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176

PADDY FROM CORK.

men, who have not prospered as yet. According to Mr Pass, the soutb-country Irish are the poorest men that come out-do the worst, and are the least contented. As at home, they depend upon grants, and charity when they can get it, more than upon their own industry. Many of them had gone into Maine, thinking to better themselves; but they found out their mistake, and had all come back worse than they went.

On the other hand-located in a hut at the cross-roads between the Acton and Cork Settlements, wearing, with the aid of his daughters, a bome-spun web for one of his neighbours, and, though a professed tee-totaller, not disdaining to make a penny by selling drams-I found one of these Cork men, in propria persona, who had a different tale to tell. He had been a schoolmaster to them, but found it a starving business, as they were all steeped in poverty and debt; and yet they were industrious, he said; and therefore be inveigbed against the mother country for not making railways in the province, and sending out money to employ the people. The management of the Irish is still a problem, when unmixed with other population, in whatever country they are. Here was this fellow-M-Mahon by Dame --unsteady and in debt himself, trying one shift after another, as those who have been unaccustomed to steady labour at home do, industrious after a fashion, but unable to see that it is the persevering industry of the Scottish, English, and Protestant Irish settlers, that makes the luck for which they are envied. This man was a great talker, an encourager and spreader of disaffection among those who would gladly, as they sat idle, ascribe their misfortunes to any man or thing but to themselves. As at home, they get together in junketing and merry-making, and estimate the happiness of a spree far above the every-day comforts of clean wellfurnished houses, and plentiful meals all days of the

VIEW OF THE RIVER ST JOHN.

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year. But mingle these same men in twos and threes among a great predominance of a steadier race, and the restraint and influence of new example makes their children steadier men than their fathers, and more reasonable and contented citizens.

At the Hanwell Settlement, also Irish, and less prosperous and extensive than the Harvey, I did not linger. It is within eight or ten miles of Fredericton, and on inferior land. The grey sandstones—in fact, a sort of stony wilderness—continues thence the whole way to Fredericton. Everywhere blocks of drifted stone and rock strew the surface, or are seen in situ. Beneath the drifted grey rocks, an admixture of red matter was visible in the soil—the debris, no doubt, of red marl rocks—towards the north or north-west. Were the

superficial stones removed, there are many places where this red material is in sufficient quantity to form a productive soil; but it will be long before labour can be profitably expended in clearing a stony surface like this, which seems almost to set the reclaimer at defiance.

From the high ground above Fredericton, I again felt how very delightful it is, after such a journey as this, to feast the eyes, weary of stony barrens and perpetual pines, upon the beautiful river St John.

I thought it, on this occasion, one of the finest rivers I had anywhere seen. Calm, broad, clear, just visibly flowing on, full to its banks, and reflecting from its surface the graceful American elms which at intervals fringe its shores, it has all the beauty of a long lake without its lifelessness. But its accessories are as yet chiefly those of naturewooded ranges of hills varied in outline, now retiring from, and now approaching the water's edge, with an occasional clearing, and a rare white-washed house with its still more rarely visible inhabitants, and stray cattle. These differ widely from the numerous craft and massive

VOL. II.

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PAY AND BE THANKFUL.

buildings, signs of art and industry, which strike the traveller's eye, when, leaving Cronstadt behind, he ascends the narrowing Neva. Yet, in some respects, this view of the St John recalled to my mind some of the points on the Russian river: though among European scenery, in its broad waters and forests of pines it most resembled the tamer portions of the sea-arms and fiords of Sweden and Norway.

I reached Fredericton about four in the afternoon, and there found my conductor, besides making me pay very high for his services, most anxious—like so many others of these provincial people — to persuade me that he had done me a great favour besides, in bringing me, and that I was obliged to him in a degree for which my money was no compensation. He could have made more at his ordinary occupation of serving writs and seizing debtors, and it was only to oblige my friends he had brought me at all. I could only regret that my friends should have induced him to do what was so much to his disadvantage, and assure him, that having paid his exorbitant demand, I considered I had discharged every sort of obligation I owed him. This sort of thing, in one form or other, the traveller will often meet with in all these new countries; and not least frequently among those who have still a trace of the Irish " never went to service at home, sir," remaining in their heads.

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CHAPTER XXI.

General remarks on the province of New Brunswick.—Want of frank

ness in the people. — Official staff in the province. — Provincial salaries.—Ultra-liberal speech.— Tendency to discontent.— Responsible government.-- Accepting inferior offices.—Society at the “ Little Court” of Fredericton.—Cathedral and College.—Relative numbers of the religious sects in the province.—Position of the English Episcopal church.—Tractarian element.--State of the University.-Alleged grievances. — Merit of its founders. Necessity for positive and material instruction. — Resources of the Province. Quality and quantity of its several soils.-—Quantity of food, estimated in oats and hay, which the several soils and the whole province is capable of producing. — Population it is able to sustain.-- Relation of the supply of fossil fuel to the possible population of a country. How it affects New Brunswick. — Importance of early determining the extent and position of available fossil fuel.- Average produce of different crops in the whole province. · Compared with Great Britain and Ireland.—Compared with New York, Ohio, Canada West and Michigan.- Climate does not lessen the productive capability of the Province.—Effect of the winter's frost.-Length of the agricultural year.-Average prices of grain in the province.-Compared with Canada West and Ohio.—Will it pay to farm in these provinces by the aid of hired labour ?—Opinions of the best practical men.Who ought to emigrate to this province. -People who may go out.Procedure of parties with different amounts of capital. — Not the country for large landholders. Grants of land on condition of making the roads. How bodies of emigrants might be located.Amount of immigration to New Brunswick. — How people are induced to emigrate. — Letters from relatives. Transmission of moneys by Irish emigrants.—Proportional emigration to Canada, New Brunswick, and New York. — Indirect value of settlers to a new country.-Commercial depression.--Exports and Imports of the port of St John, compared with those of all Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire united.-Patriotic feelings of the members of the Provin

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EARLY IMPRESSIONS.

cial Legislature.— Bounty to agriculture. — Improvement of the St John River.-Construction of railways.—Their desirableness.—Evil done by agitators.-- European and North American Railway.-Emigration steamers.—Timber-duty grievance.- Mr Brown's address to the Legislature. -- Fiscal protection not required by New Brunswick.Common school education.- Improvement of the criminal code.

I REMAINED at Fredericton for upwards of six weeks, occupied in putting together my notes and impressions of the province, into the form of a report to be presented to the Provincial Legislature. I shall therefore devote the present chapter to a few observations regarding New Brunswick, which will not be unacceptable to those who desire to obtain an accurate general knowledge of its character and capabilities.

Among the early impressions made upon my mind, on mingling with the provincials, and which was not by any means dispelled when I came among the people of New England, was the want of English frankness and openness of speech, which marks their mutual intercourse, as much even as their conversation with foreigners. There was manifestly a species of reticence, as if, in what he said, the speaker reserved an arrière pensée, in regard to which he did not wish to commit himself, or as if he thought some eaves-dropper were listening to catch his words.

Another thing which soon arrested my attention was the extensive state and departmental inachinery established and sustained among a population of two hundred thousand souls—a Governor, Executive Council, Legislative Council, Assembly, Higher and Lower courts of Justice, Bishop, Chief Justice, Master of the Rolls, Provincial Secretary, Attorney and Solicitor Generals, a Surveyor-General's Department, Colleges, Schools, Roads, Customs Department, &c., &c.—a whole host of men and departments, all sustained by this small community. Men with high names I saw which, in England, command

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