man can- not receive a letter from England or tramp fifty miles through the bush, without writing to the editor of his paper to tell what his friend Bays, or ^Ahat sort of land he saw on his journey. A good, sound educa- tion is almost universal, at any rate among the native-born Cana- dians ; almost every man can read, and every man wlio can read takes in a newspai)er. These of course, as water fimls its o\;n level, assimi- late themselves to the tastes of their subscribers, and where each depends for advancement on his own acute- ness and acquirements, everything in the way of knowledge is accept- able, whatever be the subject. Such curiosity is of course little likely to stop short at the narrow limits of its OMn affairs. A friend at JN'ew York to wliom I complained of the non- irrival of an expected letter from England, jokingly told mo to make ly mind easy, for that I should shortly' have an opportunity of reading it in the pages of the New York Herald, with asterisks, sub- stituted from motives of delicacy (!), for vowels in the proper names. I do not mean to imply that curiosity runs so high as that in Canada ; but it is strongly developed, never- theless. In one point the Trans- atlantic newspapers have a decided advantage over the English — want of matter to fill up corners never causes enormous gooseberries to ripen for tlio occasion ; two-headed calves are unknown. Instead of these marvels, stray spaces are filled up with little stories, such as the wits of the New World are alone, able to indite. What we term humour is almost unknown ; the jokes all turn on some ludicrous exaggeration of plirase or laughable situation. Here is one from a Soiithern paper, as I need not say. A negro recounts the ' smart' dodge by which he pur- chased his freedom : — ' Well, now, I used to be a rais'able nigger — one of the mis'ablest kind ; and I just got so pee-owerful weak that I couldn't do nuffin but jist lay in the garden and make shift to eat up the sai'se' (garden sauce, Aiuj. vegetables), ' so I had to 'suado missus to trade me, I was such a mis'able nigger. Says I, " Missus, I've got a hundred dollars ; you'd best take it, 'cos I ain't no good at all." So she did. Oh ! this nigger was cheap at that ; guess I realized 'bout nine hundred dollars on that nigger!' Could any but an Amei'ican have dreamed of a man making money by purchasing himself imder his nmrket price ':* Here's another :— ' Mr. C , of our citjs was turning out of the j-ard in a trotting wagon, witii a span of fine J oung horses. Team took fright— ran up against the gatepost, upset the driver, and st;irted oil' at the rate of 2.40. " Quick !" shouted C , as he scrambled up, to a friend who had witnessed the acci- dent ; " quick, what will you give for the carriage us she runs .'" " Sixty dollars.'' "Done." Scarcely had he spoken, when a smash on a stump by the roadside destroyed the hopes of the hasty speculator.' * Montreal Herald. 1857.] SLv per Cent, on good Securift/. 507 The political para{:;raplis are not sohopelessly unintelligible inCanada as they are in the States, where you read that ' in the anti-Polly wog con- vention the Barn-burninfj element mustered strong last week.' Still you may puzzle yourself a little over such an announcement as this : — ' Mr. , on taking the stump, proceeded to demolish the clear grit platform ; one or two planks of Avhich he, however, seemecl inclined to swallow.' Party politics run very high, though perhaps on questions affect- ing the welfare ot the Province there is more unanimity of views than there would be on a corre- sponding question in England. All seem to reserve their factious or political opposition for questions that relate more or less distinctly to the two great parties iu all Parlia- ments — the ins and the outs, and to unite cordially on those which are really important. It seems to be thought that it would be uncon- stitutional not tohave an Opposition ; consequently the Opposition leaders ' taunt the honourable gentlemen opposite' with cowardice, treachery, treason, and other trifles, in lan- guage as parliamentary and with as much reason as in our time-honoured assembly at Westminster, on totally unimportant occasions. The suffrage is almost universal, a £6 householder in the towns, and £4 in the rural districts, being the qualification ; the voting is open, as iu England ; and electioneering arts are at the least as well understood there as here. I heard an instance of an enthusiastic partisan, whose father died just when he was most wanted, on the very day of the election. The dutiful son managed to poll his dead papa, and save his own con- science by putting a iiy iu his mouth, and lieing thus enabled to swear that there ' was life in hiui!' An election iu the larger towns is much the same as one iu England. In the country there is more fun and less parade ; the quantity of whisky (brewed in the morning and drunk tiie same day) which the present v.riter lias drunk « ith hard-headed buck woodsmen, wouldhave produced dcliritur ircmens at any other time ; but the work of canvas;?ing, when the houses arc sometimes niiles apart, and there are no regular roads leading to them — the row in the villages, the ftitigue of stump oratory when one can only be heard by outshouting the crowd, and the heat of the suu — if the election take place, like the one now alluded to, in the middle of siunmer— deprive sucli dangers of their sting. The excellent municipal system of Canada accustoms tiie people to the use of tiie elective principle iu everything. The educated settler M'ho will M^rite wills or give legal advice to his less educated neigh- bours, or the ingenious man who has shown his architectural talents by designing and building the houses of the settlement, will be cliosen to represent it either in the town or county councils, and eventually as 31. P.P. — Member of the Provincial Parliament. Counties are divided into town- ships, each of .vhich elects its own officers, who are called councillors ; these choose a Eeeve from their number. The Keeves of all the town- ships form the county council, whose deliberations are presided over by a warden, chosen from among themselves by the town Reeves. I3y this simple and minute divi- sion a clear insight into the local wants of every portion of the com- munity is ensured. Cities, "incorpo- rated villages,' and ' police villages ' have each a share iu the nmuicipal system, and enjoy, according to their degree, some exclusive privi- leges. A great feature in the sys- tem is the power given by the Act of 1841 (by which it was instituted) to all municipalities to raise money in their corporate capacity for local improvements, the money thus raii^ed being represented by nuuiicipal de- bentures bearing six per cent, in- terest, guaranteed by the Govern- ment, and fornung a first mortgage on all the rateable property within the nuinicipality. The growiiig wealth of the L'pper Caiuuliaii cities renders an invcslnieut iu these loans as safe, in the opuiion of persons well acquainted with Canada, as a purchase of Bank of England Stock. 13ut to return to the Provincial Parliament : — Tiie llouio is dis- covered on analysis to contain thirty- nine advocates, seven notaries, six- 5G8 A Few Notes on Canadian Matters. [May, teen doctors, twenty-seven mer- chants, sixteen cultivators, nine bour- geois, four editors, two contractors, two bankers, three manufacturers, two commissioners of land com- panies, one tinsmith, one surveyor, and one butcher.* The temper and statesmanship evinced in the debates of this body are admirable ; the forms and practice of the English House are aa closely imitated as possible, and Englisli precedents arc ueld to be the rule on all questions of order ; the Ministry, chosen by the representa- tive of the Crown, as in England, resign office or appeal to the country when thoy no longer command a majority in the House. The Upper House, or Legislative Council, enjoy, with the members of the Executive Council, the distinctive rank and title of Honourable. The old Music Hall at Quebec, which the members of the House of Assembly were obliged to resort to when they had burnt down two Houses of Parhament in rapid suc- cession, has now become historical, for the seat of government has been moved to Toronto. Many amusing • dodges ' were resorted to by all the members to obtain for the places they represented the honour of becoming the seat of government. Divisions were taken on the subject of the pre- tensions of nearly every place in the Province ; all members were ready enough to combine to vote against any place, but none would vote for any other than his own. In I lie Old House at Quebec, each member enjoyed the use of a little desk placed before his scat, which he occupied for the session, and at which ho sat writing his letters. The plan has some recommenda- tions, but is rather an obstruction to business, by making members too comfortable, and tolerant of mere declamation. The Speaker ia dressed like ours, except the wig ; and 'a message from the Upper House' comes down in charge of a little French gentleman in a Court suit, who bows three times between the bar and the table of the House, to the Speaker, sitting with his hat on. The mace lies in its glory before the great official. It is as handsome a mace as the English one, and has already emu- lated some of its great prototype's vicissitudes of fortune. When the Assembly sat at Montreal, at a time of great excitement the mob stormed the House, and ejected the members after the fashion of Oliver Cromwell. The mace was seized and paraded by the rioters, who anxiously demanded whether it was the symbol of the authority of the * Kebel House of Assembly,' as they profanely called it, or of the Queen. Hearing that it represented Her Majesty, they escorted it to the house of Sir Allan Macnab, the leader of the Opposition, refusing to surrender it till, with three parting cheers for the Queen, they had placed it in safety on his bed. The members address the House in French or English indifferently. Some, after making a long discourse in one language, turn round, and complacently say it all over again in tlie other. An enormous and useless number of private bills are passed, some of which might just as easily be dealt with by the munici- pal bodies of the localities to which they relate : the effect of so much useless legislation, if it be allowed to continue and increase, will be the hopeless confusion of the already overcharged statute book. I3et.v MiicnoN. t Toronto Globe,