Canada; an essay, to which was awarded the first prize by the Paris Exhibition Committee of Canada

CANADA

AN ESSAY:

TO WHICH WAS AWARDED THE FIRST PRIZE BY THE PARIS
EXHIBITION COMMITTEE OF CANADA.

SHERIDAN HOGAN.

PRINTED BY JOHN LOVELL, ST NICHOLAS STREET.
1855.

5O12.
Hfe

INDEX.

PAGUL

GENERAL INTRODUCTION. — What the people of Canada have to show for

their labour, and who were the labourers, 9

GEOGRAPHICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION of United Canada, and

of both Provinces separately, 11

RIVERS OF CANADA, 15

LAKES, 21

THE PIONEERS OF THE FOREST. — And herein of

The Early Settler of UppelJBanada, 24

The Farmer of Upper Canada, as distinguished from the Earlj

Settler 27

TJie Habitant, or French Canadian Farmer of Lower Canada,. ... 32

POPULATION, — The growth of, and the same contrased with the United

States, 36

CITIES AND TOWNS, — The rise of, and the same compared with the United

States, 39

AGRICULTURE. — Its progress, and the same contrasted with the United

States, 42

NATURAL PRODUCTS: —

Timber, 46

Fish, 47

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES. — Soil, <fcc 48

CLIMATE 52

MANUFACTURES, AND SHIP-BUILDING, 56

TRADE AND COMMERCE, 59

TENUE AND EXPENDITURE, 62

INKS, 63

)UCEMENTS TO EMIGRANTS. — "Wages, Price of Land, <fec 64

VTION AND MORAL PROGRESS, 68

IGION, 74

IV INDEX.

PAGB.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS. — And herein of

THE ST. LAWRENCE. — Its Thousand Islands and Rapids. — Their Naviga-
tion.— The magnitude of the Canals and Locks constructed to avoid
the Rapids on the passage up. — The Welland Canal as the com-
pleting link of the entire navigation of the St. Lawrence. — This
Eiver considered as the great outlet to the sea from the West and
North-west. — Its magnitude and adaptation to the commercial wants
of the valleys and slopes it waters. — The same contrasted with the
Erie Canal, its rival for the business of the West.- -The Erie Canal
made little by the progress of America, and its future still greater
inefficiency considered. — New enterprise of Chicago Merchants, and
Ocean Steam Navigation to Quebec. — Its effect upon the passenger
trade to America. — The advantages of taking the Quebec route to
the west and interior of America. — The two thousand miles of
. interior navigation by the St. Lawrence. — Features of interest by
the way. — River passes through the very garden of America. —
Cheapness and convenience to emigrants of taking it.— The diffi-
culties attending the Gulf navigation removed.— How long the St.
Lawrence is open for navigation. — The same contrasted with the
Erie Canal and Hudson River, 77

RAILROADS, — Enterprise of Canada in relation to.— Their value and
importance not only to Canada but to the rest of America. — Their
extent, construction, routes, &c 98

THE MUNICIPAL SYSTEM OF UPPER CANADA, — Its great success, <fec... 103
THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, AND ITS FUTURE 107

DECISION OF JUDGES.

PARIS EXHIBITION OFPICE,
QUEBEC, 3rd May, 1855.

The Executive Committee of the Paris Exhibition submit herewith the decision
of the Judges appointed to decide upon the merits of the Essays on Canada and its
resources, for which prizes were offered by the Committee.

.REPORT OB THE JUDGES:

The Committee to whom the Executive Committee on the Paris Exhibition referred
the selection of the Prize Essays on Canada submit the following Report :

The Committee have received from the Secretary nineteen Essays, eighteen of
which have been carefully considered, but the nineteenth is so illegibly written that
it has been quite impossible to decipher it, without an amount of time and pains,
which the several Members of the Committee have been unable to give.

Of the eighteen Essays tho Committee have selected three with the following
mottoes : " Labor omnia vincit," — " J'ai vu oe que je raconte," — and " Virtute et labore
dum spiro, spero,"— as those which in theirjudgment are entitled to prizes, but they
liave been unable to decide upon the order in which they shall stand, as they a»e
equally divided in opinion upon their classification, and they, therefore, report them
to the Executive Committee simply as prize-worthy, considering it better not to make
I>articular reference to their notes, as to the position which each Essay should occupy
on the prize list.

In addition to these three Essays, the Committee recommend those with the
following mottoes : " Suam quisque pellem portat,"— " Reddi tubi Cererem tellus
inarata quotannis,"— and " It is with nations as with nature, she knows no pause in
progress or development, and attaches her curse to all inaction,"— to the favorable
consideration of the Executive Committee, either as deserving to be published at the
public expense, or as entitling their authors to some gratuity to assist in their publi-
cation, as the Executive Committee shall deem best, with the consent and at the
option of the authors themselves.

The Committee have been most favorably impressed by several of tho remaining
Essays, and while they have not considered it necessary to make any further classifi-

6 DECISION OF JUDGES.

cation, they cannot avoid congratulating the Country that the opportunity has been
afforded to so many able writers of displaying the capabilities of this noble Province.
In conclusion, the Committee regret that their various avocations, since they were
named as Judges, have kept them so constantly engaged, that they have not been able
to give so close an attention to all these Essays as they should have desired, but they
have given them the most careful consideration the time allotted would permit, and
although there is not one, even of those reported without several errors of detail or
description, they have risen from their perusal with much gratification, arising as
well from the great amount of correct statistical information that has been brought
together, as from the agreeable and readable shape in which much of it has bee n
prepared for the public eye.

(Signed,) J. HILLYARD CAMERON,

D. B. STEVENSON,
ROBERT CHRISTIE,

E. PARENT,

L. H. HOLTON,
A. N. MORIN.
Quebec, 23rd April, 1855.

The Executive Committee had determined that in case the majority of the Judges
should be unable to agree as to the classification of the Essays for the Prizes, it would
be advisable to request His Excellency the Governor General to make the award, and
accordingly on receiving the above Report, they begged His Excellency to undertake
the task, which His Excellency was good enough to consent to.

The following is the decision of His Excellency: —

The Governor General having carefully perused and considered the Essays placed
in his hands by the Judges assigns the first place to tliat one bearing the motto

" Labor omnia vincit."

The other two, though very different in character, he has great difficulty in placing,
The French Essay ( J'ai vu ce que je raconte) is more readable, and in some respects
preferable to the English one

" Virtute et labore, dum spiro, spero."

On the other hand, the English is more systematic and concise, and for purposes of
reference conveys more information, and if it is impossible to treat them as equal,
which His Excellency would willingly do, it seems proper to assign the second prize
to the latter of the two, and the third to the French.

(Signed,) EDMUND HEAD.
1st May, 1855

DECISION OF JUDGES. 7

The Executive Committee have, therefore, to announce that the First Prize is
to John Sheridan Hogan, Esquire, author of the Essay with the motto
** Labor omnia vincit," (*)— the second prize to Alexander Morris, Esq., of Montreal
with the motto " Virtute et labore, dum spiro, spero,"— and the third prize to J. C.
Tache", Esquire, M. P. P., author of the Essay with the motto " J'ai vu ce que je
raoonte."

In accordance with the recommendation of the Judges, the Executive Committee
have awarded three extra prizes of £25 each to the authors of the Essays bearing
the mottoes " Suam quisque pellem portat,"— " Reddit ubi Cererem tellus inarata
quotannis,"— and " It is with nations as with nature, she knows no pause in progress
and development, and attaches her curse to all inaction." The authors of these
Essays are Hector L. Langevin, Esq., of the City of Quebec ; E. Billings, Esq., of the
City of Ottawa, and William Hutton, Esq., Secretary Board of Statistics, Quebec
The authors of the other Essays may obtain them on application to the Assistant
Secretary of the Committee, I. E. Eckart, Esq., Quebec.

FRANCIS HINCKS,
Chairman Executive Committee.

(*) Mr. Hogan's card, in addition to his name, contained the following memoran-
dum : — " He takes the opportunity of stating that the valuable Statistics upon Agri-
eulture and Commerce in the accompanying Essay were derived from Evelyn
Campbell, Esquire, of the Statistics Office.

CANADA.

IN England, or France, or any of the States of Europe, if upwards
of a million of the working classes had, within a short space of
time, and by means hitherto unknown or unthought of, raised
themselves to comparative affluence and independence, their
example would be alike a matter of wonder and of instruction.
To the poor, who are struggling against becoming poorer; to
those who, though they may be able to steer clear of actual want
themselves, have the painful picture constantly presented to their
minds, of their offspring being otherwise circumstanced ; to the
mere " hewers of wood and drawers of water," who are too low
to dream even of comforts or respectability, how deeply interesting
should be the knowledge, not only that a million and a-half of
people like themselves had been able to cast their poverty behind
them, but that many millions more could " go and do likewise."
Nor to the statesman, who gathers from such examples the
knowledge of how to make nations great, and to become great
himself; or to those who are engaged in the humane task of
endeavouring to mitigate the evils of redundant population,
should such a fact be less interesting or valuable. And this,
without exaggeration, is the lesson that may be learned from the
industrial history of Canada, but especially of the Upper Province.
In 1829 the population of Western Canada — for that Province,
having exhibited greater progress in population and wealth, I

10 PRIZE ESSAY

shall at present allude to — had but one hundred and ninety-six
thousand inhabitants. Its assessable property, being the real and
personal estate of its people, was estimated, and I think with
sufficient liberality, at £2,500,000. Its population in 1854 had
increased to 1,237,600; and its assessed and assessable property,
not including its public lands, the timber on them, or its minerals,
is set down, in round numbers, at fifty million pounds. This sum
is over the assessors' returns, but when it is considered that the
assessments were based upon the people's estimates of their own
property, and that these are proverbially made with a view to
avoiding taxation rather than to appearing rich, and that bonds
and mortgages and other valuable effects were not included in the
assessments, the addition of fifteen per cent. — being that made —
is by no means an error on the side cf exaggeration. The
Marshalls appointed to correct similar returns in the United
States make a much larger addition, although the property I
have named, as exempted in Canada, is all assessed in the States.

Thus then the remaining inhabitants of 1 829, and the descendants
of those who have died, together with the settlers who have come
into the Province since, divide between them fifty million pounds
worth of property, being £200 4s. 2d. to each family of five, and
£40 Os. 2d.to each man, woman and child, — a degree of prosperity
it would be difficult to credit, were it not established by proofs
wholly incontrovertible.

And who and what are the people who divide among them this
magnificent property? And how have they acquired it? Did
they come in as conquerors, and appropriate to themselves the
wealth of others? — They came in but to subdue a wilderness,
and have reversed the laws of conquest ; for plenty, good neigh-
bourhood, and civilization mark their footsteps. Or did capi-
talists accompany them, to reproduce their wealth by applying
it to the enterprises and improvements of a new country ? No ; —

ON CANADA. 11

for capitalists wait till their pioneer, industry, first makes his
report, and it is but now that they are studying the interesting
one from Canada, Or did the generosity of European Princes, or
European wealth or benevolence provide them with such outfits
as secured their success ? On the contrary, the wrongs of Princes,
and the poverty of Nations, have been the chief causes of the settle-
ment of America. Her prosperity is the offspring of European
hopelessness. Her high position in the world is the result of
the sublime efforts of despair. And he who would learn who they
are who divide among them the splendid property created in
Canada has but to go to the quays of Liverpool, of Dublin, of
Glasgow, and of Hamburg, and see emigrants there embarking,
who knew neither progress nor hopes where they were born, to
satisfy himself to the fullest.

It is the object of this Essay to describe the country, its soil,
its climate, and its resources, in which these people have pros-
pered; to trace their advancement and its causes; to describe
the public works and improvements they possess ; to show how
they govern themselves, and what are their institutions — religious,
educational and municipal ; to exhibit, in short, what may guide
industry in search of a place wherein to better its condition, and
capital in quest of fields for profitable investment.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION.

Canada extends, in length, from the coast of Labrador to the
River Kiministiquia at the western extremity of Lake Superior,
about sixteen hundred miles, with an average breadth of about
two hundred and thirty miles, being nearly three times as large
as Great Britain and Ireland. It contains an area of about three
hundred and fifty thousand square miles, or two hundred and
forty millions of English acres.

12 PRIZE ESSAY

Upper, or Western Canada, is comprised -within the parallels of
40° to 49° N., and the meridians of 74° to 117° W. of Greenwich,
and embraces an area of about one hundred thousand square
miles, or sixty-four millions of acres. Of these there were, up to
the first of January, 1854, twenty-one millions forty-nine thousand
one hundred and sixty-four acres surveyed, consisting of thirty-one
thousand one hundred and seventy-five acres of mining tracts on
the shores of Lakes Huron and Superior, four hundred and fifty-
three thousand five hundred and fifty-eight acres of Indian
reserves in the same localities, and twenty millions two hundred
and forty-three thousand four hundred and forty-one acres in
farm, park lots, and sites for towns and villages.

Lower, or Eastern Canada, is comprised within the parallels of
45° and 50° N. latitude, and the meridians of 57° 50" to 80° 6"
W. of Greenwich, and embraces, according to the best estimates,
an area of about two hundred and five thousand eight hundred
and sixty-three square miles. This is, however, exclusive of what
is occupied by the St. Lawrence, and part of the gulf, which cover
fifty-two thousand square miles. Eastern Canada therefore con-
tains, in the whole, about a quarter of a million square miles, or
one hundred and sixty millions of English acres. Of this the
number of acres of Crown Lands surveyed is eight millions one
hundred and twenty thousand and fifty-six acres, of which four
millions three hundred and thirty-four thousand two hundred and
nine acres have been granted, and three millions seven hundred
and ninety-one thousand are ungranted. Those heretofore held
under the Seigniorial Tenure are nine millions twenty-seven thou-
sand eight hundred and eighty acres, and as Indian reserves two
hundred and thirty thousand acres.

The natural features of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada
are, for the most part, very different. In the Lower Province the
scenery is of a far bolder character than in the Upper. On the

ON CANADA. 13

lower part of the St. Lawrence both sides of the river are moun-
tainous, and on the northern side the range which runs as far as
Quebec presents the most sublime and picturesque beauties. On
the southern side the range called the Alleghanies commences at
Perce in the County of Gaspe, and, about sixty miles below Quebec,
turns off and enters the States. Above Quebec, on the north side
of the river, and between that city and the River St. Maurice, the
country is not so bold : here the land rises gradually from the banks,
and that which was but a short time ago a boundless waste of forest
has been cleared acre by acre, and now presents a succession of
towns and villages and corn fields.

Above the St. Maurice, and so far as Montreal, the shore is a little
more abrupt, with considerable table-ridges. This country is also
well settled and highly prosperous.

On the southern shore, commencing from the sea at Gaspe, —
which rather seems to be geographically a slice of New Brunswick
than a part of Lower Canada, — there is a country but little explored,
and chiefly valuable for its fisheries. The River Restigouche runs
through a part of this country, and in its vicinity the land is well
wooded, and watered by numerous small rivers and lakes, and is ex-
ceedingly rich and fertile. From Cape Chat, the western extremity
of Gaspe, to the River Chaudiere, Canada extends along the River
St. Lawrence 257 miles, bounded on the south-east by the boundary
line of the United States, in part defined by a high ridge of land,
and partly imaginary. The character of this district may be
described as hilly, with extensive valleys, and some parts of the
counties of Kamouraska, L'Islet, Bellechasse and Dorchester, are
extremely fertile.

"West of the Chaudiere is a magnificent tract extending to the
45° of N. lat., which forms the south and south-eastern boundary of
Canada, dividing it from the States of New York, Vermont and
Hampshire. As this district advances westward it gradually

14 PRIZE ESSAY

becomes a highly cultivated and luxuriant plain, and through it
run the Rivers Richelieu and Yamaska. The scenery south is
extremely picturesque, interspersed with swelling ridges and lofty
mountains. In this section of the country the British American
Land Company have extensive possessions.

As compared with the Lower Province, Upper Canada is in
general a level champaign country, with gently undulating hills and
rich valleys. At a distance of from fifty to one hundred miles
north of Lake Ontario there is a ridge of high rocky country run-
ning towards the Ottawa or Grand River, behind which there is a
wide and rich valley of great extent, bounded on the north by a
mountainous country of still higher elevation. From the division
line on Lake St. Francis to Sandwich, along the shores of the St.
Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Erie, there is not an elevation of
any consequence, and throughout this extent the soil is generally
remarkably rich.

The first ridge we find is that commencing almost at the boundary
line, and running between the Rivers St. Lawrence and Ottawa.
The ridge commencing at the Bay of Quinte runs westerly along
Lake Ontario, joins the Burlington and Queenstown heights, and
beyond Niagara enters the United States.

There are some peculiar features in this country, which were ascer-
tained by an Engineer employed on the Rideau Canal. On looking
at the north shores of the River St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario all
the rivers on that side the ridge, which join them, are short and
unimportant, while those which run north into the Ottawa are long
and broad, and flow through a large extent of country : the solution
of this was found by ascertaining that the level of Lake Ontario is
about 130 feet higher than that of the River Ottawa.

Having thus cursorily glanced at the geographical position and
divisions of the two Provinces, I turn to their vast means for
water communication, their majestic rivers and inland seas, the
most magnificent in the world.

ON CANADA. 15

RIVERS OF CANADA.

The waters of all the lakes and rivers of Canada empty them-
selves into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which is formed by the western
coast of Newfoundland, the eastern shore of Labrador, the eastern
extremity of the Province of New Brunswick, and by parts of Nova
Scotia and Cape Breton.

The River St. Lawrence rises in Lake Superior in Upper Canada,
and flows through Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, a distance of
about 3000 miles, with a breadth varying from one to ninety miles,
and by the aid of the Welland, St. Lawrence and Lachine Canals, is
navigable the whole distance for large class ships. It has, however,
in its course, received different names, viz : between Lakes Ontario
and Erie it is called the " Niagara," between Lakes Erie and St. Clair
the "Detroit," between Lakes St. Clair and Huron the "St. Clair,"
and between the latter and Lake Superior the " Narrows or Falls of
Ste. Marie."

It is said to discharge into the ocean annually 4,300,000 millions
of tons of fresh water ; and it has been ingeniously calculated by
Mr. McTaggart, that for 240 days of the year it discharges 4,512
millions of tons per day, and for the 125 remaining days 25,560
millions of tons per day.

The Island of Anticosti is at the embouchure of this river, a
desert island 130 miles long and 30 broad, on which the Govern-
ment have erected two light-houses, each amply supplied with pro-
visions for shipwrecked mariners. Between this and the mainland
the channel is about forty miles in width, but above, the river
spreads out to an extent of ninety miles. At the Island of Bic,
about 153 miles below Quebec, there is very good anchorage, and
the Government are about to make a harbour of refuge. Several
beautiful islands stud the river above this, especially the He aux
Coudres, which is five miles in length and fifteen in circumference ;
it is in a high state of cultivation, contains nearly eighty farms
and a population of 971 persons.

16 PRIZE ESSAY

Twenty-four miles below Quebec is Grosse He, the quarantine
station, and near the city the He d'Orleans divides the river : it is
nineteen miles long and five and a-half broad, containing five par-
ishes, with a population of 4450. Mr. McGregor has justly observed :

"The River St. Lawrence, and the whole country, unfold scenery
" the magnificence of which, in combination with the most delight-
u ful physical beauty, is unequalled in America and perhaps in the
" world. From both land and water there are frequently prospects
" which open a view of from fifty to one hundred miles of river, from
"ten to twenty miles in breadth. The imposing features of these
" vast landscapes consist of lofty mountains, wide valleys, bold
" headlands, luxuriant forests, cultivated fields, pretty villages and
" settlements, some of them stretching up along the mountains,
"fertile islands with neat white cottages and rich pastures, and
" well tended flocks, rocky islets and tributary rivers, some rolling
" over precipices, and one of them, the " Saguenay," like an inland
" mountain lake, bursting through a perpendicular chasm in the
" granite chain, while on the bosom of the St. Lawrence majestic
" ships, large brigs and schooners, with innumerable pilot boats and
" river craft, charm the mind of the immigrant or traveller."

The river at Quebec is only 1314 yards wide, but the junction
of the River St. Charles, below the city, forms a basin of nearly
four miles long and two broad, with the greatest depth of water at
twenty-eight fathoms, and a tide rising eighteen feet at neap, and
twenty-four at spring tides. The scenery on approaching Quebec
is truly magnificent. " On the left, Point Levi with its romantic
" church and cottages ; on the right, the western shore of the He
" d'0rle"ans, said to resemble so much the Devonshire coast ;
" beyond the lofty mainland opens to view, and the spectator's
" attention is rivetted by the magnificent Falls of Montmorenci, a
" river as large as the Thames at Richmond, and which precipitates
" its volume of waters over a perpendicular precipice 220 feet in

ON CANADA 17

height. The eye then runs along a richly cultivated country for
miles, terminating in a ridge of mountains, with the City and
" Battlements of Quebec rising amphitheatrically, cresting, as it
" were, the ridge of Cape Diamond, and majestically towering
" over the surrounding country, as if destined to be the capitol of
" an empire, the whole panorama being one of the most striking
" views in the old or new world."

About 90 miles above Quebec, on the north shore, at the Town of
"Three Rivers," the " St. Maurice" runs into the "St. Lawrence,"
after draining a country 140 miles in length and from 20 to 100
in breadth, forming an area of 8 or 9000 square miles, covered
with inexhaustible forests of the finest timber, which have hitherto
been almost untouched. The tributaries of this river are numer-
ous, and up the western branch there is an extraordinar}7 chain
of lakes, twenty-three in number, and of immense depth.

I The " Chaudiere," which rises in Lake Megantic, and drains a
country 100 miles in length and about 30 in breadth, or an
area of 3000 square miles, runs into the " St. Lawrence " on the
south shore about seven miles above Quebec. The " Richelieu,"
which joins the " St. Lawrence" at Sorel, rises in Lake St.
George, in the United States, and drains, in its course of 160
miles, a surface of 4800 square miles.

Before alluding to the " Ottawa," I may mention that there are
numerous other rivers which, after flowing through highly cul-
tivated districts, empty into the " St. Lawrence," The chief of
these is the " Saguenay," a majestic stream, of which no less than
thirty rivers are tributaries. It flows into the " St. Lawrence "
about 100 miles below Quebec. In some parts this river is said
to be unfathomable, and its banks vary from 200 to 2000 feet in
height, rising in some places perpendicularly from the river's side.
For a distance of ninety miles this river is navigable for vessels of
large tonnage, and some of the largest saw mills in the Province
are erected upon it.

18 PRIZE ESSAY

The River " Ottawa," second only in size to the " St. Lawrence,"
rises about 100 miles above Lake Temiscaming, which is upwards of
350 north-west of the latter river. It flows 450 miles through a
country abounding in natural wealth, and admirably adapted for the
purposes of agriculture and settlement. Its tributaries are equal in
size to the largest rivers of Great Britain, and it drains an area of
80,000 square miles, which, as presumed by Bouchette, is capable
of maintaining a population of 8,000,000 souls. It is impossible
here to dilate upon its varied and magnificent scenery, its cascades,
its rapids, and its lakes. Bouchette describes the country as present-
ing unusual inducements to agriculture, industry, and commer-
cial enterprise; and Lord Elgin, in his despatch of the 5th Sep-
tember, 1853, alludes to this fact as worthy of special notice.
His Lordship remarks, " that the farmer who undertakes to cul-
" tivate unreclaimed land in new countries often finds that not only
" does every step of advance which he makes in the wilderness, by
" removing him from the centres of trade and civilization, enhance
" the cost of all he has to purchase, but that moreover it diminishes
" the value of what he has to sell. It is not so, however, with the
" farmer who follows in the wake of the lumberman : he finds, on the
"contrary, in the wants of the latter, a ready demand for all that
" he produces, at a price not only equal to that procurable in the
" ordinary marts, but increased by the cost of transport from them
" to the scene of the lumbering operations."

The water power of this river is positively unlimited ; and both
it and the River Gatineau water a country which affords an inex-
haustible supply of iron, abundance of timber, copper, lead, plum-
bago, marble, and various ochres.

The greater part of this country is covered with a luxuriant
growth of red and white pine, forming, according to Bouchette,
the most valuable timber forests in the world, abundantly inter-
sected with rivers to convey it to market when manufactured.

ON CANADA. 19

Lord Elgin remarks, that " the route of the ' Ottawa,' the ' Mat-
" tawa,' and Lake Nipissing, is that by which Europeans first
" penetrated the West. By this route Champlain in 1 6 1 5 proceeded
"as far as Lake Nipissing, and the Recollet Father Le Caron
" bore the Gospel to the Huron tribes along the same track, and
" was followed soon after by those Jesuit Missionaries, whose endur-
" ance and sufferings constitute the truly heroic portion of American
" annals."

This district supplies annually to the European market above
25,000,000 cubic feet of timber, 850,000 deals and planks, and an
innumerable amount of staves and other timber.

The water shed of the Ottawa is said to be above 1000
miles, and its length 780, or about fifty miles shorter than the
Rhine. In its course it receives the River Blanche, the Montreal
River, running a distance of 120 miles from the north-west, being
the river route of the Hudson's Bay Company; then the Keepewa,
a river of vast size, passing through an unknown country,
and exceeding in volume the largest rivers in Great Britain, with
a magnificent cascade of 120 feet in height; then the River
Dumoine. Fifty miles above the City of Ottawa, formerly Bytown,
it receives the River Bonne Chere, 110 miles in length, and drain-
ing an area of 180 miles; eleven miles below this, the Madawaska,
210 miles in length, and draining 4100 square miles; and twenty-
six miles from the City of Ottawa, the Mississippi, 101 miles in
length, draining a valley 120 square miles.

At the City of Ottawa the river receives the Rideau, with a
course of 116 miles, and draining an area of 1350 square miles;
and a mile lower down, from the north, the Gatineau, its greatest
tributary, which drains an area of 12,000 square miles, and is 420
miles long. The upper course of this river is unknown, but
Bouchette describes it as being 1000 feet wide 217 miles from its
mouth.

20 PRIZE ESSAY

Eighteen miles lower, from the north, the Ottawa receives the
Riviere du Lievre, in length 260 miles, draining an area of 4100
square miles. Fifteen miles lower down, on either side, the North
and South Nation Rivers, the former 95, and the latter 100
miles in length ; still lower it receives the Riviere Rouge, 90
miles long, the Riviere du Nord, 160, and just above its mouth,
the River Assumption, 130 miles in length.

The Government have already expended £94,371 in constructing
the timber slides on the Ottawa, and a further sum of £11,000 is
required for their completion ; and the canal recently projected
and in course of construction between the Lakes des Chats and
Chaudiere will render the navigation from Ste. Anne to Portage du
Fort, a distance of 154 miles, perfect for vessels of large tonnage.

An extract from the Report of Mr. Russell, the Government
Agent to the Crown Lands Department, furnishes some idea of
the wealth of this district. In one item alone, he says: " On prin-
" ciples of calculation admitted by persons of experience to be
" correct, after making deduction for barren ground and future
" destruction by fire, it is estimated that there are still standing
" on the Ottawa and its tributaries about 45,811,200 tons of tim-
" ber, of the kind and average dimension now taken to market,
" and about 183,244,800 tons of a smaller size, though still
" valuable."

At the present rate of consumption this would last at least 150
years, without taking into consideration the natural growth during
that period.

Of the many other rivers in the two Provinces it is impossible
to give any description here. Many of them, especially those
running into the lakes, are of considerable size, and navigable for
many miles from their embouchure.

ON CANADA. 21

THE LAKES OF CANADA.

The lakes of Canada are almost innumerable, and some of them,
especially in the Upper Province, may, with truth, be styled Inland
Seas, and afford a water communication unrivalled in the world.

Lake Superior, the monarch of all fresh water lakes on the globe,
is the largest and most elevated of these inland seas. It is 627 feet
above the level of the sea, 430 miles long, 160 miles broad, 1200
feet deep, and lYoO miles in circumference; and it is said that
more than 200 rivers and creeks flow into it. Its shores are rocky,
with bold promontories, and occasional sandy bays, the most
remarkable elevation being the Thunder Mountain, 1200 feet high.
It contains numerous islands, and its shores are, for the most
part, covered with timber. Its waters are discharged into Lake
Huron by the River St. Mary, now rendered navigable by a short
canal for large sized vessels.

Lake Huron is 580 feet above the sea, 250 miles long, 220
miles broad, 900 feet deep, with a circumference of 1100 miles,
divided by the chain of the Manatoulin Islands ; the northern
portion being known by the name of the Georgian Bay. There
are many good harbours on the northern coast, but the southern is
for the most part flat and shallow ; it receives the waters of many
rivers. The great Manatoulin Island is eighty miles long, eighteen
broad, with an area of about 1500 square miles; it is fertile in
some parts and contains valuable timber. It lias two known com-
munications with the River Ottawa, the one through Lake Simcoe
and a chain of lakes to the River Madawaska, which falls into the
Lake des Chats ; the other up the French River, through Lake
Nipissing, and down to the Ottawa. This route, either by water or
railway, would shorten the communication from the St. Lawrence
to the northern lakes to an extent of several hundred miles.
The River Severn connects Lake Huron with Lake Simcoe, and
the River St. Clair with Lake Erie.

22 PRIZE ESSAY

The third great lake, Erie, unlike Huron and Superior, runs
nearly east and west, and the southern shore is exclusively within
the territory of the United States. It is about 280 miles long,
63 broad, with an area of 11,000 square miles. Although the
navigation of this lake is at times difficult and dangerous, its com-
mercial position is highly favorable, being bordered by one of the
most fertile regions of North America. The River Niagara having
in its course one of the wonders of the world, the FALLS, connects
this with Lake Ontario, and the obstruction in the navigation is
overcome by the Welland Canal.

Lake Ontario, the last of the great lakes, is 180 miles long, 80
broad, with a circumference of 7000 miles, and though inferior in
size to Lake Erie, is far more picturesque in its outline. It abounds
in excellent harbours of great depth of water, and, like the other
lakes, is fed by numerous rivers. From this point the St. Law-
rence, having wound its course through the great lakes, runs
uninterruptedly for 700 miles into the sea.

It would be impossible to compute with accuracy the traffic
of these inland seas, either present or prospective. It is chiefly
made up of the natural productions of the forest, the mineral
kingdom, and agricultural produce, to which may be added the
fur trade and fisheries. The admirable lectures of Professor
Williamson, of the University of Queen's College, Kingston, give
some very interesting particulars on the subject, which are freely
used in this sketch.

The quality of the iron found near Lake Superior is said to be
very good. The report of English manufacturers, who have
recently submitted it to the test, added to the examination
of scientific men, fully corroborate the statement. Its ultimate
tenacity in bars has been found to be 89,882 Ibs. to the square
inch, that of the best Russian being only 79,000. The copper
mines on Lakes Superior and Huron appear to be inexhaustible ;

ON CANADA. 23

but their real value has been only recently ascertained, large
quantities of this ore having been shipped during the past year.
Of all natural productions, however, the traffic in timber appears
at present, at least, to equal that of agricultural produce, and far
exceeds that of any other description.

In 1851 the amount of sawed lumber which reached the Hud-
son River was upwards of 71 1,000 tons, valued at about £4,000,000
currency. At least three-eighths of this was brought from the lake
country, and is independent of the immense quantity shipped from
Canada to various ports in the United States for local consumption.
Taking the export timber trade on the lakes, and to the seaboard
by the Hudson, and adding to this the amount exported from
Upper Canada by the St. Lawrence to Great Britain and other
markets, the export productions of the forest from the lakes is
upwards of £2,000,000 annually.

The whole through tonnage which arrived at the Hudson, and
shipped from the Western States and Canada, by Buffalo and
Oswego, in 1851, yielded £6,750,000 currency ; add to this 47,000
tons, a great part of the business of the New York and Erie Railroad,
and it makes a total of £7,500,000. If from this be deducted
£1,500,000 as the value of the products of the forest, that of the
farms will not be less than £5,500,000 of the remainder ; and if to
this is added £500,000 as the value of the agricultural products of
the lakes, shipped for the sea-board by way of the St. Lawrence, it
leaves, at a very moderate estimate, £6,000,000 for the total value
of the agricultural exports of the lake basin. The whole value of
the various products, natural and industrial, exported from the area
of the great lakes cannot now be less than £10,000,000 of surplus
produce, over and above what is required for home consumption.

The amount of imports into the area of the lakes is much greater.
The value of the merchandize which left the Hudson River for the
Western States and Canada in 1851 was £15,500,000, indepen-

24 PRIZE ESSAY

dently of that which left by railroad, which would make the whole
£16,000,000. Of this upwards of £2,000,000 were for Western
Canada alone. Adding £2,000,000 of imports by the St. Lawrence
into Western Canada from Great Britain and other countries, it
makes the Upper Canadian imports about £4,000,000, and the
whole imports of the lake basin £18,000,000 ; thus the imports
into the United States and Canada, by way of the lakes, is equal
to one-third of the entire imports of the United States.

Hitherto the imports and exports of the lakes have more than
doubled every four years, and there is every reason to believe that
this rate of advancement will more than continue. The St. Law-
rence will probably become the great highway to the Pacific and
to the East, and on her waters alone can the western portion of
the continent find an outlet for its enormous traffic.

The length of the navigation of the lakes is said to be about 1 800
miles, and as Professor Williamson describes them, they are
" innumerable canals in one."

Combining these with the net-work of railways now intersect-
ing her shores, Canada may safely boast as fine internal commu-
nications as any in the world.

THE EARLY SETTLER OF UPPER CANADA.

Great as has been the prosperity of America, and of the settle-
ments which mark the magnificent country just described, yet
nature has not been wooed in them without trials, nor have her
treasures been won without a struggle worthy of their worth.
Those who have been in the habit of passing early clearings in
Upper Canada must have been struck with the cheerless and lonely,
even desolate appearance of the first settler's little log hut.
In the midst of a dense forest, and with a " patch of clearing "

ON CANADA. 25

scarcely large enough to let the sun shine in upon him, he
looks not unlike a person struggling for existence on a single
plank in the middle of an ocean. For weeks, often for months,
he sees not the face of a stranger. The same still, and
wild, and boundless forest every morning rises up to his view;
and his only hope against its shutting him in for life rests in
the axe upon his shoulder. A few blades of corn, peeping up be-
tween stumps whose very roots interlace, they are so close together,
are his sole safe-guards against want; whilst the few potatoe
plants, in little far-between " hills," and which struggle for exist-
ence against the briar bush and luxuriant underwood, are to form
the seeds of his future plenty. Tall pine trees, girdled and
blackened by the fires, stand out as grim monuments of the pre-
vailing loneliness, whilst the forest itself, like an immense wall
round a fortress, seems to say to the settler, — " how can poverty
ever expect to escape from such a prison house."

Yet there is, happily, a poetry in every man's nature ; and there
is no scene in life, how cheerless soever it may seem, where that
poetry may not spring up ; where it -may not gild desolation itself,
and cause a few to hope where all the world besides might despair.
That little clearing, — for I describe a reality, — which to others
might afford such slender guarantee for bare subsistence, was
nevertheless a source of bright and cheering dreams to that lonely
settler. He looked at it, and instead of thinking of its littleness, it
was the foundation of great hopes of a large farm and rich corn
fields to him. And this very dream, or poetry, or what you will,
cheered him at his lonely toil, and made him contented with his
rude fire-side. The blades of corn, which you might regard as
conveying but a tantalizing idea of human comforts, were associated
by him with large stacks and full granaries ; and the very thought
nerved his arm, and made him happy. His little lonely hut, into
which I saw shrink out of sight his timid children — for they rarely

26 PRIZE ESSAY

if ever saw a stranger, — was coupled by him, not with the notion
of privations and hardships you might naturally attach to it, but
with the proud and manly idea, that it should be the place where
he should achieve the respectability and independence of those chil-
dren. But, besides this, he knew the history of hundreds, nay,
thousands of others in Canada, who had gained prosperity against
similar odds, and he said in his manliness, that he should go and do
likewise.

Seven years afterwards I passed that same settler's cottage —
it was in the valley of the Grand River in Upper Canada, not far
from the present Village of Caledonia. The little log hut was used
as a back kitchen to a neat two story frame house, painted white.
A large barn stood near by, with stock of every description in its
yard. The stumps, round which the blades of corn, when I last
saw the place, had so much difficulty in springing up, had nearly
all disappeared. Luxuriant Indian corn had sole possession of the
place where the potatoes had so hard a struggle against the briar
bushes and the under-wood. The forest — dense, impenetrable
though it seemed — had been pushed far back by the energetic
arm of man. A garden, bright with flowers, and enclosed in a
neat picket fence, fronted the house; a young orchard spread
out in rear. I met a farmer, as I was quitting the scene, returning
from church with his wife and family. It was on a Sunday, and
there was nothing in their appearance, save perhaps a healthy
brown colour in their faces, to distinguish them from persons of
wealth in cities. The waggon they were in, their horses, harness,
dresses, everything about them, in short, indicated comfort and
easy circumstances. I enquired of the man who was the owner
of the property I have just been describing? "It is mine, sir,"
he replied ; "I settled on it nine years ago, and have, thank God,
had tolerable success."

ON CANADA. 27

Such was an early settler of Upper Canada. Such were his
hardships, his fortitude, and his success. His history is but that
of thousands in the same Province.

THE FARMER OF UPPER CANADA, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM
THE EARLY SETTLER.

There is perhaps no class in the world who live better — I mean
who have a greater abundance of the comforts of life — than men
having cleared farms, and who know how to make a proper use
of them, in Upper Canada. The imports of the country show
that they dress not only well but in many things expensively.
You go into a church or meeting-house in any part of the Province,
which has been settled for fifteen or twenty years, and you are
struck at once with the fabrics, as well as the style of the dresses
worn by both sexes, but especially by the young. The same
shawls, and bonnets, and gowns which you see in cities, are worn
by the women, whilst the coats of the men are un distinguishable
from those worn by professional men and merchants in towns. A
circumstance which I witnessed some years ago in travelling from
Simcoe to Brantford — two towns in the interior of the Province —
will serve to convey an idea of the taste as well as the means of
enjoyment of these people. At an ordinary Methodist meeting-
house in the centre of a rural settlement, and ten miles from a
village or town, there were twenty-three pleasure carriages, double
and single, standing in waiting. The occasion was a Quarterly
Meeting, and these were the conveyances of the farmers who
came to attend it. — Yet twenty years before, and this was a
wilderness. — Twenty years before, and many of these people were
working as labourers, and were not possessed of a pair of oxen. —
Twenty years before, and these things exceeded even their brightest
dreams of prosperity.

28 PRIZE ESSAY

To persons not practically acquainted with Upper Canada,
these evidences, not only of comfort but of considerable refinement
may appear extraordinary, because mere rude husbandry, just
emerging from a wilderness, could hardly be expected to produce
such results. Wealth in agriculture, like wealth in every other
occupation, is usually the offspring of skill and judgment, as well
as of labour and perseverance. But it is a remarkable fact that
the farmers of Upper Canada have opportunities of improvement,
and of enlarging and correcting their views, beyond what are
enjoyed by many of their class even in England. And this arises
from the circumstance of the population being made up of so
many varieties. The same neighbourhood has not unfrequently a
representative of the best farming skill of Yorkshire; of the
judicious management and agricultural experiences of the Lo-
thians, and of the patient industry and perseverance of Flanders.
In a country so peopled the benefits of travel are gained without
the necessity of going away from home. Other countries, in
.fact, send their people to teach Canadians, instead of Canadians
having to go to other countries to learn. A thousand experiences
are brought to their doors, instead of their having to visit a
thousand doors to acquire them. Nor is the advantage of this
happy admixture of population altogether on the side of the
Canadian ; for whilst he gleans from the old countryman his
skill and his science, he teaches him, in return, how to rely upon
himself in emergencies and difficulties inseparable from a new
country, — how to be a carpenter when a storm blows down a
door, and there is no carpenter to be had ; and how to be an un-
dismayed wheelright when a waggon breaks down in the midst of
a forest, and there is no one either to instruct or to assist him. The
one, in short, imparts to a comparatively rude people the know-
ledge and skill of an old and highly civilized country : the other
teaches skilled labour how to live in a new land. The conse-

ON CANADA. 29

quence is, the old countryman of tact becomes, in all that relates
to self-reliance and enterprise, a capital Canadian in a few years J
whilst the Canadian, in all that pertains to skillful industry,
becomes an excellent Englishman. As a natural result of this,
there is scarcely an improvement effected in English farming which
does not find its way into Canada soon after ; nor is there an
agricultural implement of value, which can be adapted to Canadian
soil, that is not immediately copied or imported. And Agricultural
Societies have sprung up and prospered in the country, to
an extent hardly parallelled in any other part of the world.
The result is that Durham cattle may be seen at the very verge of
civilization in Western Canada ; that there is scarcely a neigbour-
hood where may not be found the descendants of Berkshire pigs,
nor a village that has not horses which exhibit all the fine peculia-
rities of the best breeds of England and Scotland. That a country
so circumstanced, with a fine climate, and with abundance of land
for those who had the energy to clear and cultivate it, should
have enjoyed great prosperity, is really not so much a wonder as
it would be a matter of surprise if it had not had such success.

The same causes which have produced these results upon agri-
culture have also had an eminently beneficial effect upon society.
The settler who nobly pushes back the giant wilderness, and hews
out for himself a home upon the conquered territory, has necessarily
but a bony hand and a rough visage to present to advancing civiliza-
tion. His children, too, are timid, and wild, and uncouth. But a
stranger comes in ; buys the little improvement on the next lot to
him ; has children who are educated, and a wife with refined
tastes, — for such people mark, in greater or less numbers, every
settlement in Upper Canada. The necessities of the new comer soon
bring about an acquaintance with the old pioneer. Their families
meet — timid and awkward enough at first perhaps ; but children
know not the conventionalities of society, and, happily, are gov-

30 PRIZE ESSAY

erned by their innocence in their friendships. So they play together,
go to school in company ; and thus, imperceptibly to themselves,
are the tastes and manners of the educated imparted to the rude,
and the energy and fortitude of the latter are infused into their
more effeminate companions. Manly but ill-tutored success is
thus taught how to enjoy its gains, whilst respectable poverty is
instructed how to better its condition. That pride occasionally
puts itself to inconvenience to prevent these pleasant results, my
experience of Canada forces me to admit ; and that the jealousy
and vanity of mere success sometimes views with unkindness the
manner and habit of reduced respectability — never perhaps more
exacting than when it is poorest — I must also acknowledge. But
that the great law of progress, and the influence of free institutions,
break down these exceptional feelings and prejudices, is patent to
every close observer of Canadian society. Where the educated and
refined undergo the changes incident to laborious occupations —
for the constant use of the axe and the plough alters men's feelings
as well as their appearances, — and where rude industry is also
changed by the success which gives it the benefit of education,
it is impossible for the two classes not to meet. As the one goes
down — at least in its occupations, — it meets the other coming up
by reason of its successes, and both eventually occupy the same
pedestal. I have seen this social problem worked out over and
over again in Upper Canada, and have never known the result
different. Pride, in America, must " stoop to conquer ;" rude indus-
try rises always.

The manner of living of the Upper Canadian farmer may be
summed up in few words. He has plenty, and he enjoys it. The
native Canadians almost universally, and a large proportion of the
old country people, sit at the same table with their servants or
labourers. They eat meat twice, and many of them thrice a day :
it being apparently more a matter of taste than of economy as to

ON CANADA. 31

the number of times. Pork is what they chiefly consume. There
being a great abundance of fruit, scarcely a cleared farm is with-
out an orchard ; and it is to be found preserved in various ways
on every farmer's table. Milk is in great abundance, even in the
early settlers houses, for where there is little pasture there are sure
to be large woods, and " brouse ; " or the tops of the branches of
trees, supply the place of hay. The sweetest bread I have eaten
in America I have eaten in the farmers' houses of Upper Canada.
They usually grind the "shorts" with the flour for home con-
sumption, and as their wheat is among the finest in the world,
the bread is at once wholesome and exceedingly delicious. Were
I asked what is the leading characteristic of the Upper Canadian
farmer, I should unquestionably answer, PLENTY. Plenty reigns
in his granary, plenty is exhibited in his farm yard, plenty
gleams from his corn fields, and plenty smiles in the faces of his
children. But let it not be imagined that this plenty is gained
without continuous labour, and the exercise of judgment and
intelligence. Many of the finest farms in Upper Canada have
passed out of the hands of those whose fathers won them from
the forest; and many more are exhausted and unproductive,
through injudicious management, indolence, or inattention ; and
in some instances the very labourers on the farms which have
been sold and wasted by the second generation, have been able to
purchase them. Industry literally converted the labourer into the
lord, whilst extravagance and indolence reduced the lord to the
labourer. Nor have old country people, who brought habits of
extravagance with them, or who knew not how to work, and
refused to learn, fared much better. For labour, which achieves,
as I have shown, so much in Canada, may, by reason of its great
cost, be proportionally ruinous, if it is injudiciously employed, or
misdirected. It is like the sails, which if the steering be good,
may fill and work beautifully ; but if the helm be ill managed.

32 PRIZE ESSAY

may bring everything to a stand still, or endanger the whole
ship. As a general rule, the gentleman farmer, or rather the
gentleman who would not be a farmer, because he would not
learn the value of labour, or how to direct it when he employed
it, has lamentably failed in Upper Canada. The gentleman,
however, who is willing to take his coat oft', and, as the Yankees
quaintly observe, " to march forward to the music of his own axe,"
may be certain of plenty, and have the consolation as well —
through the rise of property — of leaving his children well off. At
all events he will leave them where they will have been taught how
to succeed, and where success is attainable. But it is undeniable,
— if such a circumstance may not rather be called admirable, —
that the agricultural wealth of Canada has chiefly fallen into the
hands of the poor practical farmer, and the still poorer labourer.

THE HABITANT, OR LOWER CANADIAN FARMER.

No persons can contrast more strongly than the habitant of
Lower Canada and the farmer of Upper. The latter is enterprising,
adventurous, and cosmopolitan in his feelings. He is always ready
to change his neighbourhood for a better one ; and his homestead of
a hundred acres of cleared land is never more dear to him than
five hundred acres of wilderness, if he can satisfy himself that the
latter would be better for his children. The habitant, on the
contrary, knows no love stronger than that for his often contracted
farm. The place were he was born, though giving him, in many
cases, but a slender livelihood, is still dearer to him than all the
world. In vain for him has the magnificent West been opened up,
in vain for him have America and Europe been filled with accounts
of prosperity in it. His dreams hover round his own fireside.
His imagination is bounded by the fences round his farm. He

ON CANADA. 33

asks no better lot than to live where his father lived, and to die
where his father died.

As might naturally be expected, avarice has little to do with
such a character. If he knows not the rewards of grasping ambition,
he knows not its feverish disappointments, or its mortified pride.
There is not, in consequence, a more cheerful, happy, and con-
tented being in existence than the Lower Canadian habitant. His
little farm — for, as a general rule, on account of frequent subdivi-
sions, the farms in Lower Canada are small — supplies him with
enough to live upon ; and he never by any chance invokes the
cares of to-morrow. He has five or six cows, and he knows they
should give milk enough for himself and his family, and he never
gives himself anxiety about the economy of increasing their number
or improving their quality. He has six or eight pigs, and instead
of fattening two or three for market, — as an old countryman would
be sure to do, — he takes the blessings of Heaven as they are sent
to him, and eats the whole of them. He copies no man's improve-
ments, and imitates no person's mode of living. His life, his food,
his enjoyments are regulated by the opportunities of the day.
If he fares sumptuously, he thanks Providence, and is happy. If
he occasionally fares otherwise, he thinks it is all right, and is
equally contented. Simple therefore is his life, but happy in its
simplicity. For generations his character has not undergone a
perceptible change ; but happily, his gentleness, his innocence and
his cheerfulness have been equally enduring.

I cannot take leave of the habitant of Lower Canada without
alluding to his amiable disposition and native politeness. You
pass through a country parish in any part of the Province, no
matter how remote, and you are saluted on all hands, by both
old and young, and so gracefully, yet with so much ease and
frankness, that you forget for the moment where you are. You
go into a habitants house — always clean, with flowers in the

34 PRIZE ESSAY

windows, and the walls well whitewashed — and though the man
may be the poorest in his parish, his hospitality is dispensed with
so much cordiality and refinement, so wholly unembarrassed and
unembarrassing, that you can with difficulty believe such peo-
ple could have always lived in such a place. You speak execrable
French — many English people unfortunately do — and make mis-
takes which would provoke the risibility of a very saint, yet you
never see a smile on the face of your entertainer, nor even on the
faces of his children. Of course, after you go away, they enjoy
the fun amazingly. Your religion, your politics, or your country,
may, from accidental circumstances, be distasteful to him, yet as
long as you are under his roof, — if it were for months, — you
would never hear a word that could hurt your feelings, or wound
your pride. In enterprise, in that boldness of thought and action
which make a people great and a country prosperous, they are
unquestionably far behind the rest of America. In not seeking to
understand, and sometimes opposing the introduction of, palpable
improvements and inventions, their conduct is below their own
intelligence. But in refinement and good breeding, in all that
fascinates the stranger, and makes the resident happy among them,
they are immeasurably above any similar class on this continent.
And all that America can teach them in enterprise would not
exceed what they could teach America in the finest features of
civilization — namely, gentleness and good manners.

From these general observations it may be inferred that there
has been little improvement ;n agriculture in this Province. Such,
however, is not the case. Of late years, particularly since the
union of the Provinces, the best breeds of cattle have been gradu-
ally finding their way into the settlements of Lower Canada; and
Agricultural Societies — the great radiating points of knowledge
and practical improvement — have sprung up and are springing up
in the more advanced settlements. At an Exhibition held at

ON CANADA. 35

lebec last autumn, the show of Durham cattle, of imported
ine, and of horses, would have done credit to any part of
lerica. Whilst the vegetables, especially potatoes, beet roots

id turnips — for which> however, the land about Quebec is singu-

rly well adapted — were finer than those exhibited in Upper

mada. If these exhibitions are promoted, and succeed as well
Lower Canada as they have done in Upper, — and there is no

jason why they should not, — they will change the whole aspect
Lower Canadian farming in a few years. Bad customs will
ippear before them like bad weeds. For people, when they

>me to contrast the productions of labour and skill, cannot but
prefer what brings honour as well as profit, over what entails in-
convenience, and invites disrespect. Nor will men long continue
to carry errors home with them, when truth is discovered to be a
much more valuable commodity. Competition indeed shames
error out of its follies ; for no person, however dogged he may
be, will face the ridicule that is attached to clinging to absurd
customs in the midst of universal improvement. To expose folly
and ignorance to general condemnation, and to draw general
admiration to skill and ingenuity, is, in fact, to give the latter
a triumph at once. And AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES, with their
thousand rewards for the best productions of the country, and their
thousand exposures of the systems and prejudices which occasion
the worst, strike me as admirable contrivances to make men
ashamed of being behind the age, and honoured by keeping pace
with it.

The feudal tenure, by which the great bulk of the lands in
Lower Canada were, from their first settlement, held, has been
regarded, and I believe with truth, as a great drawback to the
improvement of the country. Where property could not change
hands without serious taxes and impediments, and where improve-
ments became but partially the property of those who made them,

36 PRIZE ESSAY

enterprise shrunk from having anything to do with the land, and
the spirit of improvement was universally damped ; but the Legis-
lature, at its last sitting, wisely and patriotically swept this tenure
away for ever, and the people can now acquire property with little
cost, and hold it in fee simple. This great measure, it is thought
will work a complete revolution in Lower Canada. The knowledge
that improvements will be for their own sole benefit, will stimulate
the people to make them ; and the proud consciousness, that they
will become the lords of their own soil, will beget a strong and
manly desire to acquire it. There is nothing that has exerted so
powerful an influence for good, in America, as the feeling that a
man could win for himself an estate. It has caused pride to spring
up in natures where it might have been deemed impossible. It has
nerved to exertion many an arm that would have otherwise fallen.
It has infused the poetry of refinement, respectability and civiliza-
tion into natures accustomed to all the rudeness of extreme poverty,
and all the slavishness incident to long continued and debasing
servitude.

THE GROWTH OF POPULATION IN CANADA, AND THE SAME
CONTRASTED WITH THE UNITED STATES.

Up to 1829, the population of both Canadas being but 696,000,
they occupied a very humble position in the industrial history
of America. Since then, although they have had far less than
their share of the honor awarded by Europe to the extraordinary
advancement of the United States, they have not the less enjoyed
the blessings of a prosperity second, as I shall take occasion to
show, to no part of them. In 1800 the free population of the
United States was 5,305,925. In 1850 it was 20,250,000, show-
ing an increase of nearly four hundred per cent.

ON CANADA.

In 1811 the population of Upper Canada was 77,000, and in

II it was 952,000, exhibiting an increase, in forty years, of
)en hundred per cent.

During the last ten years, and when an extraordinary impetus
given to the population of the States, on account of the public

>rks in course of construction, and the very high rates of wages

lid, their rate of increase was 35*27 per cent. In Great Britain
for the same period the rate of increase was 13*20 per cent. In
Upper Canada it was one hundred and four per cent.

The free population, as I have remarked, from 1800 to 1850,
of the United States, increased 14,944,075, or a little less than four
times. The population of Upper Canada from 1811, being the
first year the Census was accurately taken, up to 1851, increased
875,000, or ten times, closely approaching thrice the increase of
the United States as a whole.

There is perhaps no part of the world known to modern history
with the exception of California and Australia, where a greater
increase has taken place in the population. In the latter countries
the discovery of gold has imparted an unnatural stimulant to set-
tlement ; but in these places, unfortunately, the chief things which
labour leaves to mark its footsteps are unsightly cuttings and
mounds, — the monuments too often of hardships without rewards,
and bitterly disappointed hopes. But in Canada labour is marked
by corn fields, which contribute to the riches and comforts of the
whole world ; and success is of that character, that it raises man
by its example, and makes whole races respectable.

Lower Canada, on account of the great tide of emigration
constantly flowing westward, has not increased in population in
an equal ratio with Upper Canada. In the last twenty-five yeare,
however, she shows an increase of ninety per cent. ; her population
in 1829 having been 500,000, and in 1854 it was 1,048,000.

38

PRIZE ESSAY

The whole of Canada is settled by people of the following
countries :

Origins.

Lower Canada.

Upper Canada.

"ij

1

h*
0

r

Bor
Bir

f England and Wales . . . • •

11230
14565
51499
669528
125580
12482
474
480
51
47
4
159
359
28
18
12
8
38
2
118
293
830
10
2446

82699
75811
176267
26417
526093
43732
3785
2634
79
345
106
9957
1007
15
57
29
188
209
11
24
131
1351
168
889

93929
90376
227766
695945
651673
56214
4259
3114
130
392
110
10116
1366
43
75
41
196
247
13
142
424
2181
178
3335

Canada French origin ...

United States

Nova Scotia and Prince Edward's Isl'd

Newfoundland . ... ...

Switzerland,

Jersey and other British Islands,

Total Ponulation...

890261

952004

1842265

Since this Census was taken, the population has increased to
2,300,000, Upper Canada having increased 308,000, and Lower
Canada, 150,000.

In Upper Canada the native born Canadians are eleven nine-
teenths of the whole population, and the natives of Ireland more
than double the number from any other country.

In Lower Canada the native born Canadians are as eight to one
of the entire population, and the natives of Ireland are four times
more numerous than the natives of any other country. In the

ON CANADA. 39

Counties of Sherbrooke, Stanstead, Shefford, Megantic, and Missis-
quoi, in this Province, a more than ordinary number of natives of
the United States have settled : in Missisquoi there are two thou-
sand, and in Stanstead more than three.

The inhabitants of French Canadian origin in Upper Canada
are most numerous in the Counties of Essex, Prescott, Glengary,
and in the City of Ottawa.

In Lower Canada there are very few Upper Canadians.

The Township of Waterloo, in Upper Canada, contains 5237
persons of German o'rigin, and it is remarkable for great pros-
perity and very fine farms. In the Counties of Haldimand, Perth,
East York, and Welland, the German population is also numerous
and equally prosperous.

THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF TOWNS AND CITIES IN CANADA,
AND THE SAME COMPARED WITH THE UNITED STATES.

The most striking effect of the rapid increase of population in
America is the rise and growth of towns and cities. At the head
of a lake, or where a stream empties into one of those inland seas,
and forms a natural harbour ; or upon the bank of a navigable
river which flows through a fertile country, a pioneer of the forest,
or an adventurous speculator sets himself down, and says, that
" here shall be a city." If his judgment be good, and the country
around his imaginary "Thebes or Athens" be inviting, the waves
of population which perpetually flow westward, stop for a time at
his " location," and actually verify his dream. This is, literally,
the history of the foundation of Chicago and Milwaukie in the
United States, and of Brantford and London in Upper Canada ;
and of many other towns and cities in both countries. And to

40 PRIZE ESSAY

convey an idea of the wealth that is created by population being
thus suddenly centralised in a comparative wilderness, I have but to
name the fact, that within twenty years land was sold for a pound
an acre in many cities, towns and villages, in the western part of
America, where it is now purchased for twenty-five pounds a
foot. There is not an old inhabitant of Buffalo or of Chicago in
the States, or of Toronto or Hamilton in Canada, who cannot
recount numerous instances of property, now worth thousands,
even tens of thousands of pounds, being bought, twenty years ago,
for a cow, or a horse, or a small quantity of goods out of a shop,
or a few weeks or months labour of a mechanic. These things
form the topics of fireside history in these places. The poor
refer to them as foundation for hope. The rich regard them as
matters of congratulation. The speculator and the man of enter-
prise learns from them how and where to found a town, and to
make a bold push for a fortune.

In this singular and instructive feature of American progress,
how does Canada compare with the United States ?

The u World's Progress? published by Putnam of New York,—
a reliable authority, — gives the population and increase of the prin-
cipal cities in the United States. Boston, between 1840 and 1850,
increased forty-five per cent. Toronto, within the same period,
increased ninety-jive per cent. New York, the great emporium of
the United States, and regarded as the most prosperous city in
the world, increased, in the same time, sixty-six per cent., being
thirty-five less than Toronto.

The cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati, which have also expe-
rienced extraordinary prosperity, do not compare with Canada any
better. In the thirty years preceding 1850, the population of St.
Louis increased fifteen times. In the thirty-three years, preceding
the same year, Toronto increased eighteen times. And Cincinnati
increased, in the same period given to St. Louis, but twelve times.

ON CANADA. 41

Hamilton, a beautiful Canadian city at the head of Lake Onta-
rio, and founded much more recently than Toronto, has also had
almost unexampled prosperity. In 1836 its population was but
2846, in 1854 it was upwards of 20,000.

London, still farther west in Upper Canada, and a yet more
recently founded city than Hamilton, being surveyed as a wilder-
ness little more than twenty-five years ago, has now upwards of
ten thousand inhabitants.

The City of Ottawa, recently called after the magnificent river
of that name, and upon which it is situated, has now above
10,000 inhabitants, although, in 1830, it had but 140 houses,
including mere sheds and shanties; and the property upon
which it is built was purchased, not many years before, for eighty
pounds.

The Town of Brantford, situated between Hamilton and London,
and whose site was an absolute wilderness twenty-five years ago,
has now a population of 6000, and has increased, in ten years,
upwards of three hundred per cent.; and this without any other
stimulant or cause save the business arising from the settlement
of a fine country adjacent to it.

The Towns of Belleville, Cobourg, Woodstock, Goderich, St.
Catherines, 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.

That some of the smaller towns in the United States have
enjoyed equal prosperity I can readily believe, from the circum-
stance of a large population suddenly filling up the country
contiguous to them. Buffalo and Chicago, too, as cities, are
magnificent and unparallelled examples of the business, the energy,
and the progress, of the United States. But that Toronto should

D*

42 PEIZE ESSAY

have quietly and unostentatiously increased in population in a
greater ratio than New York, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, and that
the other cities and towns of Upper Canada should have kept pace
with the Capital, is a fact creditable alike to the steady industry
and the noiseless enterprise of the Canadian people.

Although Lower Canada, from the circumstance already alluded
to of the tide of emigration flowing westward, has not advanced
so rapidly as her sister Province, yet some of her counties and
cities have recently made great progress. In the seven years
preceding 1851, the fine County of Megantic, on the south side of
the St. Lawrence, and through which the Quebec and Richmond
Railroad passes, increased a hundred and sixteen per cent. ; the
County of Ottawa eighty-five ; the County of Drummond seventy-
eight, and the County of Sherbrooke fifty. The City of Montreal,
probably the most substantially built city in America, and cer-
tainly one of the most beautiful, has trebled her population in
thirty-four years. The ancient City of Quebec has more than
doubled her population in the same time, and Sorel, at the mouth
of the Richelieu, has increased upwards of four times; showing that
Lower Canada with all the disadvantages of a feudal tenure, and
of being generally looked upon as less desirable for settlement than
the West, has quietly but justly put in her claim to a portion of the
honour awarded to America for her progress.

AGRICULTURE AND ITS PROGRESS. THE SAME COMPARED
WITH THE UNITED STATES.

Canada, but especially the Western Province, is and has been
essentially an agricultural country. Acting upon a policy which
it is neither necessary to explain, nor to discuss the merits of here,

ON CANADA. 43

England has always desired to make Canada, and indeed all her
North American colonies, marts for the consumption of her manu-
factures. The consequence is, that Canada's energy has been chiefly
directed to agriculture. It is true that she has valuable minerals-
but it is only recently that public attention has been directed to
them, and that capital has been applied to their production.
Whatever prosperity the Canadian people enjoy, it is emphatically
to the soil, the use they have made of it, and the timber they
found upon it, that they owe it. To follow the plough, there-
fore, is to follow what has led to Canada's wealth. To count her
stacks of corn is to tell what she has to show for her labour. The
statistics which mark her annual production are the mile-stones on
her road to prosperity; and if the reader has a fancy for well-stored
granaries, rich harvest fields, farm yards teeming with plenty, and
beautiful animals — for they are not the less so for being domestic
and useful, — I would invite him to take a short excursion upon this
pleasant road of Canadian prosperity.

The value of all the vegetable productions of Canada in 1851
was estimated at £9,200,000, — grain being £5,630,000, other
products £3,570,000. The wheat crop of that year in Upper
Canada was 12,682,550 bushels, or nearly 13£ bushels for every
inhabitant, while that of the United States in the same year gave
only about 4£ bushels to each inhabitant.

It would exceed the limits of an Essay to trace the large increase
in the vegetable productions of Canada. The progress of the
American States, unexampled perhaps in the history of the world,
afford, by contrast, the best proofs of the agricultural advancement
of Canada. Ohio, the best of these States for agricultural purposes,
and where land is held, on an average, at double the price of that
of the whole Union, produces, with nearly acre for acre under
wheat cultivation, one-seventh less in quantity than Upper Canada,
there being one and a-half bushels less to each inhabitant.

44 PRIZE ESSAY

In the last ten years the growth of wheat in the whole United
States increased 48 per cent., and that of Canada, in the same
period, increased 400 per cent. Even in Indian corn the pro-
duction of Canada compares most favorably with the States, the
increase in the States, fora period often years, up to 1851, being
56 per. cent. ; and for nine years, up to the same period, that of
Canada was 163 per cent.

Of oats, the growth in Upper Canada has, in nine years, increased
133 per cent., and in Lower, seventy, against 17 per cent, during
the same period in the United States.

The amount of live stock is justly considered one of the most
important features in agriculture, and one of primary consideration
in good farming, as without it the properties of the soil could not
be sustained, the expanse and difficulty of introducing Guano,
Nitrate of Soda, and other costly manures pressing too heavily
upon the farmer in a young country. In addition to this, stock
is a source of wealth, as affording butter, cheese, wool, and other
marketable produce.

In 1851, Canada possessed 592,622 milch cows, being two to
every 6J persons, and 46,939 more than the State of Ohio,
which had in this year about an equal number of inhabitants. In
sheep, Upper Canada had ten, and Lower Canada eight to every
one hundred inhabitants, whilst the whole United States had 7£.
In ten years the increase in the States of the latter animals was
equal to 10 per cent., and in the weight of their fleece 32 per cent.
In Canada, for the same period, the increase in animals was 35
per cent., and in wool 64, the quality of Canadian wool being
declared, at the Great Exhibition, to be nearly equal to the finest
samples of German.

Canada possesses one horse to every five inhabitants, and the
increase in ten years has been 50 per cent. The best cattle
increased 64 per cent, in six years, and the total live stock, accord-

ON CANADA. 45

ing to the Census, in 1851, was 4,249,314 head. The increase
since that period must have been very large ; and the importation
)f the finest European breeds, carefully selected, has enabled the
Canadian farmer to compete, in stock, with any part of the world.

From a summary of the facts elucidated by the last Census of
Canada and the United States, taken within a year of each other,
it appears that Canada far exceeds the most productive State of
the Union in wheat, peas, rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, hay, hemp,
flax, hops, maple sugar, and potatoes; Ohio largely exceeding
Canada in butter, cheese, grass seed, wool, tobacco, beef and
pork ; and if the produce of the forest be added, of which Canada
exported in 1851 to the value of upwards of a million and a-half of
pounds, the relative wealth is greatly in favor of Canada.

Already the population of Canada is more than one-thirteenth
of the United States, the area in square miles, exclusive of territories,
being one-sixth; her growth of wheat is one-sixth that of the
American Union, and possessing, as she does, the great highway of
the St. Lawrence to the West, her resources present an unrivalled
field for energy and enterprise.

As a wheat exporting country Canada has made great progress ;
and as the improved methods of agriculture are more generally
adopted, and her rich territories in the west become better settled,
her exports of breadstuff's will be immense. It would appear that
the United States, on the contrary, during the last twenty years,
have been unable, even with the temptation of famine prices, to
increase their export, for in 1831 their export of wheat and flour
was equal to 9,441,091 bushels, and the value $10,461/715. In
1851 the export was 11,028,397 bushels, the value $11,543,063,
the increase in twenty years being only 1,587,306 bushels.

In 1838 Canada exported 296,020 bushels of wheat, and, in
1852, 5,496,718 bushels, thus increasing eighteen times. Her
exports in grain have doubled four times in fifteen years, or more

46 PRIZE ESSAY

than once in every four years. They are now equal to one-half the
entire exports of the United States.

There are, however, two articles which, until lately, occupied
little attention in Canada, namely, hops and flax. Of the former a
considerable amount has been already exported, and the quality was
considered fully equal to the British at the Great Exhibition. The
growth of flax is likely to become a very important feature in Can-
adian industrial wealth, for the soil and climate of Canada are
regarded as better suited for its growth than the great flax-produc-
ing countries. The fibre is of the best description, and Canadian
hemp is fully equal to that from the Baltic. The Government
have already shown a disposition to foster and encourage this new
source of national wealth, and its manufacture will soon become
very general in the country.

NATURAL PRODUCTS.

TIMBER.

The products of the forest are second only to those of agri-
culture in importance, and are at least their equal in value. The
exports in 1853 amounted to £2,355,255, to which may be added
the value of the ships built at Quebec, being £620,187. Of the
timber, £1,682,125 was exported to Great Britain, £11,000 to the
British Colonies, and £652,544 to the United States. The white
and red pine, oak and elm, form the most important items in this
amount. The export of pot and pearl ashes was £157,000, and of
furs and skins £32,000. The timber exported, however, forms a
very small proportion of the forest-wealth, as the home-consumption,
for domestic purposes, for building, and for the construction of
wharves, railways, fences, &c.,is valued at considerably more than
£2,000,000, and this would give the total value of the produce of
the forest, in 1853, at about £4,532,000.

ON CANADA. 4

It is said that three times the amount of timber reaches England
from the Baltic, since the reduction of duties ; and it was thought
for a time that the Canadian export would be seriously injured by
the change. It is, however, found that both Baltic and American
timber are required for different portions of house and ship building,
and thus an increase in the consumption of the one benefits equally
the other. Canada possesses almost every variety of ornamental
timber, and her black walnut surpasses, in durability and exquisite
graining, the mahogany and rosewood so extensively used in
Europe.

In sawed lumber the increase has been very great, as appears

*
by a comparison of the quantities exported during the last three

years. Of this the year 1851 produced 120,175,560 feet, and
1853, 218,480,000 feet, and added to eight millions for the broken
item of planks and deal ends, and 38,740,168 cubic feet of squared
timber, the total would be 727,188,010 feet of board measure,
which is equal to 61,265,667 cubic feet of timber. The returns,
however, from the nature of the business, and the vast extent of
country it is spread over, are no doubt far under the mark.

FISHERIES.

The fisheries in the Gulf of the River St. Lawrence, the mouths
of the Saguenay, and other large rivers, and in the great lakes, give
occupation to several thousand persons. The Gulf fisheries are
of great value, but in these Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince
Edward Island and Newfoundland are equally interested, and by
the recent Reciprocity Treaty with the United States, they have free
admission to these waters. The principal stations immediately
appertaining to Canada are those of the Magdalen Islands, Gaspe
and the Bay of Chaleurs, and on Lakes Huron and Ontario. The

48 PRIZE ESSAY

produce of this trade in 1853 was about 110,000 barrels, and of
these were exported to the value of £85,000: £18,355 being
exported to the United States, £15,072 to British North American
Colonies, £8801 to Great Britain, and £42,770 to foreign countries.

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES AND SOIL.

The general features of Canada exhibit a granitic country, with
occasional calcareous rocks, of a soft texture, and in horizontal
strata. The calcareous region extends in a line north-west beyond
Lake Michigan, as far as trie sources of the Mississippi, and thence
to the great range of the Rocky Mountains.

All the great lakes are placed in the line of contact between
two vast chains of granite and limestone. At the narrowest part
of Lake Winnipeg, where it is not more than two miles broad, the
western shore is skirted by calcareous rocks, while on the oppo-
site shore there are still higher rocks, of a dull grey granite. In
the Lower Province, particularly, the granite prevails, with clay
and limestone occasionally. The north shore of the St. Lawrence
offers a rich field for the mineralogist, and at the Falls of Mont-
morenci there is a dense bed of limestone, exhibiting deep fissures,
which appear to confirm the account of the earthquake in 1663,
of which so many traces are visible.

The granite is invariably found in strata more or less inclined
to the horizon, but never parallel with it. From Quebec to
Niagara the red slate is perhaps the prevailing rock. The sub-
soil around Lake Ontario is limestone on granite, real granite
being seldom seen. On Lake Erie the strata are limestone, slate>
and sandstone ; and at Niagara the stratum of slate is nearly
forty feet thick, and almost as fragile as shale, — so much so, indeed,
as to sink the superincumbent limestone, and thus verifying, to

ON CANADA. 49

some extent, the opinion that a retrocession of the falls has been
going on for ages. On Lake Huron limestone is found with
detached blocks of granite and other primitive rocks. On the south
shore of Lake Superior are sandstone, resting on granite, chal-
cedony, cornelian, jasper, opal, agate, sardonyx, zeolith, and ser-
pentine, with iron, lead, and copper imbedded. The north shore
is of older formation, with vast beds of granite, and mines of
copper.

An elaborate and highly interesting report, recently presented
by Mr. Logan, the Provincial Geologist, to His Excellency the
Governor General, furnishes much valuable descriptive detail
of the country between Montreal and Cap Tourmente, thirty
miles below Quebec, having a length of about two hundred miles,
gradually widening from Cap Tourmente, and having an area of
of about 3000 square miles.

"It presents a general flat surface, rising in many places by
" abrupt steps, (the marks of ancient sea margins,) into successive
" terraces, some of which are from 200 to 300 feet above the level
" of the river, and the whole have a general parallellism with it.
" These terraces are occupied by extensive beds of clay and sand."
The economic materials of this district, traversed by the St. Maurice
and other large rivers, appears to be those of log iron ore, of which
the largest fields appear in the country between St. Maurice and
Batiscan ; and in the same localities, especially in the St. Nicholas
range of Pointe du Lac, iron ochre is extensively found, occupy-
ing, it is said, an area of about 400 acres, with a depth ranging
froni four to six feet, and affording eight varieties in colour.
Iron sand, wad, and bog manganese are also found, and clay for
pottery, bricks, and roofing tiles, to an extent which enables them
to be manufactured in almost any locality where wanted ; and the
white sandstone, although harder than most building stone, pos-
sesses, as Mr. Logan remarks, the valuable property of resisting

50 PRIZE ESSAY

fire. This, with limestone and the yellow calcareous stone, called
the " Deschambault stone," and the millstones over the Potsdam
beds, fit for flagging, are in beds from one to two feet thick.
Marble of various colours, and susceptible of the highest polish,
is found, and peat has been turned by the habitants to excellent
account, for when burned, and combined with the surface beneath,
it becomes a very fruitful soil.

The conflagrations which have destroyed so large a portion of
the two principal cities in Canada have naturally called public
attention to the roofing of the houses, and several slate quarries
in the Townships of Kingsey and Elzear are now in operation.
Their specific gravity and chemical composition are said to resemble
the finest Welsh slate. In the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada
clay slates have been extensively discovered.

Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Logan have declared — and it is feared
with too much truth — that from the geological structure of Canada
coal cannot exist.

If Canada, however, has not coal she is conveniently situated to
it : on the north-west are the immense coal fields of the Michigan
Territory, and on the south-east is the still greater coal field of
Appalachia, the one with a supposed surface of 12,000, and the
other of 60,000 square miles, and said to be the largest known car-
boniferous tracts in the world.

But little copper has been found in Lower Canada. On the
River L'Assomption and other places where it has been discovered
the lode is said to be of trifling value.

Mr. Logan has devoted much attention to the discovery and
distribution of gold. The auriferous tract is clearly shown to exist
over 10,000 square miles on the south side of the St. Lawrence,
especially in the Eastern Townships, in the valley of the St. Francis,
from Richmond to Salmon River, and on the Magog River above
Sherbrooke ; but he remarks " that the deposit will not, in general,

ON CANADA. 51

" remunerate unskilled labour, and that agriculturists, artisans, and
" others engaged in the ordinary occupations of the country, would
" only lose their labour by turning gold hunters."

The Report of Mr. Logan on the Upper Province is accompa-
nied by one by Mr. Murray, the Assistant Geologist, who especially
refers to the district between Kingston and the River Severn,
connecting Lake Simcoe with the Georgian Bay. The economic
materials met with in this district are magnetic and specular iron
ore, which exists chiefly in the Township of Bedford in the County
of Frontenac,Madoc and Marmora in Hastings, Belmont in Victoria,
and Seymour in Northumberland ; and of these Mr. Murray thinks
the deposits in Madoc, Marmora and Belmont will become of great
commercial importance. The Marmora mines are now worked by
an English Company with large capital, and every modern improve-
ment in machinery. They are situated on a rocky flat, and the
iron ore is said to be rich in the extreme, yielding sometimes ninety
per cent. It is found chiefly on the surface, or in its immediate
vicinity. The Company owning them also possess extensive
beds of marble and lithographic stone. In the same district are
found galena and plumbago ; and the Potsdam formation yields
grindstones and flagging stones ; clay producing the red and
white brick is also abundant.

The copper on Lakes Superior and Huron is becoming an
important article of national wealth, and is found occasionally in
masses of 2000 pounds weight in a pure and malleable state.

Canada abounds in mineral springs, and the Caxton, Planta-
genet, St. Leon and St. Catherines waters have acquired great
celebrity.

The soil of Canada is generally extremely fertile, and consists
principally of yellow loam on a sub-stratum of limestone. It
greatly improves to the westward, and its quality, when unculti-
vated, is easily ascertained by the timber it produces, the

52 PRIZE ESSAY

larger and heavier kinds growing on the best soil. In Upper
Canada the brown clay and loam, intermingled with marl, pre-
dominates in the district between the St. Lawrence, and the
Ottawa ; but further west, and north of Lakes Ontario and Erie, the
soil becomes more clayey and far more productive. The virgin soil
is rich beyond measure, and the deposit of vegetable matter for
ages, improved by the ashes of the fires which sometimes sweep the
forest, render it abundantly productive for several years without
extraneous help.

CLIMATE.

The acknowledged influence of the atmosphere, not only upon
the productiveness of the soil of a country, but upon the temper,
habits, and industry of its inhabitants, renders an enquiry into the
climate of Canada a subject of great importance.

Her inland seas, with an area of 100,000 square miles, and a
supposed content of 11,000,000 cubic miles of water — far exceed-
ing half the fresh water in all the lakes in the world, — exercise a
powerful influence in modifying the two extremes of heat and
cold. The uniformity of temperature thus produced, although
low, is found to be highly favorable to animal and vegetable
life. It is therefore found that in the neighbourhood of the lakes
the most delicate fruits are reared without injury, whilst in places
four or five degrees farther south they are destroyed by the early
frosts. The quantity of rain, which for the most part falls in
summer and early autumn, is no doubt greatly increased by evapo-
ration from these immense bodies of water. The winds are most
variable, and rarely continue for more than two or three days in
the same quarter. This has the effect of preserving the equilibrium
and renders the occurrence of disastrous storms less frequent. The

ON CANADA. 53

>. W., the most prevalent wind, is generally moderate, with clear
The N. E. and E. bring continued rains in summer and

irly autumn, and the N. W., springing from the regions of ice, is

ivariably dry, elastic, and invigorating. Since 1818 the climate
greatly changed, owing principally, it is supposed, to the large

learings of the primeval forests.

The salubrity of the Province is sufficiently proved by its
cloudless skies, its elastic air, and almost entire absence of fogs.
The lightness of the atmosphere has a most invigorating effect
upon the spirits. The winter frosts are severe and steady, and the
summer suns are hot, and bring on vegetation with wonderful
rapidity. It is true that the spring of Canada differs much from
the spring of many parts of Europe ; but after her long winter the
crops start up as if by magic, and reconcile her inhabitants to the
loss of that which, elsewhere, is often the sweetest season of the
year. If, however, Canada has but a short spring, she can boast
of an autumn deliciously mild, and often lingering on, with its
"Indian summer" and -golden sunsets, until the month of
December.

A Canadian winter, the mention of which, some years ago, in
Europe, conveyed almost a sensation of misery, is hailed rather as
a season of increased enjoyment than of privation and discomfort
by the people. Instead of alternate rain, snow, sleet and fog, with
broken up and impassable roads, the Canadian has clear skies, a
fine bracing atmosphere, with the rivers and many of the smaller
lakes frozen, and the inequalities in the rude tracks through the
woods made smooth by snow — the whole face of the country being
literally Macadamized by nature for a people as yet unable to
Macadamize for themselves.

It must not be supposed that the length of this season is neces-
sarily prejudicial to the farmer, for mild winters are generally found
to be injurious to fall crops of wheat, and a serious hindrance to

54 PRIZE ESSAY

business and travelling. The summer, short and eminently fruc-
tifying, occupies the whole of the farmer's time. It is in winter
that the land is cleared of timber, the firewood dragged home
from the woods on sleighs over ground impassable by wheel
carriages, and that the farmer disposes of his produce, and lays
in his supplies for the future. The snow forms a covering for his
crops, and a road to his market. On the arrival of winter the care
of his fat stock ceases, for the whole is killed, freezes, and can
be disposed of as the state of the markets suggests.

Comparing the two Provinces, it is admitted that the cli-
mate of Upper Canada is the most favorable for agricultural
purposes, the winter being shorter, and the temperature less
severe ; but the brilliant sky, the pure elastic air, and uninter-
rupted frost of Lower Canada, though perhaps lingering too long,
are far more exhilarating, and render out-door exercise much more
agreeable. Few who have enjoyed the merry winters of Quebec
and Montreal, with the noble hospitality and charming society
of these cities, their sleigh drives and their pic-nics, can ever for-
get the many attractions of a winter in Lower Canada.

It would indeed be strange if some did not complain that
the climate of Canada was too hot, without reflecting how neces-
sary and how valuable this occasional extreme may be. Although
the summer season is short it is highly favorable for the growth
of hay, mangel wurtzel, turnips, and other roots, which enable the
farmer to fatten his cattle before the arrival of winter ; and in a
country where labour is not only high, but often difficult to be had,
the heat is of incalculable value. The average amount of harvest
labour in England is said to be about 13s. sterling per acre,
whilst in Canada it does not amount to more than 6s. or 6s. 6d.
This arises from various causes. The Canadian harvest ripens
earlier, and is generally much less injured by weather than in
England, and when cut, can, for the most part, be bound at once,

ON CANADA.

55

and carried to the barn. The climate is so favorable that there is
little or no trouble in " mating " either grain or grass. Add to
this the very general use of reaping and mowing machines,
induced, no doubt, by the difficulty of obtaining hands. It will
be found, on an average, that the crops are housed in half the time
and with half the labour and expense that they are in England ;
and, notwithstanding the length of the winter in Canada, the har-
vest of Upper Canada is generally garnered by the first or second
week in August, the farmers thus having longer days for labour.

There is still another advantage arising from the summer heat,
namely, that of cleaning the land, killing all noxious weeds, and
preparing it for green crops.

Of the general salubrity of the Province, its vital statistics, as
compared with those of other countries, afford satisfactory evidence;
and the following table, communicated by Professor Guy, is not
devoid of interest, as shewing the proportion of deaths to the
population in various countries :

Austria, 1 in

Belgium, 1 "

Denmark, 1 "

England, 1 "

France, 1 "

Norway and Sweden,

Portugal,

Prussia,

Russia in Europe,

Spain,

Switzerland,

Turkey,

United States,

Upper Canada,

Lower Canada,

All Canada, 1 "

1 "
1 "
1 "
1 "
1 "

40
43
45

46
42
41
40
39
44
40
40
30
74
102
92
98

56 PRIZE ESSAY

MANUFACTURES AND SHIP BUILDING.

As a manufacturing country Canada is only beginning to be
important. English Canada is more than a century younger than
the United States, and until recently her population was almost
exclusively occupied in the pursuits of husbandry. She has,
however, within the last few years, made considerable progress in
manufactures, many of her articles having obtained prizes at the
Great Exhibition in London, and several of them receiving favor-
able notice.

Of all manufactures in timbers the most important is that of
ship building, and this is carried on chiefly at Quebec.

The increase in the trade has been very great, not only from the
extensive demand for vessels, but because of the high reputation
Canadian built ships have acquired for symmetry, solidity, and
speed. In the year 1853 forty-eight ships, with a tonnage of
49,000 tons, were built at Quebec, valued at £500,000, being an
increase in one year, of twenty-two ships, and of value £340,000.
A great number of these ranged from 1000 to 1800 tons, and
some of them have made remarkably short passages. The
" Boomerang" made one of the best passages ever made by a sailing
vessel to and from Australia, beating the fastest American ship thei
on the ocean. The " Shooting Star" 1520 tons, and the "Arthur
the Great," 1600 tons, built in 1853 by Mr. Lee, a French Cana-
dian of Quebec, are among the finest ships now in Her Majesty's
transport service ; one of them, the " Shooting Star," having made
the fastest passage on record from Plymouth to Malta. Many of
these ships were sold at £13 10s. per ton; and notwithstanding
the depression in the trade, the keels of thirty ships, of from 800
to 2000 tons burthen, were laid down in the past winter. Of
the increase in ship building in the inland waters, it would be
impossible here to give any description. In 1817 two steamers

ON CANADA. 57

were built on Lake Ontario, and in the following year one was
unched in Lake Erie. At the present time thousands of vessels,
m and sailing, traverse the waters of the five great lakes and the
iver St. Lawrence, and of the former many are decorated in a
le which fully entitles them to the name of floating palaces.
After a season of apathy and mismanagement, the manufactures
of iron and copper have assumed a health} condition. The Mar-
mora works, in the County of Hastings, possessing singular advan-
tages, have, as already remarked, passed into the hands of an English
Company, with large capital and every improvement in machinery.
The bed is easily mined, and the ores are of excellent quality. Thd
Three Rivers mines, on the River St. Maurice, have been many
years in operation, and at this time employ about 300 hands
The proprietor obtained a prize medal at the Great Exhibition.
The exports of this branch of Canadian industry, destined to
become so important, have been hitherto trifling. The magnetic
iron on Lake Superior and elsewhere has been recently examined
by scientific men from England, whose report is highly favorable,
and the general quality of the bar iron is said to equal the best
Swedish in toughness and ductility. Some of the iron from Lake
Superior has been pronounced superior to any in the world, its
ultimate tenacity being nearly 90,000 Ibs. to the square inch,
and that of the best Russian being only 79,000 Ibs.

If, however, Canada produces at the present moment but littje
iron, her consumption of it is very large. She manufactures railway
locomotives of the most approved construction, and every variety
of castings, with land and marine steam engines, and fittings for all
kinds of machinery. Her fire engines equal those of any other
country, and gained the first prize at the Great Exhibition. She
manufactures railway carriages and waggons ; and her pleasure
carriages are not surpassed, for elegance of design, durability, and
finish, by any in the world. She makes edge tools of every variety,

58 PRIZE ESSAY

and many of them are sought by the artisan and backwoodsman
in preference to those of European manufacture. Agricultural
machines and implements are extensively made in the Province ;
and Upper Canada stands almost unrivalled in the manufacture of
cooking and ornamental stoves. Even in printing types, and
stereotype plates, in philosophical and surgical instruments, and
in piano-fortes and other musical instruments, she competes most
creditably with other countries.

In cotton fabrics Canada has made but little progress, but in
woollen goods and mixed fabrics she is a large producer, and of a
quality so good as to have taken prizes at the New York and
London Exhibitions.

In the manufacture of furs, and other articles for which her
northern territory affords peculiar advantages, she is unrivalled ; and
the exquisite graining of her timber for cabinet work, especially
that of the black walnut, has lately created a great demand for it
in the European markets.

Passing over the less important manufactures, there remain the
grist and saw mills of the Province, which minister to the first
wants of the pioneer of the wilderness, and produce the staple
exports of the colony. Of the latter, especially those on the river
Ottawa and Saguenay, Canada has perhaps the largest in the
world. The returns of the Census of 1851, though very imperfect,
give 158 steam and 1473 mills worked by water-power, producing
772,612,770 feet of lumber per annum, exclusive of 4,590,000
planks. There were 1153 grist mills returned, of which 45 were
steam power, employing a capital of over £1,000,000. Several
counties, however, made no return ; and the statistics generally
bearing upon this important branch of industry and capital are
very imperfect in the public returns, the only sources of informa-
tion open to the writer.

ON CANADA. 59

TRADE AND COMMERCE.

The mercantile progress of Canada has been, at least, equal to
that of her population. Of this the trade and navigation returns
afford a striking confirmation.

In 1834 her imports amounted to £1,063,645, and her exports
to £1,018,922. It would be tedious to trace the progress of
the colony in these items, for they have naturally grown with her
growth. I will, therefore, deal with the present. The increase in
her commerce in one year, from 1852 to 1853, — the latest period
at which we have the Government returns, — was £5,047,159, or 57
per cent., the total value of imports and exports in 1853 being
£13,945,684 against £8,898,524 in 1852.

Of goods paying specific and ad valorem duties there were
imported in 1853 £7,995,359, and of free goods £443,977, the
largest items being those of cotton goods, £1,315,685; woollen,
£1,254,255 ; silk, £360,330 ; linen, £133,414 ; iron, manufactured
and unmanufactured, £1,385,626 ; tea,£390,105 ; sugar, £297,058^
and earthenware, £36,579; and of the whole she imported

From Great Britian £4,622,280 3 10

" B. N. A. Colonies 159,034 13 3

" the United States 2,945,536 1 7 0

" other foreign countries 268,507 7 0

The total imports divided among the whole population, as it stood
on the 1st January, 1854, give £3 14s. lOd. to each individual.
The imports of the United States for the same period give only
£2 7s. to each individual.

The exports of Canada in the year 1853 amounted to £5,950,325,
consisting of :

Produce of the mines, £27,339 3 2

" " sea, 85,000 13 8

" " forest, 2,355,255 2 2

Animals and their produce, 342,63 170

60 PRIZE ESSAY

Vegetable food, £1,995,094 15 0

Other agricultural products, 26,61 8 17 11

Manufactures, 35,106 9 0

Other articles, 15,823 11 3

to which must be added the value of ships built at Quebec,
£620,187 10s., and twenty per cent, to the inland ports, *£447,268,
5s. 5d.

The total exports divided into the whole population, on the 1st
January, 1854, gives £2 15s. to each individual. The exports of
the United States give £2 7s. 2d. per individual.

In six years the imports of Canada have quadrupled, and the
exports have increased in an equal ratio.

The total customs receipts of the United States, for the year
1849, (vide Boston Almanac for 1851,) amounted to $28,346,738,
exceeding but little over eleven times those of Canada, although
their population was more than fifteen times greater. The value
of their exports for the same year was $132,666,955, being but
thirteen times more than those of Canada.

The great importance to Great Britain of the British North
American trade, even over that to the United States, valuable as
the latter unquestionably is, may be gathered from the fact, that
she exported to the States, in 1853, to the value of £23,461,971,
being little over one pound to each individual, whilst her exports
to Canada were £4,922,280, being equivalent to £2 6s. 7£d. to
each inhabitant. It may be remarked that the Canadian tariff
contrasts most favorably with that of the United States, the duty
on all manufactured articles being considerably less. Canada's
whole consumption, at the United States' tariff, would cost her
£500,000 per annum more than she now pays.

* This addition has been made for years in the Trade and Navigation
Reports, it being found that the inland ports are undervalued.

ON CANADA. 61

Of the whole exports and imports of 1853, the value of
1,085,425 was conveyed by the way of the River St. Lawrence;
id the total amount of duties collected in that year was
51,028,676, being an increase of nearly five times in ten years.
In the year 1805, 146 vessels, with a tonnage of 25,136 tons,
rrived at Quebec. In 1854 there arrived at the same port
1315 vessels, with a tonnage of 580,323 tons. In addition to this
there were numerous vessels entered at the Ports of Amherst,
Gaspe, and New Carlisle. The coasting traffic, and that of the
inland waters, between Canada and the United States, employed,
of British ships, steam and sail, inwards and outwards, 4,951,313
tons, and of American vessels 2,518,999, or a total of 7,470,312
tons.

The ports of Canada take rank thus in the value of their
exports and imports in 1854: — In exports — Quebec, Montreal,
Toronto, Coaticook, Dalhousie, Kingston, St. Johns and Whitby.
In imports — Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Hamilton, Kingston,
Stamford, Prescott and Stanley. In exports Quebec has made
the largest absolute, and Toronto the largest relative advance.
In imports Montreal has made the largest advance absolutely,
and Hamilton relatively.

The importance of the trade of the St. Lawrence with other
countries should be estimated more by the nature of the commo-
dities exchanged than by their intrinsic value, as Canadian exports,
being largely made up of timber, require an immense bulk of
shipping, and consequently give employment to a great number
of the best sailors.

62

PRIZE ESSAY

REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.

In 1843 the revenue of Canada was £445,578, and its expendi-
ture £836,754. In 1853 the former amounted to £1,714,350, am
the latter to £834,668, giving a balance to the credit of the Con-
solidated Fund of £834,668, having increased four-fold in ten
years. Of the revenue £1,029,782 were derived from the custoi
£123,002 from public works, £93,770 territorial, and £15,(
casual revenue. Of the customs revenue the sum of £986,597 was
net, after deducting salaries and all other expenses.

The revenue for 1854 is estimated at £1,423,520, and the
expenditure at £939,595, or at the rate of 8s. 2d. for each inl
itant. The Boston Almanac gives the expenditure of the Unil
States at £12,939,876, which, divided into the population, makes
lls. Id. per individual, or thirty-seven per cent, higher than the
indirect taxes of Canada; but this includes 3,204,067 slaves, 01
nearly one-seventh of the whole population, who are not taxed ;
deducting these it would add fifteen per cent, per individual to
tax on the free inhabitants of the States.

From a table recently compiled in England it appears that
sum contributed by the inhabitants of Canada to the revenue is
considerably less than that contributed by any other British
Colony. The inhabitants of the Australian Colonies contribute two
pounds per head, the West India Islands one pound, and th<
other British North American Provinces ten shillings. Canada
contributes eight shillings and two pence.

From the expenditure of the Province about twenty per cent,
may, however, be fairly deducted, as it is given back to the several
counties for local purposes ; being for the support of common
schools, the administration of justice, the payment of the salaries
of public officers, and the grants to agricultural societies and me-
chanics' institutes, to both of which the Government is very liberal.

ON CANADA. 63

The only direct taxation in Canada is for municipal pur-
and this is returned many-fold to the inhabitants by the

mstruction of roads and bridges and other local expenditures,
which not only improve the means of communication, but mate-
rially add to the value of property. It may be also remarked that

iere are no paupers in Canada, and distress is rarely or ever seen,
save in the cities and large towns, arising too frequently from
intemperance, or from sickness or other misfortunes to the poorer
classes of emigrants.

It appears from the last Census Report of the United States, that
the sum of $2,954,806 was expended in 1851 for the relief of pau-
pers. The total expenditure on the poor in England and Ireland
in 1848 amounted to $42,750,000; and even this, added to a
large amount of private contributions, was insufficient to relieve
their wants.

The expense of the organized benevolent institutions in France,
in the same year, was 52,000,000 francs, and it is said that an
average of 450,000 persons are relieved annually. A report of
M. Duchatel, the Minister of Commerce, declares that 695,932
persons received alms at their own houses.

The Netherlands, with a population of 6,167,000, in the same
year, contributed to the support of 1,214,055 persons, or about
one-fifth of the entire population.

It would, therefore, appear that though Canada cannot boast of
the extreme wealth of older nations, she is wholly free from the
other extreme of pauperism and its painful and debasing concomi-
tants, ignorance, want, disease, and crime.

64 PRIZE ESSAY

BANKS, <fcc.

The monetary system of Canada is carried on by means of incor-
porated banks, and if proof were required of how wisely these
have been conducted, and how healthy the mercantile interests of
the colony are under them, the fact that for a period of nineteen
years there has not been a single bank failure, sufficiently affords
it. As a contrast to this, the American newspapers of last fall
advertised a list of 367 banks which had recently suspended pay-
ment, or whose notes were pronounced worthless. The late exten-
sion of the bank charters in Canada shews that the requirements
of the trade of the country are greatly increasing ; and without
venturing further remarks upon a subject which requires so much
more space than could be devoted to it here, a table is annexed,
shewing the present and prospective capitals of the principal banks
in the two Provinces :

Present Capital. Increase.

Montreal Bank £1,000,000 £500,000

Upper Canada Bank 500,000 500,000

City Bank 225,000 75,000

People's Bank 200,000 100,000

Quebec Bank 250,000 250,000

Bank of British North America 1,000,000

Commercial Bank 500,100 250,000

Or an increase of £1,675,000

All these banks have agencies in the principal towns of the
Province, in England, Ireland and Scotland, and in many of the
commercial cities of France, Germany, and Holland.

ON CANADA. 65

rDUCEMENTS TO EMIGRANTS —WAGES, PRICE OF LAND, &c.

The flow of emigration to Canada has been greatly impeded
the want of sound and practical information upon the Colony
in Great Britain. It is one of her nearest colonies, has a healthy
id bracing climate, a soil producing the finest crops, and land so
leap and easily attainable that every industrious person may,
a short time, become a freeholder. The man of limited means
can, in Canada, give his son an education second only to that of
an English university. There is the most perfect freedom in reli-
gious opinion; and there is not a neighbourhood without its
church, chapel, and school. Taxation, too, is about eighty -five per
cent, less than in Great Britain and Ireland.

To the industrial classes the points of greatest interest are the
rates of wages, the price of provisions, and the cost of voyage.
On these subjects recent Parliamentary papers, accompanied by
Reports of the Emigration Agents, contain much valuable and
reliable information. The number of emigrants who arrived
at Quebec in the six months from May to November, 1854,
was 36,699, and Mr. Buchanan, the Emigration Agent, reports
in December, that mechanics of all descriptions, labourers and
servants, were still in request. He adds : " the emigrants who
" arrived during the last quarter all found immediate employ-
" ment on landing, and a great scarcity of labour still exists
" on the public works. All those who went to the west were
" seldom more than a few hours unemployed after landing,
" and I have received applications from almost every section
" of the Province, complaining of the scarcity of female servants,
" and of this class several thousands could be absorbed annually
" in this Province."

The average rates of wages for Lower Canada have been 6s. per
day for bakers, butchers, brickmakers, carpenters, cabinet makers,

66 PRIZE ESSAY

and most other trades ; stone cutters received 7s., and bricklayers
and stone masons 7s. 6d. Agents from Upper Canada, and the
Western States, guaranteed steady employment for unskilled labour
at 6s. 3d., and bricklayers and stone masons from 10s. to 12s. 6d.
a day; farm labourers from 10 to 18 dollars per month.

In Upper Canada the mechanics and labourers are generally
lodged and boarded by their employers, and the table of a Cana-
dian farmer is sumptuousness itself, compared with the scanty fare
obtained by the labourers in the English agricultural districts.

At this time a large number of labourers and mechanics are
required for the numerous railways now in course of construction
in the country, and also for the lumber trade, — the Ottawa,
and other districts, offering great advantages to the settler in respect
to high wages and the cheapness of land, the poor man, in a very
short time, being able to become a prosperous freeholder. The
rate of wages given has, during the past year, in many instances,
been more than doubled, owing to the great demand for labour.
Female servants get from $4 to $6 per month. Land is as
easily obtainable in Canada as in any other British colony :
the Crown Lands may be purchased at from Is. to 4s. per acre
in Lower Canada, and in Upper Canada from 4s. to 20s. per acre,
the value being regulated by their situation. In the former the
purchase money is payable in five, and in the latter in ten, years.
The Government seldom sell less than 100 or more than 200 acres
to an individual, and these are, by a regulation of the Crown
Lands Department, for actual settlement. The town plots,
however, especially those possessing the advantages of water
power, are sold in small lots at from £10 to £15 per acre,
and the purchaser is required to give security for the erection
of such a saw and flour mill as will suffice for the wants of the
community. There are Crown Land Agents in every county, from
whom information and advice can be readily obtained.

ON CANADA. 67

Independently of public lands there are, it is supposed, above
,000,000 acres in the hands of private individuals, improved

id unimproved, and sold from 5s. and upwards per acre. Im-
>roved farms, according to their intrinsic value and the outlay in
louses, barns, stables, orchards, and fences upon them, are sold at

>m £2 to £20 per acre. Many private holders dispose of
their lands at a credit of twenty years, the tenant paying yearly
interest, with the power of completing his purchase at any time.
There is still another mode adopted by the Government in Lower
Canada, viz., that of allotting lands to individuals of twenty-one
years of age and upwards, to the extent of fifty acres without pur-
chase, on condition that they satisfy the commissioner, or his
agent, that they can support themselves until a crop can be raised.

The British American Land Company sell their lands in Lower
Canada at from 8s. to 12s. per acre, requiring interest only for the
first four years, and then allowing four years for the payment of the
principal : the emigrant thus gets 100 acres of land by an annual
payment of from £3 to £4 10s.

The Canada Company possess large tracts of land in various
parts of the Upper Province, but principally on the south-east
shore of Lake Huron. The price of their lands varies from 2s. to
£2 10s. per acre, increasing as the settler approaches the Huron
tract. Those who cannot purchase may lease these lands for ten
years, paying ordinary interest, with the right of converting their
leases into freehold at any time. Besides the valuable Huron tract
this Company possesses more than 300,000 acres of land in other
counties.

The assessed value of land in Upper Canada is wholly depen-
dent on the locality. In the wealthy Counties of York, Ontario
and Peel it is £3 18s. 6d. sterling per acre. In Northumberland
and Durham £3 3s. 5d. In Oxford and Norfolk £2 10s., and
the average of all occupied land is £3 per acre, including culti-
vated and uncultivated.

68 PRIZE ESSAY

There has been no assessment of Lower Canada, save in a few
districts and for school purposes, but according to the best estimate
it would be about £2 per acre for cultivated land.

It is, however, not to the laborer and mechanic alone that
Canada presents so many advantages, but to young men of edu-
cation and moderate means who now crowd the professions,
and to married men of small fortunes and large families, with
hardly the means of educating them well, and but a doubtful
prospect of providing for their future. To these the country affords
every inducement to emigrate, possessing as it does a magnificent soil
and climate, institutions similar to their own, a people universally
loyal, a high tone of intelligence, and ample provisions for educa-
tion, and the maintenance and diffusion of religious knowledge. It
is a matter of wonder why so many should struggle in poverty
elsewhere with the certainty of comfort and even affluence held
out to them in Canada.

The establishment of a direct line of steamers from Liverpool
to Quebec and Montreal, — alluded to more fully in speaking of
the St. Lawrence,— has been already beneficially felt in the increase
of cabin passengers, and these are now conveyed in first-class
screw steam vessels for 20 guineas, second-class for 13 guineas,
and third-class for 7 guineas.

The rates of steerage passage in sailing vessels, during the
season of 1854, were, from Liverpool, £4 to £5 sterling; from
Cork, £3 15s. to £4 5s. ; from Limerick, Gal way, and London-
derry, £3 5s. to £4 ; Dublin, £2 15s. to £3 10s., and Glasgow,
£3 10s. to £4 10s.

ON CANADA. 69

EDUCATION AND MORAL PROGRESS.

Having shewn the rapid advance of Canada in population, in
wealth, and in all the various arts which can minister to man's
material enjoyments, it seems right to consider whether equal
advances have been made in her moral condition and the general
tone of society. She can boast then, with truth, that while wealth
has been accumulated, and luxuries multiplied, she has faithfully
discharged the higher duties imposed upon her, of promoting with
unremitting care the progress of Religion and Education.

Of the social benefits to be derived by a nation, from the general
spread of intelligence, Canada has been fully aware ; and there
is not a child in the Province without the means of receiving
instruction combined with moral training. In fact, the system of
education now established in Canada far exceeds, in its compre-
hensive details, anything of the kind in Great Britain.

The manner in which this great question of elementary edu-
cation has been dealt with is worthy of attention, not only from
the results produced in the Colony, but from its general interest.
The gradation of the school system has been found superior to
the establishments in England and Scotland, the Normal and
Model Schools having been found of the greatest value. Speaking
of the spirit and unanimity of the people of Upper Canada upon
chis subject, the Reverend Dr. Ryerson, the Chief Superinten-
dent of Schools in Upper Canada, on the occasion of laying the
first stone of the Normal and Model Schools, said :

" There are four circumstances which encourage the most san-
" guine anticipation in regard to our educational future : The first
" is the avowed and entire absence of all party spirit in the school
" affairs of our country, from the Provincial Legislature down to
" the smallest Municipality. The second is the precedence which
" our Legislature has taken of all others on the western side of

70 PRIZE ESSAY

" the Atlantic, in providing for Normal School instruction, and in
" aiding teachers to avail themselves of its advantages. The
*' third is, that the people of Upper Canada have voluntarily
** taxed themselves for the salaries of teachers, in a larger sum
" in proportion to their numbers, and have kept open their schools
" on an average, more months than the neighboring citizens of
44 the great State of New York. The fourth is that the essential
" requisites of suitable and excellent text books have been intro-
" duced into our schools, and adopted almost by general accla-
" mation ; and that the facilities for furnishing all our schools with
" the necessary books, maps, and apparatus, will soon be in advance
" of those of any other country."

In 1842 the number of Common Schools in Upper Canada was
1721, attended by 65,978 pupils, and in 1853 the number had
increased to 3127 schools and 194,736 pupils. There are now, in
the Upper Province, in addition to the above, 8 Colleges, 79
County Grammar Schools, 174 Private and 3 Normal and Model
Schools, forming a total of educational establishments in operation
in Upper Canada of 3391, and of students and pupils 203,986.

A careful comparison of the school system of Upper Canada
with that of the adjacent States of the American Union, both in
regard to the number of schools, the scholars attending them, and
the amount paid for their support, shows that the colony has un-
questionably the advantage. Ohio, with a population largely
exceeding that of Western Canada, and with double the number
of schools, had less than two-thirds of the pupils attending them
in 1850, and paid £11,706 less for their support. Illinois, with
a population one-fourth greater, had, in 1848, 271 schools less;
and, in 1850, she had but one-third of the pupils, with 742 fewer
schools. In the State of New York, too, it is found that the sum
expended on education is three and one-fourth times less than that
spent on education in Upper Canada, taking population into
account.

ON CANADA. 71

i These facts serve to show the rapid progress that has been made
Western Canada in providing institutions for the education of
the people. The common school system of that Province, which
has so largely contributed to these results, cuts up every inhabited
township into small divisions somewhat resembling the squares
on a chess board. These divisions are designated " school
sections," and average an area of five square miles, each having
its elective corporation of trustees for its management, with a
library of standard literature for the general use of the school and
the inhabitants.

The school houses are generally well supplied with maps,
standard school books, geological specimens, philosophical appar-
atus, and other necessary educational appliances. In some sec-
tions the schools are free ; that is, they are open to all children
between the ages of five and sixteen, without charge. But in the
greater proportion, a tuition fee of a quarter of a dollar, or a
shilling sterling, a month, is charged ; and this is the highest
amount allowed to be imposed by law.

In these schools, — rarely not more than a mile and a-half from
the most remote of the settlers in the district, — the children
receive a sound and useful English education, quite adequate to
all the ordinary avocations of life. In some sections, however,
where the school fees already mentioned are paid, the higher
branches are taught, and masters of considerable attainments are
employed.

A large proportion of the teachers of the common schools in
Upper Canada are trained at the Normal Schools in Toronto, and
the funds for the payment of their salaries are derived from the
following sources : — First, a sum is appropriated by the Legisla-
ture from the general revenue, and this is exactly proportioned to
a sum the county — which is an aggregation of school districts —
may raise for the same purpose, — the Legislature thus measuring

72 PRIZE ESSAY

its liberality by the educational spirit of the people themselves.
The residue is made up of the quarter dollar tuition fees already
alluded to, and of any additional sum the inhabitants in each
section, at their annual school meetings, may determine upon, or
require.

In most of the schools in Upper Canada the Bible is read as a
school book. The Irish National Series are the books universally
used ; and no religious instruction of a denominational character
is permitted. Permission is granted to Roman Catholics by the
Legislature to have separate schools, — a privilege which has been
rarely exercised in rural districts, though not unfrequently in
cities and towns.

Under the existing laws the child of the poorest labourer, who
distinguishes himself as a successful competitor for a free scholar-
ship in a common school, has the advantage of attending one of
the county grammar schools. Here again he has open to him
another free scholarship in the highest educational institutions of
the country, if his merits entitle him to that distinction. Thus
an educational ladder has been erected by the Legislature, by
which the child of the humblest inhabitant may ascend to the
highest point of scholastic eminence, and with, at the same time,
the children of the wealthy and the most respectable in his
neighbourhood as his competitors.

As an evidence of the great desire that prevails in Upper
Canada generally to educate the masses, I may mention, that the
people have voluntarily taxed themselves, in a single year, upwards
of ten thousand pounds for school libraries, — a fact as creditable
to their intelligence as it is a substantial proof that they are
turning their great prosperity to a humane and generous account.
The amount given by the Government for educational purposes
in Upper Canada in 1853 was £55,512, and in Lower Canada
£45,823, making a total of £101,335. The whole amount available

ON CANADA. 73

for school purposes in Upper Canada, in that year, was £199,674,
and in Lower Canada £68,896, the aggregate sum raised in the
Upper Province being no less than £130,039, the whole amount
raised for educational purposes being an increase on any preceding
year of £23,598.

In Lower Canada there are 1556 school houses, 2352 schools in
operation, and 108,284 pupils, the whole Province possessing
5479 schools, attended by 303,020 students and pupils.

The Universities and Colleges in Upper Canada are conducted on
the English principle, and the chairs of the various departments
are filled by Professors selected from Cambridge, Oxford, Trinity
College Dublin, and the Continent.

The Seminaries of Quebec and Montreal are richly endowed, and
the grants to the former consist of more than a thousand square
miles of land, together with property in the city of immense value :
those of Montreal alone exceed ten thousand pounds a-year, and
the estates of the Jesuits, though greatly reduced, still produce
a very large revenue.

In the Province of Lower Canada there are numerous amply
endowed Nunneries, affording instruction to the young female po-
pulation ; and it is worthy of remark that the pupils are of every
creed and nation, are received without any distinction or partiality,
and wholly exempted from attending religious duties hostile to
their faith.

The Census of Great Britain gives the number of scholars attend-
ing public and private day schools, (including those attending
schools of which no return was obtainable, but assumed, on an
average, as in those making returns,) at 2,144,377, or a proportion
to the population of about one in eight and a-half. The Census of
Canada gives one in six and four-fifths.

F*

74 PRIZE ESSAY

KELIGION.

The most important subject that can suggest itself, in consid-
ering the state of a Christian nation, is its religion, and the influ-
ence it exercises on the people. On this foundation, as on
a rock, is ever built the permanent advancement of a country, — its
reputation and its happiness. And Canada may well thank those
noble hearts, who, pioneers in the wilderness, and struggling with
all its difficulties and dangers, maintained, with courage and
devotion, the faith and habits of their fathers.

All denominations and sects in Canada are marked by earnest-
ness and zeal in their religious duties. Clergymen often travel dis-
tances, and over roads which would utterly appal the residents of
cities and towns in England, to do duty, frequently two and three
times a day ; whilst the settlers in the more remote and poor districts
may be seen, winter or summer, wet or dry, walking ten and fifteen
miles to the place of worship. This is not unfrequently a barn, a
school house, or the largest room in the dwelling of a farmer.
The traveller through the back woods of Canada often recognises
the clergyman, not by the habiliments common to his calling, but
by the weather-beaten and mud-bespattered look of one who
travels far over the rough ways of the earth, to visit and to bring
consolation to the poor and the lowly. The most sublime sermon
the writer ever heard in his life he heard in the little Church in
the Village of Caledonia, on the Grand River, in Western Canada,
when the clergyman was dripping with rain, and bespattered with
mud, and when he had thirty miles to travel, and two services
more to perform, that day. And the same may be said of the
religious teachers of every creed in the country. All denomina-
tions being equally protected by the law, none having privileges
over others, there is happily a kindly and tolerant feeling subsist-
ing between them. As, indeed, there could be no more effectual

ON CANADA. 75

ly of destroying its influence with the people generally, than for
any denomination to exhibit a spirit of turbulence or intolerance,
discretion and Christian charity alike dictate moderation and
kindly feeling on the part of all.

Of the various religious denominations the recent Census affords
the most accurate information, but it must be remarked that the
ordinary laws of increase, which obtain in other countries, are,
especially in Canada West, wholly inapplicable. The tide of
emigration from other countries naturally exercises a material
influence on both the origins and religions of the population. The
table below, giving the numbers of the various creeds, shows the
following result : — Of the whole population,

One-half are " Roman Catholics," and of these the greater part are French
Canadians, the remainder being for the most part Irish or their descendants.
One-seventh are " Church of England."

One-eighth are " Methodists," and of these the Wesleyans form one-fifteenth
of the population.

One-tenth are "Presbyterians," one-twenty-fourth being of the Scotch
Church.

One-thirty-seventh are " Baptists."

The next are " Protestants," not classified, numbering 12,208
" Lutherans ," " 12,107

and " Congregationalists," " 11,674 •

The Church of England possesses 344 places of worship.
The Church of Rome "466 "

The Methodists " 455 "

The Presbyterians "245 "

The Baptists '* 136 '•«•••

The Congregationalists " 63 "

Besides the creeds classed in the Census of Canada, there were
many others unclassed, but with distinguishing names. The
total number of places of worship in Upper Canada was 1747,
and in Lower Canada 660, in the year 1851,

76

PRIZE ESSAY

TABLE OF RELIGIONS IN CANADA.

Canada
East,

Canada
West.

Total.

45402

223190

268592

4047

71540

75587

746866

167695

914561

267

79096

93385

29221

53512

82733

57 99

109040

114839

7

49636

49443

3442

8666

12108

All other Methodists,

11936

40514

52449

4498

45353

49846

18

12089

12107

3927

7747

11674

163

7460

7623

16

5726

5742

10

4093

4103

1369

663

2032

10475

1733

12208

2064

2064

Jews . »

848

103

451

8230

8230

TTnirersalists, r

3450

2684

6144

349

834

1183

12

247

259

Oreed not known,

390

6744

7134

If o creed given

4521

35740

42261

All other creeds not classed,

13834

7805

21639

Total population in 1851,

890261

952004

1842265

ON CANADA. 77

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION.

THE ST. LAWRENCE. — ITS THOUSAND ISLANDS AND RAPIDS. — THEIR NAVIGA-
TION.— THE MAGNITUDE OF THE CANALS AND LOCKS CONSTRUCTED TO AVOID THE
RAPIDS ON THE PASSAGE UP.— THE "WELLAND CANAL AS THE COMPLETING LINK
OF THE ENTIRE NAVIGATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. THIS RlVER CONSIDERED

AS THE GREAT OUTLET TO THE SEA FROM THE WEST AND NORTH-WEST. IlS

MAGNITUDE AND ADAPTATION TO THE COMMERCIAL WANTS OF THE VALLEYS AND

SLOPES IT WATERS. THE SAME CONTRASTED WITH THE ERIE CANAL, ITS RIVAL

FOR THE BUSINESS OF THE "WEST. — THE EfilE CANAL MADE LITTLE BY THJZ
PROGRESS OF AMERICA, AND ITS FUTURE STILL GREATER INEFFICIENCY CON-
SIDERED.— NEW ENTERPRISE OF THE CHICAGO MERCHANTS, AND OCEAN STEAM
NAVIGATION TO QUEBEC. — ITS EFFECT UPON THE PASSENGER TRADE TO AMERICA.
— THE ADVANTAGES OF TAKING THE QUEBEC ROUTE TO THE "WEST AND INTERIOR
OF AMERICA. — THE TWO THOUSAND MILES OF INTERIOR NAVIGATION BY THE ST.
LAWRENCE. — FEATURES OF INTEREST BY THE WAY. — RIVER PASSES THROUGH
THE VERY GARDEN OF AMERICA. — CHEAPNESS AND CONVENIENCE TO EMIGRANTS
OF TAKING IT. — THE DIFFICULTIES ATTENDING THE GULF NAVIGATION REMOVED. —

HOW LONG THE ST. LAWRENCE IS OPEN FOR NAVIGATION. — THE SAME CON-
TRASTED WITH THE ERIE CANAL AND HUDSON RIVER,

To appreciate the magnitude of the canals and their locks on
the St Lawrence, it is necessary to glance at the splendid river, of
whose nearly two thousand miles of navigation they form the com-
pleting links. Let me conduct the reader then to where the
steamer, destined to " shoot the rapids," first winds in amongst the
Thousand Islands. It is between Kingston and Brockville, and
usually just after sun-rise. The scene here, of a bright morning —
and mornings are seldom otherwise in Canada — is magnificent
beyond description. You pass close by, near enough often to
cast a pebble from the deck of the steamer upon them — cluster
after cluster of beautiful little circular islands, whose trees, per-
petually moistened by the river, have a most luxuriant and
exquisitely tinted foliage, their branches over-hanging the water.
Again you pass little winding passages and bays between the
islands, the trees on their margins interlacing above them, and
forming here and there natural bowers ; yet are the waters of these

78 PRIZE ESSAY

bays so deep that steamers of considerable size might pass under
the interlacing trees. Then opens up before you a magnificent
sheet of water, many miles wide, with a large island apparently in
the distance dividing it into two great rivers. But as you approach
this, you discover that it is but a group of small islands, the river
being divided into many parts, and looking like silver threads
thrown carelessly over a large green cloth. Your steamer
enters one of these bright passages, and you begin at length to
feel that in the multitude of ways there must be great danger ;
for your half embowered and winding river comes to an abrupt
termination four or five hundred yards in advance of you. But
as you are approaching at headlong speed the threatening rocks
in front, a channel suddenly opens upon your right: you are
whirled into it like the wind ; and the next second a magnificent
amphitheatre of lake opens out before you. This again is bound-
ed, to all appearance, by a dark green bank, but at your approach
the mass is moved as if in a Kaleidoscope, and lo a hundred
beautiful little islands make their appearance ! And such, for
seventy miles, and till you reach the rapids, is the seenejy which
you glide through.

It is impossible, even for those whose habits and occupations
naturally wean them from the pleasures derivable from such
scenery, to avoid feelings akin to poetry while winding through
the Thousand Islands. You feel, indeed, long after they have
been passed, as if you had been awakened out of a blissful dream.
Your memory brings up, again and again, the pictures of the
clusters of islands rising out of the clear cool water. You think
of the little bays and winding passages embowered in trees ; and,
recurring to the din, and dust, and heat, and strife of the city you
have left, or the city you are going to, you wish in your heart
that you had seen more of nature and less of business. These
may be but dreams— perhaps they are so,— but they are good and

ON CANADA. 79

ley are useful dreams ; for they break in, for the moment, upon
dull monotony of our all-absorbing selfishness ; they let in a
few rays of light upon the poetry and purity of sentiment which
seem likely to die of perpetual confinement in the dark prison
house of modern avarice.

The smaller rapids, and the first you arrive at, are the Galops,
Point Cardinal, and some others. The great rapids are the
Long Sault, the Coteau, the Cedars, the Cascades, and the
Lachine. The first of these is the most magnificent, the highest
waves rising in the lost, or north channel. The last is the most
dangerous, extensive, and difficult of navigation. The thrilling
and sublime excitement of " shooting them " is greatly heightened
by contrast. Before you reach them there is usually hardly a
breath of air stirring : everything is calm and quiet, and your
steamer glides as noiselessly and gently down the river as she
would down an ordinary canal. But suddenly a scene of wild
grandeur breaks upon you : waves are lashed into spray and
into breakers of a thousand forms by the dark rocks they are
dashed against in the headlong impetuosity of the river. Whirl-
pools,— narrow passages beset with rocks, — a storm-lashed sea, —
all mingle their sublime terrors in a single rapid. In an instant
you are in the midst of them ! Now passing with lightning speed
within a few yards of rocks, which, did your vessel but touch
them, would reduce her to an utter wreck before the sound of the
crash could die upon the air. Again, shooting forward like an
arrow towards a rocky island, which your bark avoids by a turn
almost as rapid as the movement of a bird. Then, from the crests
of great waves rushing down precipices, she is flung upon the
crests of others receding, and she trembles to her very keel from
the shock, and the spray is thrown far in upon her decks. Now
she enters a narrow channel, hemmed in by threatening rocks],
•with white breakers leaping over them ; yet she dashes through

80 PRIZE ESSAY

them in her lightning way, and spurns the countless whirlpools
beneath her. Forward is an absolute precipice of waters ; on
every side of it breakers, like pyramids, are thrown high into the air.
Where shall she go ? Ere the thought has come and gone, she
mounts the wall of wave and foam like a bird, and glorious, sub-
lime science, lands you a second afterwards upon the calm, unruf-
fled bosom of a gentle river! Such is "shooting the rapids."
But no words can convey a just idea of the thrilling excitement
that is felt during the few moments you take in passing over them.
It is one of the sublime experiences which can never be forgotten,
though never adequately described.

It is in the highest degree creditable to the naval skill and care
of the Canadians, that for the thirteen years the rapids have been
navigated by steamers, there has not an accident of any conse-
quence occurred, nor has a single life been lost. And the travel
down the St. Lawrence, — largely made up, as might naturally be
expected, of persons in search of health and pleasure, — has been
very great. For several years past two daily lines of large and
magnificent steamers, fitted up with saloons and state rooms abso-
lutely rivalling the gorgeous trappings of the best hotels in the
principal cities and towns in the States and in Canada, have been
navigating them, the one owned by United States people, and the
other by Canadians. One of the British or Royal Mail steamers
leaves Prescott every morning in time to "shoot the rapids"
during the day, and reach Montreal at six o'clock in the evening,
making the entire distance of 125 miles in about nine hours. The
American or United States steamer leaves Ogdensburgh, opposite
Prescott, at the same hour, and both boats thus " shoot the rapids"
in company. As the one leaves a rapid, the other usually enters \
it, and the passengers enjoy the double excitement and pleasure
of literally leaping over them themselves, and seeing another
steamer cresting their waves, and winding through their breakers
and rocks.

ON CANADA. 81

82 PRIZE ESSAT

The contemplation of these canals, as works of enterprise and
skill, naturally leads to their contemplation as works of utility
and enlarged public value. If the people who now occupy the
vast valley of the St. Lawrence, and the plains and slopes which
are less conveniently situated to other great channels of communi-
cation to the ocean, than to it, were to use it solely, would they be
acting wisely and well ? Or if the tens of thousands from Europe,
who annually seek this valley and these plains and slopes, with the,
view of occupying them, were to follow up this chain of navigation,
would they be doing the best they could for themselves ? These.
enquiries are of singular interest, and I shall devote all the space
to them that the limits of this essay, and the other important matters
treated of, permit.

The experiences of America in relation to public communica-
tions prove, beyond perhaps the experiences of any other part of
the world, the fact, that the speediest, cheapest, and most conve-
nient routes from one great source of business to another will in
the end be adopted. There is hardly a State in the American
Union which does not furnish more or less examples of the short-
sightedness of Legislatures in providing for the wants of the
future. Railroads have been projected and made, time and again,
to meet the wants of thousands. Before they were ten years in
operation millions required railroad facilities. Local interests and
local ignorance have almost everywhere caused roads to wind
round to one out-of-the-way place, or to take an unnatural route
to another. But the waves of population, directed by a higher
sagacity, moved in the direction of the rich lands and the fertile
country, and left the petty roads to be but a reproach to their
concoctors, or a burthen upon the people. As a general rule, a
really great work, something that American progress justified,—
no matter how it might have been underrated in the begin-
ning—has been certain to prevail in the end. Whilst what*

ON CANADA- 83

rer could be cast in the shade by bolder enterprises, or aimed at
loulding the interests and the business of millions to serve the
avaricious designs of thousands, has been certain of exposure and
equally certain of abandonment. As a curious consequence of
this, men who have linked their reputations to great enterprises in
America have not had to look to posterity to do them justice.
Progress anticipated the verdict of truth. Great public necessities
sprung up to vindicate their genius. Their fame became identified
with the good and the happiness of their own generation.

Measuring the St. Lawrence, then, as a highway to the ocean,
by the standard, that if it can be superseded by rapider, cheaper,
or more convenient routes, it cannot be successful, if it does not
fall into disuse, what are its future prospects 1

The first thing that strikes one, in contemplating it, is its
adaptation, in point of immensity, to the vast regions it waters.
Whilst the business necessities of the West, and those portions of
America which are universally admitted to be, both by their
relative position to other rivers and to it, its natural feeders, have
literally shamed the enterprises thafe were intended to provide for
them, its magnitude and its value are being but discovered by
the contrast. The Erie Canal, highly valuable as a work, and
successful beyond comparison, has been made little by progress.
The St. Lawrence, on the contrary, only requires enormous use to
test its greatness. It is impossible, indeed, to contemplate this
river, in connection with the canal which was made to rival it,
without being struck with the inadequacy of the one and the
amplitude of the other.

The valleys and plains watered by the St. Lawrence, being
largely in the United States, have chiefly contributed to the Erie
Canal's business. Their fruits were literally wooed away from their
natural channel to minister to its prosperity. The St. Lawrence,
in so far as American policy, and great restrictions upon commerce,

84 PRIZE ESSAY

could affect it, has been sacrificed to the Erie Canal. Nature's
outlet had navigation laws, which drove commerce away from it,
to contend against. The Erie Canal had all these disadvantages
to the river converted into so many advantages in its favor. Yet
the laws of progress, which have swept away the obnoxious navi-
gation restrictions, have, at the same time, established the failure
of the Erie Canal. Not that it is un prosperous as an enterprise,
nor that, as a local work, it is not unsurpassed as a speculation,
but that, for the great purposes of its construction, namely, to
convey to the ocean the fruits and productions of the West and
North-west, it is emphatically a failure, — because progress has
completely over-burthened it ; it is literally surfeited by its own
prosperity. And it matters not to him, — an individual, in such a
case, being the nation, — who has boards or flour to send eastward
by it, whether they are stopped by reason of starvation, or because
of a surfeit. The impediment to his business is the all-important
question with him. And though the Erie Canal paid larger
profits than any other work in the world, yet, in a national
point of view, if it afforded not adequate facilities for business,
or stopped it in its course, it might, by drawing to it what it could
not do, be the means of wide-spread evil, instead of general good.
And that this is, to a great extent, the present position of the Erie
Canal, is universally admitted.

To obviate these difficulties, enterprise has again undertaken to
swell its dimensions to meet the enormous demands of progress.
But in view of the vast regions which are common alike to it and
the St. Lawrence, and which are as yet but in the infancy of theii
population and business, is it not probable; nay, is it not certaii
judging by the past, that twenty years hence will find the Erie
Canal again choked up with business; again made little by progress ?
When the magnificent tracts of country embraced in Michigan,
Wisconsin, the northern portions of Ohio and Indiana, Illinoip,

ON CANADA. 85

Iowa, Minnesota, and the west and north-western portions of the
State of New York, which now wholly or largely use the Erie
Canal as a highway to the ocean, come to be settled up, and to
have, instead of some five or six millions of inhabitants, at least
eighteen or twenty, what mere canal, with its hundred locks, and
its hundred other impediments, will be equal to their vast business
necessities ? will be in keeping with their splendid progress ? will
satisfy their craving for rapidity, magnitude and commercial con-
venience ? Will not the Erie Canal then, enlarged though it be,
be but another added to the numerous examples in America, of
progress utterly distancing enterprise, and prosperity shaming the
calculations even of talent ?

Whether the commercial mind of the United States has so far
passed the rubicon of present practical results as to view the trade
and commerce of the West and North-west in this light, I know
not. But looking at the St. Lawrence in connection with the
regions which I have named — and of which it is the admitted
natural outlet to the ocean — it is impossible not to see that nature
has apportioned its magnitude to the necessities of the vast terri-
tories it waters, and which directly and naturally lead into
it. Nature indeed would seem to have said, through the experiences
of the last fifteen years, — " You have endeavoured to wean from
my highway the fruits of its own valleys and plains. But their
abundance has crushed beneath it every expedient of yours for
its removal. You may learn from this what must be the result
when these valleys and plains come to be fully occupied."

The problem, however, of the success of the St. Lawrence and
Welland Canals, and, necessarily, of the enlarged use of the inland
seas which they connect together, may be said to be now worked
out. The Welland Canal — the connecting navigable link between
Lakes Erie and Ontario — is, as its position indicates, perhaps the
most advantageously situated canal in the world, and is rapidly

86 PRIZE ESSAY

becoming one of the most profitable. Through it the entire pro-
ductions and minerals of the British possessions bordering on Lakes
Superior, Huron and Erie, have to pass on their way to the ocean.
Through it the produce, timber and minerals of the great West
and North-west, already alluded to, which either cannot be con-
veniently or profitably deposited upon the Erie Canal at Buffalo,
must likewise pass, on their way to tide water either by the St.
Lawrence, or by the Oswego Canal, or the Ogdensburgh Railroad
to New York or Boston. The annual Report of the State Engineer
of New York, transmitted to the Legislature of that State in
February, 1854, speaking of this trade, says : " The tonnage from
other states (Western,) shipped in 1852 at Oswego, amounted to
500,000 tons, the tolls on which are estimated to have been over
half a million dollars." And, as a reason for this, the same Report
shows that the cost of conveying a ton 'to New York by this route
was nine cents, or about six pence currency less than by way of
Buffalo, the advantage, of course, being attributable to the Welland
Canal. But the rapidity and certainty of the movements of the
propellers and steamers and other vessels engaged in this trade on
the lakes was even of far greater consequence than the saving.
Large cargoes, without transhipment or breaking bulk, were con-
veyed some two hundred miles nearer to tide water by taking
Oswego and Ogdensburgh than by way of Buffalo. And such
has been the effect of this trade, that Oswego is chiefly indebted
to it for its great commercial prosperity, and the Ogdensburgh
and Boston Railroad was constructed mainly with a view to
it. Thus, notwithstanding the operation of singularly restrictive
and crippling navigation laws, and the universal desire of the peo-
ple of the United States to foster their own enterprises, even at a
disadvantage, the Welland Canal has grown into appreciation and
use, and must eventually — as indeed is already partially the case
'—have one continuous awning of sails from Lake Erie to Lake
Ontario.

ON CANADA. 87

Its success, since 1849, is thus indicated in the last Report of
the Commissioner of the Board of Works of Canada :

»In 1849 the gross revenue from tolls amounted to £34,741 18 8

1850 do do 37,925 17 7

1851 do do 50,460 6 8

1852 do do 58,273 7 7

1853 do do 65,002 14 8£

If to this latter amount be added the sum of £1865 181,
being the amount of the Hydraulic Rents, the gross revenue

from this Canal for the year 1853 would be £66,868 12 9|

But it is between the St. Lawrence River and Canals, from the
Falls of Niagara to Montreal, and the Erie Canal, from Buffalo to
Albany, that the chief competition in trade now exists, and must
continue to arise. They run parallel. The business of the
great West and North-west must take either the one route or the
other, or both, to the ocean. What are their comparative advan-
tages then ? And how, with a clear stage, and free navigation to
the world, does the St. Lawrence measure lengths with its southern
rival ?

Like the great lakes, the first thing that strikes one, in consid-
ering the river, is its magnitude, and its adaptation to the burthens
nature intends should reach the ocean from the West. And when
a canal, no matter how capacious, with all its locks and its " dead
locks " — for it often has many of both, — its towages, its tolls, its
expenditure of labor in various ways, and its inevitable slowness,
is placed in competition with a river, in which the highest speed
by steam is attainable, the greatest possible room is enjoyed, the
largest vessels may be used, and there is neither let, hindrance,
nor delay in its entire navigation, the question of superiority would
seem to be decided by the contrast. The more minutely, too, the
relative facilities of both modes of communication are considered,
the more palpable appear the advantages of the one over the other.
For the canal, to meet its increase of business, requires an increase

88 PRIZE ESSAY

in the size of its locks ; and these, from the larger body of water
required to fill them, and the weight and size of their gates, occasion
delay, and the accumulation of boats at particular points, which, in
turn, delay each other. So that the very augmentation of business
becomes a drawback upon efficiency ; because time is not only lost,
but capital is rendered unproductive during the stoppages. And
when boats come to be counted by thousands, and their cargoes esti-
mated by millions, this rises into a vast consideration. The river,
on the contrary, as it increases its business, will acquire greater
facilities for doing it more rapidly and cheaply. For the fastest class
of vessels are sure to follow plenty to do, and improvements in the
navigation of a river are but the natural offspring of its success.
The results of several years' business on both these routes, —
although the St. Lawrence has labored under the great disadvan-
tage of being but partially employed, whilst the Erie Canal has
had as much, or more than it could do, — entirely bear out these
deductions.

For the last five years the average cost of conveying a ton of
railroad iron from Albany to Buffalo was six dollars and thirty-
two cents, or £l 11s. 7d. Canadian currency. For the purpose
of contrast with Canada, the American ton is raised to the standard
of the English, namely, to 2240 Ibs., and twenty per cent, is
allowed as the difference between railroad iron and ordinary
merchandise.

For two years past, or since railroad iron has been largely
imported by way of the St. Lawrence, the average cost of transport
from Quebec to Toronto and Hamilton, — a greater distance than
from New York to Buffalo, and requiring the passage of all the St.
Lawrence Canals round the Rapids, — was twenty shillings, or four
dollars ; from Quebec to Kingston and Cobourg it was seventeen
shillings and six pence, or three dollars and fifty cents ; from the
same port to Cleveland and Toledo, on Lake Erie, it was four

ON CANADA. 89

liars and fifty cents, or twenty-two shillings and six pence ; and
to Chicago and Milwaukie, it was six dollars and fifty cents, or
thirty-two shillings and six pence currency.

A still greater difference appears in the cost of transporting
produce downwards. The average cost, for five years past, of a
barrel of flour from Buffalo to Albany was fifty-four cents, or two
shillings and eight pence currency. The average cost from
Toronto to Montreal, an analogous distance, was thirty-two cents,
or one shilling and seven pence currency. The tolls alone on the
Erie Canal reached within a few cents of the entire cost of trans-
port by the St. Lawrence ; and had the business of the two routes
been at all equal, there is no doubt these tolls would have even
exceeded the St. Lawrence cost of transport.

But what is of greater consequence, especially to a people pro-
verbially impatient of delay, and never even satisfied with success,
unless it comes rapidly, is the time occupied in transporting the flour
to tide water. By the St. Lawrence it was three and a-half days,
and was conveyed in steamers and propellers carrying some 4000
barrels; whilst, on the Erie Canal, it was winding its way through
the locks and levels some fourteen days, and in comparatively
small quantities at that.

In view of these results it is not surprising that the Americans
should have shewn so great a desire for the free navigation of the
St. Lawrence. And as one of the early consequences of the res-
trictive and withering navigation laws being swept away from the
inland seas of America, I perceive that in the single article of
Indian corn, the importations at Montreal last fall exceeded those
of the entire previous year by 567,728 bushels, being 651,149
bushels in 1854 to 83,421 in 1853; and that in Buffalo the
decrease was proportionate. In Chicago, too, an enterprise,
the most comprehensive and important ever mooted in Western

90 PRIZE ESSAY

America, has been the result of the removal of the restrictions
upon commerce ; I mean the projection of a line of steamers to
run from that port, by the St. Lawrence, to London and Liverpool
direct, or indeed to any other part of the world where there is a
navigable sea. If this enterprise should turn out successful — and
there is no reason why it should not, although first attempts are
always liable to miscarriages — there is no computing what may be
its effects upon the navigation of the river. Or if, which
would be a more feasible enterprise still — because lake craft and
lake sailors are never perfectly adapted to the sea, — a line of pro-
pellers or steamers were built in Chicago, to run in connection
with the present line of steamers to Quebec, or with any other
line that might be established, a complete revolution would be
effected in the trade and commerce of the West. Milwaukie,
Cleveland and Toledo would follow the example of Chicago.
They would, in fact, if this enterprise should succeed, be forced
into the current that led to their own good fortune. Grain and
pork would then be shipped in the very centre of Western America
for the remotest parts of Europe ; and the goods and manufac-
tures of their consumers could be laid down at the thresholds of
their producers. Whilst the best class of emigrants, — always an
invaluable cargo, — might be taken up by these steamers, almost at
their own doors, and be conveyed to the very places they desired
to settle in, in the West, — an advantage that would be of the
highest importance to the emigrant, saving him from the incon-
veniences, delays and impositions which now too often attend his
journey westward.

What may be said in favor of the St. Lawrence, as an outlet from
the great West, may, for all purposes of business and settlement,
be urged for it as an inlet from the ocean. In its two thousand
miles of navigation inwards it waters valleys and slopes, in which

ON CANADA.

91

at least thirty millions of additional inhabitants might prosper
and enjoy all the comforts of life. The lands in its entire valley
are, for agricultural purposes, among the finest in the world. Cop-
per mines, unequalled in extent, are upon its very banks. Timber,
which cannot be exhausted in centuries, overshadows its waters,
and those of the many rivers which lead into it. To the emigrant
in search of a home I can fancy no route in America equal to it.
It is a vast map of all he wants to see and to know, reduced to
a reality. To the capitalist, the tourist, the pleasure-seeker, and
the man of science, its magnitude and its grandeur invest it with
singular attractions. There is not perhaps in the world two thou-
sand miles of navigation which afford so many objects of interest
to the poor man, or so many subjects of pleasurable contemplation
to the good one, as the St. Lawrence and the Lakes from the Gulf
to the City of Chicago.

Such advantages, however, are rarely or ever conferred by nature
without their being coupled with what both taxes skill, and calls
for the exercise of energy and judgment. It is so with the navi-
gation of the St. Lawrence. In former years the employment of a
wretched class of vessels — for anything was thought good enough
to carry timber which could not sink — was attended with a more
than ordinary amount of disasters. Pictures of difficult and dan-
gerous navigation were found, in these cases, much more profitable
than accurate descriptions of ill-constructed, ill-managed, and
unseaworthy ships. The consequence was, that the underwriters and
the navigation both suffered together. But of late years very fine
vessels have been employed in this trade ; and skill in navigation,
as in everything else, is made the companion of valuable property.
The Montreal traders, therefore, — which are now but a fair aver-
age of the ships employed — are among the most fortunate and
successful vessels in the world, although they rarely or ever miss
making two trips a season, and are the first ships out in the spring.

92 PRIZE ESSAY

The same enterprise, too, which projected and completed the
splendid locks on the St. Lawrence has extended down into the gulf,
and light houses here and there make it look like a sort of navi-
gable street lit with lamps.

The Legislature, too, has made provision for tug boats upon a
large scale, and for piers and harbours of refuge. These enter-
prises and improvements, but more than all, good ships and skilful
navigators, have had the effect of reducing the rates of insurance
upon Quebec traders, during the average season of navigation, as
low as upon ships from New York or Boston, and lower than those
in the Mississippi trade.

There is but another matter to allude to before concluding the
contrast between the two great northern outlets to the ocean, the
Erie Canal and Hudson River, and the St. Lawrence ; that is,
the time they are closed up by the ice. This may, however, be
dismissed in few words. The Erie Canal is opened at Buffalo on
the first of May. The St. Lawrence, for an average of twenty-five
years, has been clear of ice on the twenty-ninth of April ; and the
average arrival of the first ships from sea, for the same period, was
the first of May. Of late years, especially since the repeal of the
navigation laws has induced greater competition, ships have left
in numbers larger or certainly quite as large in the middle of
November as about the first ; and in some seasons they have left
as late as the twentieth, and even up to, and after, the 1st of Decem-
ber. But the Erie Canal, being a shallow and a small body of
water, freezes much sooner than a great and rapid river, and it is
wholly unavailable as a means of communication after a severe
frost, which often occurs in the middle of November. In such an
event, too, immense inconvenience and losses are suffered, through
whole fleets of boats being frozen in on their way westward with
merchandise, and usually an equal number on their way eastward
with produce and lumber. So that, for all purposes of reliable and

ON CANADA.

93

profitable commerce, the St. Lawrence has by no means a shorter,
if it has not in fact a longer, season. And if the statistics of losses,
on account of the vast property that is often locked up on the
Erie Canal by the boats being frozen in, could be got at, they
would exhibit an amount utterly astounding to those unacquainted
with the business. Without vauntingly claiming an advantage
for the St. Lawrence, it would certainly be doing nature's grandest
outlet to the ocean an injustice, to admit that it suffered in the
slightest degree by a comparison with the Erie Canal in the time
it may be used.

From these observations the emigrant or the capitalist, on his
way to the west, may form an idea as to his best route. From the
circumstance of continuous water communication, the St. Law-
rence has the advantage in cheapness, whilst the United States
routes, being partly by rail, have the advantage in speed. By the St.
Lawrence route the emigrant's baggage costs him nothing ; and
the steamer or propeller, which he takes at Quebec or Montreal,
often conveys him the entire distance to Chicago or other ports
without removal. He thus avoids the expense, harrassments and
privations incident to being cast forth with his children and his
effects upon wharves and quays, and at railway stations, where
exposure subjects his family to disease, and every removal of them
and his effects is attended with cost, and not unfrequently with
exactions and frauds. The fare by the New York and Boston
routes to Chicago is fixed, to emigrants, at eleven dollars, or forty-
four shillings sterling, with two dollars and fifty cents extra for every
one hundred pounds weight of baggage. By Cincinnati it is ten
dollars, or forty shillings sterling, with the same charge for baggage,
where the emigrant travels by rail. By the St. Lawrence route it
is eight dollars, or thirty-two shillings sterling ; and the charges
are proportionate to intermediate ports, such as to Cleveland or
Toledo, on Lake Erie in the States, or to Toronto or Hamilton in

94 PRIZE ESSAY

Canada. I subjoin, in a note,* the excellent instructions of Mr.
Buchanan, the Emigrant Agent at Quebec, to the settler. They
are at once reliable and valuable.

*FoR THE INFORMATION OF EMIGRANTS. — Passengers are particularly
cautioned not to part with their Ship Ticket. There is nothing of more
importance to- emigrants, on arrival at Quebec, than correct information on
the leading points connected with their future pursuits. Many, especially
single females, and unprotected persons in general, have suffered much from
a want of caution, and from listening to the opinions of interested and
designing characters who frequently offer their advice unsolicited. To
guard emigrants from falling into such errors, they should, immediately on
their arrival at Quebec, proceed to the OFFICE OF THE CHIEF AGENT FOR
EMIGRANTS, where persons desirous of proceeding to any part of Canada
will receive every information relative to the lands open for settlement,
routes, distances, and expenses of conveyance ; where also laborers,
artisans, or mechanics, will be furnished, on application, with the best
directions in respect to employment, the places at which it is to be had,
and the rates of wages.

Emigrants should avoid as much as possible drinking the water of the
River St. Lawrence, which has a strong tendency to produce bowel com-
plaints in strangers. They should also be careful to avoid exposure to th«
intense heat of the sun by day, and the dews and noxious vapours of night.
And when in want of any advice or direction they should^ apply at once to
the Government Emigration Agents who will give every information
required gratis.

Emigrants are entitled by law to remain on board the ship 48 hours
after arrival ; nor can they be deprived of any of their usual accomodations
and berthing during that period, and the Master of the ship is bound to
disembark them and their baggage free of expense, at the usual landing-
place, and at reasonable hours, as may be seen by the following extract
from the Provincial Passenger Act :

NOTICE TO CAPTAINS OF PASSENGER VESSELS. — " And whereas incon-
venience and expense are occasioned by the practice of Masters of ships
carrying passengers, anchoring at great distances from the usual landing-
places in the Port of Quebec, and landing their passengers at unreasonable
hours: Be it therefore enacted, That all Masters of ships having passen-
gers on board shall be held and they are hereby required to land their passen-
gers and their baggage free of expense to the ship passengers, at the usual
public landing-places in the said Port of Quefie/5, and at reasonable hours,
not earlier than six of the clock in the morning, and not later than FOUR
OF THE CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON, and such ships shall, for the purpose of
landing their passengers and baggage, be anchored within the following
limits in the said Port, to wit : The whole space of the River St Lawrence,

ON CANADA.

95

The ocean line of steamers to Quebec, and to which the Canadian
Government has behaved with a liberality worthy of the enterprise,
is likely to produce a great change in the passenger trade to

from the mouth of the River St. Charles to a line drawn across the said
River St. Lawrence, from the Flag-staff on the Citadel on Cape Diamond,
at right angles to the course of the said river, under a penalty of ten
pounds currency for any offence against the provisions of this section."

Any offence against this section will he rigidly enforced.

GOVERNMENT EMIGRATION OFFICERS. — At Montreal, Mr. A. Conlan, Sub-
Agent ; at Toronto, Mr. A. B. Hawke, Chief Agent for Western Canada ;
at Hamilton, Mr. Willen Frehauf, who will furnish emigrants, on applica-
tion, with advice as to the routes, distances and rates of conveyance, also
respecting the Crown and other lands for sale, and will direct emigrants
in want of employment to where it may be procured.

A large number of laborers and mechanics are now required on the
several railroads in course of construction in this Province:

Laborers 4s. 6d. to $1 ?_.__,.„_

Mechanics 7s. 6d. to $2 J Per aa*'

DOMESTIC SERVANTS.

Housemaids 15s. to 20s. ) ,,

Cooks 25s. toSOs. fPermonth'

Emigrants should remain about the towns as short a time as possible after
arrival. By their proceeding at once into the agricultural districts, they
will be certain of meeting with employment more suitable to their habits :
those with families will also more easily procure the necessaries of life, and
avoid the hardships and distress which are experienced by a large portion
of the poor inhabitants in the large cities, during the winter season. The
Chief Agent will consider such persons as may loiter about the ports of
landing to have no further claims on the protection of Her Majesty's Agents,
unless they have been detained by sickness or some other satisfactory cause.

WILD LANDS AND CLEARED FARMS. — Emigrants desirous of purchasing
wild lands or homesteads, will be furnished at this Office with every infor-
mation regarding the prices of lands in the different districts, the names
of the Agents, as also other parties offering improved farms for sale, <fec., &c.

EASTERN TOWNSHIPS. — Emigrants proceeding to the EASTERN TOWNSHIPS,
especially the populous and nourishing villages, Drummondville, Kingsey,
Shipton, and Melbourne, and the county-town of Sherbrooke, will proceed
by the regular steamer to Montreal, and thence by the St. Lawrence and
Atlantic Railroad from Longueuil to Sherbrooke, 103 miles. This district,
for its healthfulness, cheapness of land, facility of access, and manufac-
turing, agricultural and commercial capabilities, is particularly deserving
of the notice of emigrants of every class ; and where there is a constant
demand for mechanics and laborers of every description, especially farm-
servants.

96 PRIZE ESSAT

America. Should a line of steamers or propellers be established
to run in connection with them from the Western States, emigrants
might purchase tickets in the very heart of Europe, which would
take them two thousand miles into the interior of America, with but
a single transhipment, and with no greater inconvenience than
might attend their journey from their homes to the ports of

Mr. S. M. Taylor, the Agent of the British American Land Company,
Montreal, will furnish intending settlers with full information, and to whom
emigrants proceeding to this section of the Province are recommended to
apply.

BYTQWN AND THE OTTAWA RIVER SETTLEMENTS : — To emigrants requiring
employment, or seeking locations for settlement.

Owing to the diversion of the route of emigrants proceeding to the West
from the Ottawa and Rideau Canal route to that of the St. Lawrence, but a
few emigrants have proceeded during late years to that section of the
country : consequently, laborers are now much wanted, and the rates of
wages have consequently increased.

The lumber trade of the Ottawa annually requires from 25,000 to 30,000
men ; is now, owing to the increased demand for that great staple of the
country, about to be much extended ; and as almost all those who transact
this business are largely engaged in farming, a most favorable opportunity
is now offered to emigrants to proceed to that section of the country : good,
active men will get, the first year, from £2 to £3 per month, with their
board ; and, after they have become acquainted with the work of the coun-
try, and acquired the necessary skill, they will be competent to earn the
highest wages, from £3 10s. to £4 per month, or from £35 to £40 per
annum.

Crown lands, and those belonging to private individuals, can be obtained
on more reasonable terms than in any other section of the Province ; and
farmers receive the highest cash prices for all the surplus produce they
may have to dispose of.

Route from Montreal to By town, by steamer, daily, 129 miles; By town
to Aylmer, by land, 9 miles ; Aylmer to Sand Point, by steamer, 45 miles ;
Sand Point to Castleford, by steamer, 8 miles ; Castleford to Portage-du-
Fort, 9 miles ; Portage-du-Fort to Pembroke, by land and water, 33 miles.

ROUTES, DISTANCES, AND RATES OF PASSAGE.— From Quebec to Montreal,
180 miles, by steamers, every day at 5 o'clock, through in 14 hours.

Steerage. Cabin.

Stg. Cy. Stg. Cy.

By the Royal Mail Packets, 3s Od 3s 9d 14s 1 7s 6d

ByTait'sLine . 3s Od 3s 9d 10s 12s 6d

ON CANADA.

97

departure. To the better class of emigrants it would be a con-
venience and advantage almost inestimable. The poor, who might
be able to avail themselves of it, would be saved a thousand pri-
vations and difficulties, arising from their not knowing what to do,
or where to go when they are deposited on a wharf a thousand miles
from their place of destination, and when they are either ignorant
or deceived as to the cost of a journey to the West.

FROM MONTREAL TO WESTERN CANADA. — Daily, by the Royal Mail Line
steamer, at 9 o'clock, A. M., or by railroad to Lachine, at 12 o'clock.

From Montreal to
Cornwall

Distance.
Miles

78

Deck

Stg.

fare.

Cy-

Cabin

Stg.

fare.
Cy.

5s
6s
8s
12s

14s

16*

24s
32s

6s 3d
7s 6d
10s Od
15s Od

17s 6d

20s Od

80s Od
40s Od

11s

14s

20s
28s

34s

36s

56s

80s

13s 9d
17s 6d
25s Od
35s Od

42s 6d

45s Od

$14

$20

Prescott

. 127 )

. 139 f

Kingston

189

Cobourg

292 )

Port Hope

298 ('

Bond Head

313 )

317 i.

Whitby

337 )

367 [•

Hamilton

410 )

Detroit

596

Chicago

874

Passengers by this line tranship at Kingston to the lake steamers, and
at Toronto for Buffalo.

Daily by the American Line Steamer, at 1 o'clock, A. M.

From Montreal to

Miles.
138

Deck

Stg.

fare.
Cy.

Cabin
Stg.

fare

Cy.

6s
Ss
12s
14s

16s

20s
26s

28s
28s

7s 6d
10s Od
15s Od
17s 6d

20s Od

25s Od
32s 6d
35s Od
35s Od

14s
20s
24s
26s
80s
34s
38s

17s 6d
25s Od
80s Od
32s 6d
37s 6d
42s 6d
47s 6d

190

Sacket's Harbour

...... 242

286

. 349 )

, . 436 f

Buffalo

467

Cleveland .

661

721

Toledo and Munroe

975

Passengers by this line tranship at Ogdensburgh to the lake steamers for
Oewego and Lewiston.

The passengers for both lines embark at the Canal Basin, Montreal.
Steerage passage from Quebec to Hamilton, 23s 9d

" " " « Buffalo, 28s 9d

98

PRIZE ESSAY

RAILROADS.
GREAT ENTERPRISE OF CANADA IN RELATION TO RAILROADS. — IMPORTANCE

OF THESE ROADS, NOT ONLY TO CANADA, BUT TO ALL AMERICA. THEIR

EXTENT, ROUTES AND MODE OF CONSTRUCTION, <fec.

The Canadian Government has adopted broad and comprehen-
sive views in promoting railway communication ; and the extension
of public aid to these enterprises has been, though liberally, wis
dispensed. The advances have been limited to one-half the amoui
actually expended on the works, and the whole stock and resources
of the railways are pledged for the ultimate redemption of these
advances, and for interest upon them in the meantime.

Of these undertakings the Grand Trunk Railway is the most
extensive, and will, when completed, be one of the largest rail-
ways in the world. In length it will extend 1112 miles, with a

FROM HAMILTON TO THE WESTERN STATES, BY THE GREAT WESTERN
RAILROAD. — The new short route to the West.— Trains leave Hamilton daily
for Detroit, connecting at that city -with the Michigan Central Railroad for
Chicago.

To Dundas

Distance.
Miles.

6

EMIG
TR;

Stg.

RANT

UN.

Cy.

FIRST
TR

Stg.

CLASS

UN.

Cy.

Os 6d
K

2s Od
3s Od
3s 6d
4s 9d
6s Od
7s Od

8s Od
16s Od

Os 7id

2s 6d
3s 9d
4s4£d
6s Od
7s 6d
8s 9d

10s Od
20s Od

Is Od

3s 8d
5s Od
7s Od
9s Od
14s Od

20s Od
44s Od

Is 3d

4s 6d
6s 3d
Ss 9d
13s 8d

17s 6d
«

25s Od
55s Od

9

Paris

20

Woodstock. ..t

48

Ingersoll

. 47

76

Eckford

96

Chatham

140

... ) .

Detroit, Michigan

j- 186

Chicago, Illinois

465

Steamers leave Chicago daily for Milwaukie and all other ports on Lake
Michigan.

Emigrants on arriving at Chicago, if proceeding further, will, on appli-
cation to Mr. H. J. Spalding, Agent of the Michigan Central Railroad
Company, receive correct advice and direction as to route.

Passengers for the western parts of the United States of New York,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, must take the route via Buffalo.

ON CANADA.

99

uniform guage of five feet six inches. The entire capital of the
Company is £9,500,000, and of this £8,084,600 were subscribed in
London within the year 1 853. Its influence on the course of trade
from the great West to the ocean will be great and lasting. It
has already diverted a large portion of the trade which previously
flowed through other channels in the United States, and its receipts,
in the second year of its existence, were as great as those of the
Great Western Railway of Massachusetts after it had been five years
in operation, the cost of the two being nearly equal. It should be

OTTAWA RIVER AND RIDEAU CANAL. — From Montreal to Bytown and
places on tlie Rideau Canal, by steam, every evening. By Robertson, Jones
<fe Co.'s Line.

From Montreal to

JJista
Mile

54
66
73
129

1^,1571
gl75
*100
0 199
g216
.'2226
05 258

nee.

s.

Deck P
Stg.

issengers.
Cy.

2s
3s
3s

4s

6s

2s 6d
3s 9d
3s 9d
5s Od

7s 6d

Kemptville .

Merrickville

Smith's Falls

Oliver's Ferry -|

Jones' Falls

Kingston

Passengers proceeding to Perth, Lanark, or any of the adjoining settle-
ments, should land at Oliver's Ferry, 7 miles from Perth.

Freight steamers leave Montreal daily for Kingston, Toronto, and Ham-
ilton.

Passage to Kingston 4s. Stg. 5s. Cy.

Toronto and Hamilton 8s. " 10s. "

Throughout these passages, children under 12 years of age are charged
half price, and those under 3 years are free.

Passengers by steamers from Quebec to Hamilton — Luggage free ; if by
railroads, 100 Ibs. is allowed to each passenger, all over that quantity will
be charged.

The Gold Sovereign is at present worth 24s. 4d. Cy. ; the English Shilling
Is. 3d. ; and the English Crown-piece 6s. Id.
§9ir" Through Tickets can be obtained on application to this office.

A. C. BUCHANAN, Chief Agent
EMIGRATION DEPARTMENT,

Quebec, August, 1854.

100 PBIZE ESSAY

taken into account, too, that the American Railway, extending from
Boston to Albany, embraces a district far in advance of the Canadian
line in population.

Three hundred and ninety-two miles of this line are already
opened : 292 miles from Portland to Montreal, and 100 miles from
Quebec to Richmond. In the autumn of the present year the
contractors are bound to complete 295 miles more, and in the
following year 168 miles.

When finished this railway will present an uninterrupted line
from Portland to Michigan, and the distance by this route is fifty
miles less than from New York, has a uniform guage throughout,
and will probably be much the cheapest route.

There is another projected railway now under contract, which
may properly be called a continuation of the Grand Trunk Railway.
It commences at the point where the latter terminates at Fort
Huron, crosses the peninsula of Northern Michigan to Grand
Haven on Lake Michigan, thence there is a steamer to Milwaukie,
and thence a railway to Prairie du Chien. From Portland to this
point the distance throughout is only 1200 miles ; and, with the
magnificent water communication of the St. Lawrence and the
great lakes, must attract through Canada a large portion of the
immigration into the Western States.

Connected with this railway there is a work which, for boldness
of design and difficulty of execution, is perhaps unequalled in the
world, — the tubular bridge now in course of construction across
the River St. Lawrence at Montreal. It is thrown across a navi-
gable river two miles in width, at a spot where its course is inter-
rupted by rapids, and where it is exposed every year to immense
masses of ice, which are dashed against it by the impetuosity of
the current. It will, when completed, be one of the wonders
of the world, and is another added to the splendid conceptions
of Mr. Robert Stevenson, the first Engineer of the age. The
contract for this bridge is £1,400,000.

ON CANADA. 101

Next in importance to the Grand Trunk is the " Great
Western " Railway of Canada. It runs from Windsor, on the Can-
adian side of the Detroit River, opposite the city of that name,
to Niagara Falls, where it is connected by a gigantic suspension
bridge thrown across the Niagara River two miles below the falls,
with the system of railways in the State of New York, which run
from Lake Ontario to the " tide water" of the Hudson River. It,
is, apart from its branch lines, about 250 miles in length, and has
enjoyed a success scarcely paralleled in the railroad history of
America. For the month of April, 1854, its receipts were £26,735.
For the corresponding month in 1855 its receipts rose to £57,684,
showing an increase of nearly 120 per cent. And whilst this
immense increase was taking place in its traffic, large quantities
of produce and merchandize were accumulating at both ends of it,
its inability to convey them. Passing through the very garden
of Upper Canada, and being the connecting link between the Great
Michigan Central Railroad, and the New York Roads which ter-
minate at the Niagara River, its success was never problematical ;
and, now that the difficulties incident to getting into complete ope-
ration an undertaking of such magnitude in a new country, are
passed, its future prosperity must be even greater than its past. In
connection with it is a railway from Hamilton to Toronto, to be
opened early next year, connecting at the latter place, at a station
common to the three, with the Grand Trunk line, and the " Onta-
rio, Simcoe and Huron Railway." The latter traverses the country
from Toronto north to the Georgian Bay, a distance of 96 miles.

There are other numerous feeders running north and south into
the great arterial system that extends from east to west throughout
the entire extent of the Province. Commencing from the east,
there is the " Montreal and By town Railway," which, with the
Ottawa River, will convey to European markets the produce of a
basin 80,000 square miles in extent, abounding in forests of the

fr:

102 PRIZE ESSAY

finest timber, with rich land, and great mineral wealth. This
is 130 miles in length, and a portion of it is already in operation.

Twenty-five miles west of Montreal the Grand Trunk Railway
crosses the Ottawa River by a bridge second only to the Victoria
Bridge in extent and grandeur ; and immediately to the west of this
a line is contemplated from the City of Ottawa to Lake Huron.

One hundred and twelve miles west of Montreal the Prescott
and Ottawa Railway, 50 miles in length, is now in operation.

Thirteen miles west of this the Brockville and Ottawa Railway
falls into the Grand Trunk, 130 miles in length, and is now in
course of construction.

One hundred and forty miles west of Brockville, at Cobourg —
a very important town on Lake Ontario, — the " Cobourg and
Peterborough Railway," now in operation, is developing the
wealth of one of the finest districts in the Province.

Seven miles to the west of Cobourg the railway from " Port
Hope" to " Lindsay," in length 36 miles, is now progressing, and
will open a back country of great value.

The most westerly line in Canada, open for traffic, having a north
and south direction, is the " Buffalo, Brantford, and Goderich Rail-
way," connecting Buffalo and the State of New York with Lake
Huron at Goderich by a line 160 miles in length. This road saves,
as compared with the water route by Lake Erie and the Rivers
Detroit and St. Clair, fully 400 miles. At Stratford, ninety miles
west of Toronto, this railway crosses the Grand Trunk line, and at
this point divides the traffic flowing from Lakes Huron and Supe-
rior. Eighty miles of this line are already in operation, and forty
miles more will be opened immediately.

A most picturesque and curiously constructed railway, called
the " Erie and Ontario Railway," seventeen miles in length, runs
along the River Niagara from Chippewa to the town of Niagara,
descending some 300 feet in a distance of four or five miles.

ON CANADA.

103

From the city of London to Port Stanley, on Lake Erie, a rail-
way is now in progress, and will be completed in the present year.

Of the "St. Lawrence and Champlain " and the "Montreal and
New York," which have long been in operation, and of many
other railways sanctioned by the Government, and which will
shortly be constructed, it is impossible to give any detail. The
amount already expended upon the several railways alluded to
exceeds £11,000,000 sterling, or $54,000,000 ; and at the close of
1856 Canada will have 2000 miles of fully equipped railways,
which will cost at least £18,000,000 sterling.

The railways of Canada are constructed on the most approved
engineering principles, and they are pronounced by Sir Cusack
Roney to be equal to any railways in Europe, and superior to any
other on the American continent, their average cost being about
£8000 sterling per mile. On all these lines the works are of the
most solid and durable character, and the Chaudiere tubular
bridge, nine miles from Quebec — the first of its kind erected on
this side the Atlantic, — is described, by one of the first American
engineers " to be of such excellence as to attract the attention
of scientific men."

THE MUNICIPAL SYSTEM OF UPPER CANADA.

Western Canada feels justly proud of her municipal system. In
no part of the world, perhaps, are there institutions, of a similar
kind, so admirably adapted to the wants, the intelligence, nay, to
the very genius of the people. They are in short the philosophy
of their self-reliance reduced to simple by-laws. They are the
people's common sense embodied in municipal regulations. They
are a wise admission, too, that the property the people themselves
create they should know how to manage ; that the country they

104 PRIZE ESSAY

have won from a wilderness, and which is marked with the noblest
achievements of their industry and their fortitude, they will not
recklessly run into debt, or foolishly involve in difficulties.

The first rural, or district municipalities, were established in
Upper Canada in 1841. But prior to 1849 cities and towns
were incorporated by special Acts of Parliament, at the instance of
the municipalities interested. The powers granted to these latter
corporations were by no means uniform, some having privileges
not granted to others, and others again having powers which over-
rode the very Legislature which created them. Jealousy and con-
fusion was the natural result. No lawyer could give an opinion
upon the rights of an individual in a single corporation, without
following the original Act through the thousand sinuosities of Par-
liamentary amendments ; and no capitalist at a distance could
credit a city or town without a particular and definite acquaint-
ance with its individual history.

The statute of 12 Vic., cap. 80, however, swept from the
country all these incongruous and inconsistent corporations. And
an Act, 12 Vic., cap. 81, provided by one general law, "for
the erection of municipal corporations, and the establishment of
regulations of police, in and for the several counties, cities, towns,
townships and villages in Upper Canada."

The powers invested in these corporations are exercised through
the medium of Councillors, Reeves, and Aldermen, who are the
representatives of the people ; and the various municipalities are
thus classed : 1st, Townships ; 2nd, Counties ; 3rd, Police Vil-
lages ; 4th, Incorporated Villages ; 5th, Towns ; 6th, Cities. Each
of these has some powers and privileges in common with the rest,
but the cities have some peculiar to themselves, and so of the
towns, villages, townships, and counties.

Townships having less than 500 freeholders and householders —
these being all eligible to vote — are entitled to five Councillors.

ON CANADA.

105

These elect from among themselves their Chairman or presiding
officer. He is called the Town Reeve. If the township have 500
or more freeholders and householders it is entitled to an additional
Councillor, who is called the Deputy Reeve. If it has a 1000 or
more it is entitled to another Town Reeve. The qualification
of these officers is £100 interest in real property, and they must,
be residents of the municipality.

Incorporated villages are regulated the same as townships, the
number of their Councillors and Reeves being proportioned to
their population, the Reeves representing them in the County
Council to which they belong, the same as townships are repre-
sented. Unincorporated or Police villages vote in the township
to which they are attached.

The County Councils — the counties being an aggregation of
townships, some having as high as eighteen, and others as low as
four — are composed of the several Town Reeves and Deputy Reeves
of townships. They are presided over by a Warden who they
elect from among themselves.

The incorporated towns are, for purposes of convenience at elec-
: tions, and a complete representation of their interests, divided into
sections or wards. Three Councillors are chosen for each ward,
and the Council is presided over by a Mayor, who is chosen by the
Council from among its members. The qualification of Councillors
is an annual income, from real estate in the municipality, of £20,
or the payment of an annual rent of £40. The qualification of
voters is £5 rent, or the receipt of £5 from real estate.

Cities are divided into wards the same as towns, each of which
elects two Aldermen and two Councillors, and these elect their
Mayor or presiding officer from among the Aldermen. Their
qualification is, for Aldermen, an income of £40 from real estate,
or the payment of £80 rent ; and for Councillors, the receipt of

106 PRIZE ESSAY

£20 rent, or the payment of £40. The qualification of voters is
the payment of £7 10s. rent, or the receipt of a similar amount
from real property.

The elections for all the municipalities are held annually ; and
their powers are exercised by means of by-laws which are subject
to the revision of ths Superior Courts of the Province ; and if
found irregular, or otherwise defective, they may be quashed.

The great feature in the municipal system of Upper Canada is
the power granted to the corporations to raise money for municipal
purposes and improvements. The repayment of this is secured by
a tax on the property of the municipality borrowing, the general
government, under the Municipal Loan Fund Act, in some
instances, guaranteeing the payment. But all by-laws for the
creation of debts have to be first submitted to the people before
they become valid ; and Government guarantees are only given
after a full enquiry into the ability of the municipality to pay, and
the wisdom and propriety of the loan itsel£

Each municipality is a corporation entitled to sue, and eligible
to be sued. They exercise all the rights and priviliges of appoint-
ing their officers; making public improvements, such as roads
and bridges ; constructing buildings for their municipal purposes,
and opening streets or roads for the general convenience or the
general profit.

The county municipalities legislate municipially for the county,
taxing each township in proportion to its assessment, for the gen-
eral improvement of all. The townships have no powers beyond
their limits, but are represented, as I have mentioned, in the
County Councils by their Reeves and Deputy Reeves, these being
proportioned to the population, and incidentally to the property
of the township.

This system has worked most admirably in Upper Canada. It
has even exceeded the brightest anticipations of its originators.

ON CANADA.

107

It has taught the people how to conduct their own affairs. It has
furnished them indeed with a system which, were they unhappily
subjected to an external agression sufficient to derange the gen-
eral government, would enable them to protect themselves; to
raise money ; to carry on their affairs ; and as soon as the storm
was over, to settle down, without difficulty, in the quiet and vir-
tuous occupations of peace. It has, too, developed their talents,
and directed their minds to the noblest of all occupations, namely,
the making their country prosperous, intelligent, and contented.

THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, AND ITS FUTURE.

Canada being a colony of Great Britain, its Government is
assimilated to that of the parent empire. Its Legislature is made
up of two branches. One, the Legislative Council, containing forty
four members, is intended to represent the House of Lords. The
other, or House of Assembly, containing a hundred and thirty
members, is strictly analagous to the House of Commons. The
former is appointed by the Crown ; the latter is elected by the
people, the franchise being nearly universal, an assessed interest
of fifty pounds in lands, and a forty shilling freehold, being the
real estate qualification of voters ; and a rent of seven pounds ten
shillings in represented cities and towns, and five pounds in rural
oonstituences, being the rental qualification. Canada has a Gov-
ernor General, who is also Governor General of the other British
North American Colonies. He is appointed by the British Min-
istry, and represents the dignity and power of the Crown in the
Colonies. He has an Executive Council, or Ministry, of ten, who
are the heads of departments, and wh'o are directly responsible to
the people for their public conduct, being, as in England, forced to
retire from office when they fail to command a majority in Parlia-

108 PRIZE ESSAY

ment. The House of Assembly is elected for four years. Legis-
lative Councillors are appointed for life. But, as in England, all
money bills have to originate in the Legislative Assembly ; and all
Governmental supplies have to be approved of, and voted, by it.

Under this system of Government the Colony has attained the
prosperity and advancement indicated in the course of this Essay.
But to really understand what good institutions, and the power of
self-government, may do for a people, it is necessary to understand
that people's character and training. The contrast between Can-
ada and some of the dependencies of England, — the Ionian Islands
for example, — is at once striking and instructive. For, with every
extension of the privilege of self-government to Canada, England
has diminished the trouble of governing it. The Ionian Islands,
on the contrary, have requited liberality and a generous extension
of privileges in a very different way. The difference, of course, is
attributable to the people, and this may render interesting a few
sentences on the reasons why the Canadians have made a good use
of the privilege of governing themselves.

The people, I may say, of all North America — I mean the descen-
dants of the British race, and emigrants from Britain — are, perhaps,
of all others the best trained to understand and to enjoy the benefits
of representative institutions. Their habits of self-reliance and the
necessity for combination to effect the simple purposes of existence
— to build the log hut far in the woods ; to " log" the first acres of
ground cleared ; to throw a bridge over a stream, or to clear a road
into the forest, — naturally lead them to respect skill, and to put
themselves under the guidance of talent. The leading spirit of a
44 logging bee" and the genius who presides over the construction
of a barn, what more natural than that they should be elected, at
the annual meeting of the neighbourhood, to oversee the construc-
tion of bridges, and to judge of, and inspect, the proper height of

ON CANADA.

109

fences? And this is the first legislation such a people have to do.
The useful individual, too, in a settlement, who draws deeds and
wills, and settles disputes without law, and gives good advice
without cost, what more natural, also, than that he should be
selected by the people he benefits by his education and his kind-
ness, to make their laws, and to guard their interests ? The Cana-
dian people, too, have no tenant rights, nor " trades unions " to
secure higher wages, or to prevent too many hours work. Their
necessities are their orators. Their ways and means of living, and
taking the best care of what their labour brings them, are the
principles by which they are governed. Their democracy begins
at the right end ; for, instead of weaving theories to control the
property of others, they think of but the best means of taking care
of their own. Need it be wondered at, then, that a people so
educated — and such has been the universal education of North
America — should know how to govern themselves ; should grad-
ually rise from the consideration of the affairs of a neighbourhood
to those of a county and of a country ; that they should have suffi-
cient conservatism to guard the fruits of their industry, and suffi-
cient democracy to insist upon the right to do so. And such is a
true picture of the Canadian people. Their municipal system is but
a small remove from the leader of the " logging bee" being elected
builder of the bridge, and their parliament is but a higher class in
the same school of practical self-government. Their being given in
fact the entire control of their own affairs was but removing expert
seamen into a larger ship ; and Great Britain has but to consider, in
dealing with her other colonies, that the ship is always adapted to
the sailors. For, the understanding a people is of infinitely greater
importance, in giving them a constitution, than the understanding
ever so well abstract principles of government.

110

PRIZE ESSAY

Canada, in its present position to Great Britain, may be looked
upon as a married son. He has a house of his own to care for.
He has his own fortune to make. He has his own children to
look after and to provide for. But these children cling around
their grandfather Britain's knee. They hear his tales of his glory,
and they are made manly. They drink in his lessons of wisdom,
and they are made good. They are warmed with his and their
own forefathers' patriotism, and they are prepared, as on a recent
occasion, to lavish their treasures in his support, and to shed their
hearts blood, if needs be, to maintain his freedom, and to bear aloft
his honour!

Such a people, in a rich and magnificent country, cannot but
have a great and a glorious destiny.

t

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY