the distant scenery of its Swiss namesake, it is not without some pretension to the ambitious comparison which it suggests. From Geneva a short railroad journey brings you to Niagara. Who, visiting the United States, would not see Niagara? but who dare attempt to penetrate the thick cloud, which its spray ever raises before it to the heavens, and depict in words that awful image of the power of God? A few hundred yards below the Falls of Niagara, on the United States' side, there is a ferry, which in ten minutes will take you to Canada; and, a few miles above, or a few miles below the falls, you may get Lake Erie, or Lake Ontario steamers, and may start for the Upper or Lower Canadian provinces. In the autumn of 1849 I made a short sojourn at Montreal and Quebec; and a few observations respecting Canada, as it seemed then, may not be objectionable. After having descended a considerable portion of the St. Lawrence, the steamer in which I was a passenger landed me at a village called La Chine. It derived its name from the first French navigators of the stream, who fancied, when in their ascent they had arrived at this point, that they were approaching China. From La Chine, however, half an Mon hour's railway ride takes you, not to Peking, but to Montreal. treal, in its straight narrow streets, and substantial stone houses, still bears all the appearance of what it formerly was-an ancient French city. Here at the time I made no stay, but, intending shortly to return, I embarked once more on a steamer and descended the St. Lawrence to Quebec, the Gibraltar of America. Joining on to the western fortifications of this city are the Plains of Abraham, with their deep precipitous bank, sloping to the river. What patriot could visit Quebec without traversing the battle-field where Wolfe "died happy," and where Montcalm rejoiced that he should not survive the surrender of the city which had been committed to his defence? In an open space in the upper part of Quebec, an obelisk has been erected, with an inscription, thus commencing: WOLFE. MONTCALM. mortem virtus communem, famam historia, monumentum posteritas dedit. So far the inscription is perfect; but, alas! That maiden's bust, as fair as heart could wish, The inscription proceeds at considerable length to tell you that the monu- The villagers about Quebec speak nothing but French, if at least a dialect may be so called which the modern Parisians cannot understand. They are primitive, poor, ignorant, well-disposed, and contented. Of confiding and flexible characters, they are governed by the village priest and the village doctor. Their custom is of small value to us, as they produce, or make nearly all that little which they consume or use. They call their Indian neighbours les sauvages; and the Indians might, perhaps, without much injustice, retort the appellation. Returning to Montreal, I there made what inquiries I could respecting the general feeling and condition of the colony. Several circumstances had recently occurred to create a strong desire for annexation with the United States in the breasts of many of the Canadians. By the freetrade principles, which England had recently adopted, she had deprived her colonies of the monopoly of supplying the home market. The Canadian merchants had for some time been losing money; but they thought money was to be made again, if they could get the advantage of the New York market without being subjected to the duty (20 per cent. I believe) which they now have to pay; and that they could raise funds for public works on better terms, when they should have passed what they considered as a transition state. In the rebellion of 1837, the humbler of the Scotch emigrants were in favour of annexation, and the corresponding class of Irish were opposed to it; from either of which circumstances it might fairly be assumed that the land would increase in value if the country should become a portion of the United States. To those who were influenced by mere mercenary motives was now to be added (if at least we may judge from the tone of their speeches and newspapers) a considerable number of a class, which had hitherto been considered the warmest advocates of the British connexion; but which was now goaded in an opposite direction by party rancour and disappointed ambition. A Conservative ministry having dissolved the Canadian parliament, and being outvoted in their own new parliament, Lord Elgin could not do otherwise than construct a ministry on different principles out of the radical and French-Canadian parties. Its measures gave great dissatisfaction to the Conservative party; but they seemed to consider their greatest grievance to be that the governor-general, in his anxiety to conciliate the partisans of the new ministry, had unnecessarily slighted, in the intercourse of private life, the chiefs of the English Tory party, who had been instrumental in putting down the former rebellion. Probably these slights have been much exaggerated by the watchful suspicions of the Tories; for I heard so trifling a matter as that he had at his own table asked a Radical to take wine with him, and then asked one of the recognised Tory leaders to join them, alleged in Montreal against Lord Elgin as a mortal offence. Be that as it may, the effects of his unpopularity are serious. Some straggling soldiers, at the time of the rebellion, had been caught, and killed, with wanton cruelty, by the Canadian Radicals. This is still remembered throughout the army; and officers and men sympathise with the Tories in their dislike to the governor-general, whom they regard as the friend of the butchers of their comrades. In the spring of 1849, the parliamenthouses at Montreal were intentionally, and publicly, set on fire and burnt down, with no opposition from those who are usually counted upon as the friends of order. The ruin was spoken of, when it was pointed out to me, as the "Elgin Marbles." The British connexion would probably receive the support of the Roman Catholic priests, who have generally been protected in the possession of the large property originally granted to them by the French government. I understand that the priests are considered moral and charitable; but they leave the people in ignorance. Wages are not so high in Canada as in the United States; but money, being less plentiful, goes further. A farmer or a farm-labourer may do well in the western portions of Canada, where the best wheat-growing lands in America are said to lie. Provisions there are cheap and plentiful; but the difficulty for the farmer is to turn into money that portion of his produce which he does not consume, as neither the markets nor the roads to them are as good as those of the United States, and the steam-boats on the St. Lawrence charge highly for the conveyance of stock. A man, therefore, who settles in Canada, should be slow to part with his money, knowing that he will have a great difficulty in getting it back again; but, if cautious in this respect, he will probably do well. At a table d'hôte in Montreal I sat next a gentleman advanced in years, a magistrate, and person of great intelligence and considerable property, farming his own estate on the Ottawa River. It was his honourable boast that as a boy he had arrived in Canada, from the Western Islands of Scotland, with only one shilling in his pocket. He informed me that on his farm he payed his male labourers from 251. to 301.* a year, with their board, giving them four meals a day; and added, that, what with making potash, fencing, &c., in the winter, he contrived to keep his men employed all the year round. He was satisfied with Lord Elgin, and well pleased with the English connexion. I will add another anecdote of a Highlander. The tourist in Scotland has probably seen a small river-island, near the village of Killen, where sleep the rude forefathers of the clan of Macnab. Its chieftain having sold his land to the Marquis of Breadalbane, the Marquis of Carrabas of the neighbourhood, migrated to Canada in the early part of this century, taking with him the greater part of his little clan. It was told me that the chief, attempting to transfer his hereditary dignity from the Old World to the New, left on Sir Allan Macnab a card, on which his name was written as "The Macnab;" and that thereupon Sir Allan wrote upon a card, "The other Macnab," and left it in return. On the 1st day of October I entered New England, and passed through the states of Vermont and New Hampshire to Massachusetts. Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, in her very interesting "Travels in the United States," asserts, and with good grounds, that "Massachusetts boasts of Mr. Webster as one of her children." But he is a child of Massachusetts by adoption, and not by birth; for he was born, and spent his boyhood, in New Hampshire. I believe the same distinguished authoress alludes to, and quotes rather loosely, a sentence from one of the speeches of Mr. Webster, which deserves, from its magnificence, to be presented * I presume of Canadian currency, in which four dollars, or a trifle more than sixteen shillings English money, make a pound. with accuracy. After stating that, in the attempt to impose taxes without granting representation, the Americans saw the germ of an unjust power, the great orator adds: "On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet far off, they raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts--whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." test. In 1830, Mr. Webster's oratorical powers were put to their severest He had spoken in the United States' senate, and Mr. Hayne, a senator of great distinction, from South Carolina, had been pitted against him to answer. Mr. Hayne's speech was agreed by the friends of both sides to be most successful; and all parties said that poor Webster was smashed and done for. But Mr. Webster proved to be one, That, where the meaner faint, can only feel; and, ever since his reply, he has been regarded as the ablest speaker in the United States; and is, perhaps, at this day, the most impressive living orator that wields the English language. Some years ago, Mr. Webster visited England, and it would be interesting to learn what he thought of the English speakers. His opinion of those in the House of Commons I did not hear; but, after his return, he told his Boston friends, the best four speakers in the Honse of Lords were Lord Brougham, Lord Lyndhurst, the Bishop of Exeter, and the Bishop of London. But I must revert to my own tour. When I last took my bearings, I was in the New England railway "cars," bound for the state of Massachusetts. I stopped at its chief manufacturing city, Lowell. To the philanthropist, Lowell is the most interesting city in the world; proving, as it does, that the manufacturing system need not produce the moral or physical degradation of the operative. The greatest precautions have been taken to render it here the parent of as much good, and as little evil, as possible to those employed. The zeal of friends-the warning of enemies have conduced to the same result. The whole ground on which the factories are built belonged originally, and the magnificent waterworks by which all the mills, cotton, carpeting, calico-printing, &c., are supplied, still belong to one corporation; and certain general rules are observed by all the companies using the ground and the water of that corporation. According to these, an operative dismissed for misconduct from one mill is never employed in another. Each company possesses long rows, or "blocks," of boarding-houses, some for males, some for females. Respectable persons are sought out, upon whom dependence can be placed, to exercise a supervision on the morals of the boarders. To these the lodging-houses are let at very low rents, averaging only from one half to a third of those produced in other portions of the city by similar houses. In return, the board charged weekly to the mill operatives, who alone, unless by special permission, are to be taken in, is very small-being 1* dollar 75 cents for a man, and 1 dollar 25 cents for a woman, the week. An English sovereign is worth 4 dollars 84 cents. A cent is worth about an English halfpenny. I was It was stated that the average earnings, after deducting board, were—of a man 4 dollars 80 cents, and of a woman 2 dollars, the week. But, in some cotton-mills there, called the Merrimack mills, one remarkably good work-woman, who had long made, besides the price of her board, 6 dollars each week, was pointed out to me. The boarding-housekeepers are required to prohibit intoxicating liquids, to lock the outer doors at ten o'clock at night, and to see, as far as may be, that on Sunday the operatives attend some place of public worship. All persons working in a mill are compelled to lodge in one of its boarding-houses, unless they obtain an exemption under special circumstances, such as having friends living in the city. It had previously been told me that the factory girls spent too much on their dress; but, though they were generally dressed with neatness when working in the factories, and with smartness on Sundays, I never saw anything ludicrous or extravagant in their appearance. at Lowell on a Sunday, and went to one of the churches, where was a large and well-conducted congregation, of which, I believe, a considerable proportion were factory girls. In Massachusetts there is no act of the state legislature limiting the hours of labour; but in the adjoining state of New Hampshire, a ten hours bill has been carried. In the manufacturing town, however, of Manchester, in the latter state, its provisions have been evaded, as the Lowell people told me, by means of special agreements with the operatives. The manufacturing population of Lowell is not like the corresponding population in England-stationary. To Lowell a girl comes from the country, and works for three or four years in a mill; sometimes to support herself, sometimes to assist her parents, and often that, when she marries, she may have more than her face for her fortune. When the mills are out of work, she generally returns with a full purse and good character to her old home; which all along she has continued occasionally to visit. Whereas our operatives, having no other home to which to go, must remain idly in the town, with little advantage to themselves, and less to the neighbourhood, waiting for the mills to be once more set to work. The New England people greatly prefer working in factories to going into service. Hence the domestic servants there are principally supplied from the Irish and the free negroes; but these two races do not agree well together. The "public," that is the free, schools of Lowell, as of Massachusetts generally, are excellent. It is, I understand, considered in New England, and most properly so, to be no degradation for a young lady of excellent social position, who may fancy that such is her vocation, to teach in a public school as a salaried schoolmistress. There are three classes of schools in Massachusetts in which children are educated free of expense. They are called the primary, the grammar, and the high schools. In the lowest the boys and girls are educated together by females. When they rise to the higher schools they are separated; and the sex of the teacher follows that of the pupil. And teaching in the common schoolrooms of Massachusetts you may see young ladies with acquirements, manners, and personal attractions, superior to the average of those to be found in the fashionable drawing-rooms of a European metropolis. The sons of all classes attend the public schools: but these schools are not generally frequented by the daughters of wealthy persons. The standard of general education is much higher in the northern parts of the United States than it is in England. |