- 1035 
 .8 
 
 .D94 
 Copy 
 
 > istern Canada >* 
 
 and 
 
 The People There-ln 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 — BY 
 
 EDGAR DUPUYS 
 
 
 
 <^ LITERARY BUREAU 
 
 .- ^^ 
 
 NEW -YORK, CHICAGO. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 191J 
 
Eastern Canada 
 
 «^ and «^ 
 
 The People There-In 
 
 IV/TH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 By EDGAR DUPUYS 
 
 Author of " Calif ornians and Mormons," — "Republicanism 
 
 in France," — "The Paris Commune," — 
 
 "The French and the Germans," — " The Stage,"— 
 
 " Philological and Historical Chart," etc. 
 
 -^^ LITERARY BUREAU : ^^- 
 NEW -YORK, CHICAQO, SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 1972 
 

i 
 I 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1912 
 
 AI^I, RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART FIRST 
 
 Eastern Provinces of English Speech 
 Chapter I 
 
 Three fellow travelers. — Toronto at a glance. — Men and 
 women. — A grave problem. 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 New Brunswick. — Picturesque St. John. — Wonderful 
 Falls. — Inhabitants. — Pedigrees. — What is needed. — 
 Brighter prospects. 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 Nova Scotia. ™ I^and of Evangeline. — Halifax. — The 
 people. — Family trees. — Noted men. 
 
 PART SECOND 
 
 The Province of Quebec 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 Historic facts. — Victory of the conquered. — Fear the 
 French language. — Inhabitants and habitants. — Religious 
 extremists. — The good priests. — A New Year's night. 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 French as spoken in Quebec. — Literature and art. — Race 
 and religion in politics. 
 
 PART THIRD 
 
 Future of Canada and the French Race 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 A dream that may not materialize as dreamed. — Indepen- 
 dence and annexation. 
 
 Chapter II 
 The material side of Quebec— Roads and railways. 
 Chapter III 
 
 Important statistics. —A Republic and other dreams. — 
 Tricolor and the church. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Among the Thousand Islands. 
 
 George Street — Residential Section — Toronto. 
 
 Sir John A. Macdonald. 
 
 View of Ottawa. 
 
 View of St. John, N. B. 
 
 Basil's blacksmith shop at Grand Pre, N. S. 
 
 View of Halifax, N. S. 
 
 View of Quebec. 
 
 Wolfe and Montcalm Monument. 
 
 House of a habitant of the better class. 
 
 House of the average habitant. 
 
 Harvesting time . 
 
 Boys and girls on Sunday. 
 
 Praying on the highway. 
 
 Ruins of a chateau. 
 
 Sir Wilfrid Ivaurier. 
 
 Habitants at a political meeting. 
 
 Right Honorable Robert L. Borden. 
 
 Sir Lomer Gouin, 
 
 Sectional view of Montreal. 
 
 Sir Rodolphe Forget. 
 
 Typical French Canadian Family in rural Quebec. 
 
 A French Canadian centenarian. 
 
 F'rench Canadian guide in Northern Quebec. 
 
 Comparative numerical standing of the French and 
 British Races in Kastern Canada. 
 
 6 
 
PREFACE 
 
 fTTHIS BOOK is the outcome of a 
 nearly two years' tour of observation 
 through the Eastern Provinces of the 
 Dominion of Canada. The West is the 
 land of the great future we are told ; possi- 
 bly, but the East is the land of the historic 
 past and, I venture to say, of the great 
 future as well. At any rate, the Eastern 
 Provinces, the cradle of Canada and the 
 architect of the Confederation are of more 
 absorbing interests to the students of eco- 
 nomics than the western prairies. I found 
 Eastern Canada an exceptionally rich field 
 for the study of men and things. Obvi- 
 ously I made the best of opportunities in 
 my daily contact with people of every 
 condition in urban and rural life. I found 
 many things worthy of praise and other 
 things deserving censure. The salient cha- 
 racteristics of a people are like a picture, 
 
 7 
 
an intermingling of light and shade. I will 
 add in conclusion, that, being in the habit 
 of calling a spade a spade, no attempts at 
 varnishing will be seen in either praise or 
 censure. e. d. 
 
 Nbw-York, 
 
 March, 191 2. 
 
 8 
 
Part First 
 
 Eastern Provinces of English Speech 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 ThKe fellow travelers. — Toronto at a glance. — Men 
 and women. — A grave problem. 
 
 IT IS generally well known that good 
 Americans with a surplias cash at the 
 bank take their annual flight to some 
 quarters of the Globe, when the thermo- 
 meter begins its flirtations with the eighties. 
 A quarter of a million or so steer their way 
 across the deep to Europe ; while a smaller 
 army turns its face northward and invades 
 the Canadian Dominion. In the spring of 
 1910, I was a soldier of the advanced guard 
 in the smaller army. These peaceful in- 
 vaders of Canada cross the frontiers at 
 various points without the least regard to 
 strategy. 
 
 I selected the water route leading through 
 the wondrous labyrinth of the Thousand 
 Islands. It was in the month of June, the 
 month of romance and of weddings, the 
 
 11 
 
month tliat smells of flowers, of fresh fol- 
 iage, of everything green everywhere in 
 the fields, and sends a thrill of new life^ 
 through heart and soul. 
 
 I left LewistoTi, N. Y., for Toronto in a- 
 boat crowded with tourists^ mostly Amer- 
 icans in quest of new worlds to coBquen 
 Presently a middle-aged man of good ad- 
 dress, seemingly in the full enjoyment of 
 health and energy, came to me and exteBd- 
 ing his hand, said : 
 
 "Hello, do you remember me as your 
 traveling companion from Berlin to Moscow 
 in the summer of 1891 ? " 
 
 I did remember him, an intelligent,, 
 always cheerful commercial traveler for a 
 New- York firm, and I expressed my plea- 
 sure at meeting him again. 
 
 '' After material for a new book ? '^ 
 
 '' Precisely what I am doing. '^ 
 
 " Writing up the Canucks ? Been to the 
 country before ? " 
 
 " I have not, I am ashamed to say. Have 
 you ? " 
 
 '' Yes, once, from Halifax to Vancouver, 
 
 12 
 
You'll find good stuff for a book. Interest- 
 ing people out there. Behind the times 
 thafs all. Too much fanaticism in Ontario 
 and too many priests in Quehoc. Race 
 prejudices everywhere. Seem to be waking 
 lip though. Write them up and down. 
 Want to know more of Canada and Cana- 
 dians iii the States. By the way, you smoke 
 I know, here is a good cigar." 
 
 And here my ubiquitous friend left to 
 look after his baggage. 
 
 My next fellow traveler, who volunteered 
 to teach me Canadian history, showed up 
 in a rather unexpected manner, after leaving 
 Kingston for Montreal, He was a Canadian 
 of English stock, above medium height, 
 stoutly built, clean shaved and had the 
 florid complexion of a good liver. Evid- 
 ently a prosperous man of alfairs, a poli- 
 tician, or both. 
 
 '^ Pardon me," he said with a chuckle 
 as he was thrown against me by a lurch 
 of the boat entering the first rapid. '^ I find 
 it always difficult to keep m}^ feet here," 
 he added, adjusting his hat. 
 
 13 
 
I told him that being a good sailor I 
 always manage to keep my sea legs on. 
 
 We seated ourselves near the railing and 
 while admiidng the ever-changing wonder- 
 ful panorama all about us, our conversation 
 naturally drifted to Canada, He began 
 singing the praise of his country^ like a 
 good, patriotic Canadian that he was. 
 
 '' We think we have, or will have the 
 greatest country in the world, I know 
 that you people in the States look down 
 upon us as a sort of negligible quantity^ 
 a people afflicted with chronic stagnation. 
 You are very much in error. In the 
 first place^ Canada is larger than your 
 country, nearly as large as Europe and 
 eighteen times the size of France and its 
 natural wealth is incalculable. And, as to 
 stagnation, let us look at some of the things 
 we have done during the last decade. Our 
 immigration foots up nearly two millions. 
 A large number of these immigrants crossed 
 the line to the South, it is true, but 500,000 
 of your sturd}^ farmer came to us. Mont- 
 real, Hamilton and Winnipeg have doubled 
 
 14 
 
Among the Thousand Islands. 
 
and Vancouver has tripled in population. 
 Toronto gives an increase of 170,000, while 
 our minor cities show a large increase also. 
 Our total trade for 1911 will come up to 
 seven hundred millions, which is double 
 the amount for 1901. You can hardly 
 call this stagnation, can you ? Yes, sir, 
 the twentieth century is ours, to quote the 
 language of Laurier. Our aim is the up- 
 building of a united nation with one ever- 
 living aspiration — greatness, and one lan- 
 guage — the english language. 
 
 " Pardon me, but what will the French 
 Canadians say to that one language idea?" 
 I interrupted laughingly. 
 
 '^ French Canadians have done and are 
 doing much in upbuilding the country, 
 but their language which is only a patois, 
 or a corrupt French at best, is dying out. 
 It will no longer be spoken in two or three 
 decades, except perhaps in the back woods 
 of Quebec." 
 
 Here an unexpected interruption came 
 in from an intelligent looking gentleman 
 seated at my elbow. 
 
 17 
 
" Piirdon me," he said, with a slight 
 French accent, '' for intruding, but I beg 
 to take issue with you on the language 
 question. The French language of Quebec 
 is neither corrupt nor a patois, and shows 
 no signs of dying out. It is very much 
 alive and increasing with marvelous strides, 
 not only in Quebec, but in your own 
 Province of Ontario and in the Maritime 
 Provinces also. What you English Cana- 
 dians don't know about Quebec would fill 
 a very large book." 
 
 '' Possibly, possibly," grunted the Cana- 
 dian from Toronto, with a nervous twist 
 at his watch chain and a far away look at 
 nothing. 
 
 And here the brief duel of words came 
 to an abrupt end. 
 
 Ontario comes in first as the most popu- 
 lous and the richest province of the Domi- 
 nion. Toronto, by far the most important 
 city in that province, deserves the name 
 of Queen City. It certainly is one of the 
 most beautiful and interesting cities in 
 North America. More than one hundred 
 
 18 
 
years younger than Quebec, its population 
 is nearly five times that of the ancient 
 Capital of Canada, and its commercial 
 importance in the Dominion gives prece- 
 dence to Montreal only. The well paved 
 streets, always kept clean, are lined in the 
 ever busy business quarters, with modern 
 buildings of imposing proportions. Every- 
 thing here seems like an American city 
 such as Buffalo or Cleveland. 
 
 The residential quarters, however, are 
 thoroughly English in look as well as in 
 fact. Costly homes of pleasing architecture 
 loom up here and there and everywhere, 
 in the midst of spacious grounds, ancient 
 trees, lawns of immaculate green and 
 flowers galore. The famous English fences 
 or walls are there also. Everything seen 
 here spells comfort and luxury and breathes 
 an air of dignified respectability. Add 
 pretty parks always found at the right pla- 
 ces, magnificent public buildings, churches 
 and schools by the scores, a commodious har- 
 bor alive with coming and departing crafts, 
 and you will have Toronto at a glance. 
 
 19 
 
The 376,000 inhabitants found here are 
 fine specimens of a hardy race, mostly of 
 English stock. The men are stalwart and 
 sinewy and quite alert with legs and brains. 
 They dress with taste and are not wanting 
 in elegance. They have not the good 
 manners of the people in the same condi- 
 tion of life in England. Their dignity is 
 of the cold and awkward sort that thaws 
 out only at the sight of a good bargain. 
 The shopkeeper is in evidence everytime. 
 However, while lacking in social niceties, 
 they are manly men, which is a great 
 deal ; men of integrity and moral worth. 
 They imitate the ubiquitous Yankees in 
 many things, even down to their outra- 
 geously bad manners, but as yet, it is 
 only just to say, they have not come 
 up to them on that score. The anomaly 
 of it all is that they hate us at heart 
 and call us names — a small boy shaking 
 his fist at a passing express train. Their 
 opinion of their countrymen of Quebec 
 is not commendable. '' D...., priest-rid- 
 den, bigoted Frenchmen" they say — a 
 
 20 
 
(Tccro^e Street — Resideutial section— Toronto. 
 
lump of shining coal calling the kettle 
 black. 
 
 That a beautiful city should have beau- 
 tiful women seems a logical inference. To- 
 ronto has them by the scores, nay by the 
 hundreds. These ^T-oung women are of good 
 height, slight yet robust and radiant with 
 health. The complexion vies in delicacy 
 of tint with the fresh rose leaf, and the 
 smile of expectation of the well carved 
 lips shows a row of even teeth, like the 
 white seeds of an unripe apple. The eye 
 is blue, large and well opened, and the 
 mass of golden hair, floating over head, 
 cheek and neck, seems a butterfly quivering 
 over the marble brows of Venus. La belle 
 Toronden^ie of the haul nionde is well 
 educated, a good reader^ an excellent mu- 
 sician and a charming conversationalist, 
 She wields the brush and the crayon with 
 equal skill and her French accent is of the 
 right sort. She has ready wit and some- 
 thing of the inimitable dash of the New- 
 York Girl. There are other things not 
 all coiileiir de rose that might be said of 
 
 23 
 
la belle Torontienne of a lower social stra- 
 tum. But why go into details? An ill- 
 bred and ill-mannered woman is never at 
 best a pleasant subject to deal with. 
 
 Toronto is the radiating centre of Tory- 
 ism, religious intolerance and racial preju- 
 dices. Its influence for good or evil is 
 seen everywhere in the provinces of English 
 speech. But the darkest spot in the civic 
 atmosphere of the Queen City is the Sun- 
 day law. On Sunday the ghost of puri- 
 tanism, long dead in the greater part of 
 our countr}^, hovers in the form of an 
 enormous bat over the city, and from 
 its immense and slimy wings made darker 
 with a thick coating of fanaticism and hy- 
 pocrisy, there falls a deep and forboding 
 shadow. This Sunday Law, to say nothing 
 of its ridiculous side, hurts the prestige of 
 Toronto and lowers its influence abroad. 
 
 However, foreign tourists are inclined 
 to forget the inconveniences met with on 
 Sunday in Toronto, after two or three days 
 touring in the rural districts of Ontario. 
 It is a pleasure to see miles after miles 
 
 24 
 
of a delightful country, decked here and 
 there with pretty towns and villages. The 
 broad and well cultivated farms with blos- 
 soming orchards and well built houses and 
 barns speak loud of comfort and abun- 
 dance. At intervals a stock farm appears 
 with its little army of horses and cattle, 
 bounding over the green at the sight of 
 our auto. 
 
 While enjoying these peaceful panorama 
 of rural life, I could' not help thinking 
 of the deplorable fact that the cities of 
 Ontario are increasing in population to the 
 detriment of the farms. 
 
 The last census shows that out of 85 
 counties in this province, 46 have steadily 
 decreased in population since 1901, and 
 those counties are mostly given to agri- 
 cultural poursuits. The increase in popu- 
 lation in Ontario in the last decade foots 
 up 340,000. The cities of 4000 and above 
 are credited with an increase of 325,000, 
 leaving an increase of 15,000 only for the 
 rest of the province. Three agricultural 
 counties alone, namely : Grey, Bruce and 
 
 25 
 
Huron show a decrease of 29,221. This 
 deplorable desertion from the farm to the 
 city is not confined to Ontario, but it is 
 here on a much larger scale than anywhere 
 else in the Dominion. 
 
 Ontario, it seems to me, might find it 
 more profitable to give the time and energy 
 spent in the enactment of laws prohibiting 
 the sale of ice cream on Sunday, in trying 
 with all the power in command to check 
 the alarming decrease of her rural popu- 
 lation, 
 
 I will add further that the great Pro- 
 vince could derive considerable benefit 
 from a glance now and then at the memo- 
 rable words of the most illustrious Canadian 
 of English speech, Sir John A. Macdonald : 
 '• No more conquerors and conquered ; nO' 
 Kkore inferior race." But, here we inquisi- 
 tive Yankees would like to know which 
 happens to be the inferior race in this case ; 
 the uncouth and ridiculously pompous 
 John Bull of Ontario, or the seventeenth 
 century Johnny Grapeau of Quebec, or a 
 mixture of both? 
 
 26 
 
Sir John A. Macdonald. 
 
OTTAWA 
 
 Ottawa, the political capital of Canada^ 
 is a city in the making, but judging from 
 what has already been done, it promises 
 to be the gem of the Dominion. The site 
 is admirable. The business and residential 
 thoroughfares with the Government build- 
 ings as a dominating centre present a 
 marvelous coup d^oeil. The house of Par- 
 liament is an imposing pile indeed. In 
 grandeur of ensemble and architectural 
 beauty it compares favorably with the 
 Capitol at Washington. Ottawa is not a 
 centre of commercial activity and its cos- 
 mopolitanism — well I failed to see anything 
 of the sort in the city. The city is mainly 
 the political rendez-vous of the Confedera- 
 tion and is making the very best of that. 
 
 Owing to the absence of a Diplomatic 
 Corps, the social life of the Capital lacks 
 the tone of a harmonious whole. Provin- 
 cialism seems its dominant feature. There 
 appear everywhere distinct silhouettes of 
 awkward dignity and of the grotesque, 
 of the pompous and the naive. Then as a 
 
 29 
 
finishing touch to the picture the imported 
 aristocracy hides behind heavily curtained 
 windows, and the poor devils of native 
 plobians stand outside looking at the win- 
 dows. With some people the picture pro- 
 vokes merriment ; with others it is not so 
 ver}^ funny, and again with others it breeds 
 humiliation and hatred. Such is life in 
 the political metropolis of this British 
 Colony. 
 
 30 
 
■'t 
 
 i^Sri^ 
 
 ^•"^'^^w - 
 
 S'^ 
 
 
 View of Ottawa, 
 
Chapter II 
 
 New Brunswick. — Picturesque St. John, — Wonderful 
 
 Falls. — Inhabitants. — Pedigrees. — What 
 
 is needed. — Brighter prospects. 
 
 JSJEW BRUNSWICK is a beautiful pro- 
 vince, a precious jewel in the crown 
 of the Canadian Confederation. All it 
 needs to shine in the place it deserves in 
 that crown is an army of skilled and 
 energetic lapidaries to give it form and 
 brilliancy. Which means in a more prac- 
 tical language a million immigrants to 
 transform the vast area of untilled farm 
 and fruit land into miles after miles of 
 golden harvests and snowy blossoms. 
 
 St. John is reached after a journey of 
 500 miles from Montreal, eastward through 
 parts of Quebec, Maine and New Bruns- 
 wick. The commercial metropolis of the 
 province by the sea is built upon a suc- 
 cession of rocky cliffs rising in gentle 
 slopes here, and, abruptly there at the 
 junction of the magnificently picturesque 
 St. John River and the Bay of Fundy^ 
 
 33 
 
famous the world over for its high tides, 
 and as an inexhaustible reservoir of the 
 finny tribe. To most of us, especially in 
 the middle and western States, St. John 
 is little known. A little town made up 
 of fishermen, lumbermen and furtraders, 
 is our conception of the City of the 
 Lo3^alists 
 
 St. John is a great deal more than that. 
 It is a city of historic interest and of 
 increasing business importance. Tourists 
 will find it one of the most delightful 
 places in the Dominion during the summer 
 months. Wide and tolerably well paved 
 streets, some of them literally cut through 
 the rocks, run up and down to every point 
 of the compass. The business streets are 
 framed with substantial, if not imposing 
 buildings. The retail and wholesale stores 
 found in some of these streets would do 
 credit to a much larger city. There are 
 also quite a number of private residences 
 of architectural beauty, with pretty lawns, 
 well trimmed hedges and flower beds. A 
 stroll of an hour through the city will 
 
 34 
 
bring to view a variety of delightful per- 
 spectives. 
 
 Some two hundred feet below is the 
 magnificent harbor, alive with crafts of 
 all descriptions -, then the famous Bay of 
 Fundy like an immense shield of polished 
 silver, Oourtenay Bay is right there at 
 your feet, now a vast expanse of reddish 
 sand and then rapidly filling up with the 
 roaring tide. Yonder are the rolling hills, 
 green with foliage and the rising crops 
 and decked with pretty houses. Westward, 
 out there up against a sky of immaculate 
 blue, a fort frowns at the sea, bringing 
 back to your mind's eye, days of struggles 
 and of blood between two great nations. 
 There are two pretty parks, called squares 
 here, perched three blocks apart on the 
 highest point in the city. Ideal places 
 to enjoy the cool breezes coming from the 
 sea. St. John has the whole world beaten 
 to a frazzel in the way of Falls. They 
 are known as the Reversible Falls. At 
 rising tide the Bay of Fundy runs over 
 a ragged gorge one hundred feet in width, 
 
 35 
 
into the St. John River twenty feet below. 
 When the tide recedes the St. John River 
 pays its respects to the Bay of Fundy, 
 by jumping into it from the brows of 
 the same gorge. One can go over the Falls 
 in a frail canoe at even tide. 
 
 St. John is a sort' of a vest pocket 
 edition of Boston, not of modern Boston, 
 but old, puritan Boston. It was settled 
 by Loyalists, who were Americans from 
 New England. These Loyalists turned their 
 backs on national independence, liberty, 
 progress and prosperity, for the firm and 
 only purpose, it is said, of remaining loyal 
 to the British Crown. Their sentimental 
 bubble cost them inconceivable hardships, 
 but they weathered the storm to the end. 
 They left their descendants a splendid 
 example of self sacrifice, patience and 
 energy worth emulating. They left also, 
 as a no less important legacy, a carefully 
 worded code of religious intolerance which 
 has been adhered to ever since. 
 
 The race here and in the greater part 
 of the Province is Englo - Kelt, and a 
 
 36 
 
View of St. John, N. B. 
 
hardy, concientious race it is. The French 
 race is also represented by over 100,000 
 Acadians, or about one third of the whole 
 population of the Province. 
 
 Intellectual progress of the broad and 
 modern type finds little favor with most 
 New Brunswickers. They persist in look- 
 ing at the world through the wrong end 
 of the telescope and shrink in a fright 
 before a new idea. Well satisfied with 
 what they are, they wrap themselves up 
 in their littleness, fall asleep and snore. 
 In the meantime the beautiful province 
 by the sea finds herself on the very 
 brink of a slide leading down, who knows 
 where. 
 
 There are in St. John scores of pro- 
 gressive, up-to-date men, who strive with 
 all their might to pull their province out 
 of the hole, but with little avail. News- 
 papers, surprisingly good newspapers for 
 a town of 42,000 inhabitants, are doing 
 all that lies in their power to awake the 
 people from their chronic lethargy and 
 again it avails but little. New Brunswick 
 
 39 
 
jogs along apparently satisfied with her 
 nearly stationary population of 350,000^ 
 when there should be a million at least. 
 
 There are too many people in St. John^ 
 as in other cities throughout the older 
 provinces who seem to be ashamed to 
 work because of their arigtoeratic descent. 
 Their pride in pedigree is edifying and 
 when looked into found quite interesting. 
 Some of the pedigrees reach as far back 
 as the Fenian Raid and others not quite 
 so far. Yet this a pretty good showing 
 for a young country. I met a man, who 
 looked down with contempt upon indus- 
 trious people, because his grandfather had 
 been a Colonel in the militia and was at 
 one time the owner of a gun found on 
 the battlefield of Waterloo. I also met a 
 woman, tall, thin and cadavrous — these 
 sort of people are generally thin and ca- 
 davrous — who would not associate with 
 tradespeople, owing to the fact that Queen 
 Victoria had once spoken to the grand- 
 mother of her first cousin. It seems that 
 in some places, the gentry born on the 
 
 40 
 
west side of the street take precedence in 
 social functions over tlie gentry born on 
 the east side. 
 
 While in a certain town in New Bruns- 
 wick my landlady agreed to prepare my 
 breakfast, which consisted of an egg, a bit 
 of toast and coffee, all for the small sum 
 of thirty-five cents. All went Avell for a 
 few days. One morning, however, the 
 husband came to my room with a long 
 face, quite long, and a far away look. 
 
 '^ My wife belongs to a very old family,'' 
 he began. 
 
 " Indeed," I interrupted, " has the family 
 been dead long ? " 
 
 '^ Not yet dead, but I came to tell you that 
 my wife can't prepare your breakfast." 
 
 '' She is not ill, I trust." 
 
 '• No, she is well, but it hurts her pride 
 very much to cook for money." 
 
 Out with such rot. Such people are 
 tolerated I know in old and thickly popu- 
 lated European countries, but they are not 
 the people wanted in the upbuilding of 
 a new country. 
 
 41 
 
What New Brunswick needs is plenty 
 of new blood and a grand shaking up 
 all along the line. Immigration will do 
 the work needed. Not immigration from 
 the slums of English cities, but from 
 Germany and the Scandinavian countries. 
 These thrifty German, Swede and Norwe- 
 gian agriculturists built oar western States 
 and Cities, which are now the heart and 
 power of a mighty nation. Yes, New 
 Brunswick needs immigration, and must 
 have it at any cost, now and all the time. 
 
 Now that I have given a statement of 
 plain facts I cannot help feeling that this 
 magnificent province will come to her own 
 at no distant future. St. John, historic 
 and picturesque old St. John, with '' I 
 will " as motto and a firm grip at the 
 helm, can and shall lead the way into the 
 broad avenue of progress and prosperity. 
 
 
 42 
 
Chapter III 
 
 Nova Scotia. — Land of Evangeline. — Halifax. — The 
 people. — Family trees. — Noted men. 
 
 JsfOVA SCOTIA is a big peninsula 
 standing out at sea at the extreme 
 eastern end of the Dominion. It is a land 
 of rocky coasts, of mountains looming up 
 north and west against a tempestuous 
 horizon ; of hills iimumenible and of 
 charming and fertile valleys given to agri- 
 culture, especially to the growing of fruits. 
 Who has not heard of the Nova Scotia 
 apples famous in two continents ? It is 
 also a land of great mineral wealth and 
 famous fisheries. 
 
 However with the sentimental world, 
 the province by the Atlantic is above all, 
 the Land of Evangeline. The renowned 
 Village of Grand Pre is the Mecca of 
 tourists from every civilized country. Here 
 they linger and muse over the scenes of 
 one of the most atrocious and cowardly 
 crimes committed in history. The air 
 seems filled with the lamentations and the 
 
 43 
 
weeping of defenseless men, women and 
 children torn from their peaceful homes 
 and deported to far away inhospitable 
 shores. 
 
 Exile without an end, and without an example in story, 
 Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians landed ; 
 Scattered were they , like flakes of snow, when the wind 
 
 [from the northeast 
 
 Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of 
 
 ^ [Newfoundland. 
 
 Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city 
 
 [to city. 
 
 From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern 
 
 [savannas, — 
 
 From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands vv'here the 
 
 [Father of Waters 
 
 Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the 
 
 [ocean. 
 
 Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the 
 
 [mammoth. 
 
 However, a few hundred Acadians re- 
 turned and, obedient to biblical admo- 
 nition, they have multiplied to one hun- 
 dred and sixty thousand in Nova Scotia 
 and New Brunswick. And still they speak 
 the language of Evangeline. If our great 
 Bard could return to the scenes he depicted 
 with such a masterful pen, he would sub- 
 stitute other verses to the following : 
 
 Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic 
 Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile 
 Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom. 
 
 44 
 
Basil's blacksmith shop at Grand Pre, N. S. 
 
Evangeline^s well and Basil's blacksmith 
 shop are looked at with the reverence paid 
 to famous relics found in ancient churches. 
 
 Halifax is the gate and military outpost 
 of the Dominion. It is built on a narrow 
 peninsula which comes to a point down 
 to the very mouth of the harbor. The 
 city is rightly proud of this harbor, which 
 can hardly be excelled anywhere for the 
 handling of commerce, and as a safe refuge 
 from storms and wind for merchant ships 
 .and the largest man-of-war afloat. Halifax, 
 unlike St. John, is a city of long distances, 
 which may account for the scores of vacant 
 lots seen on every hand. Its business 
 blocks, public buildings and private resi- 
 dences outshine anything of the kind in 
 the New Brunswick town, but St. John 
 shows as much business activity as the 
 Capital of Nova Scotia. Some of the public 
 drives and parks, notably the parks, are 
 worth traveling a long distance to see. 
 The Citadel built on the highest point 
 in the centre of the town, and the five 
 or six forts near the harbor's entrance 
 
 47 
 
give Halifax a warlike appearance. It is 
 in fact a strongly fortified town and is 
 garrisoned by native troops. The soldier 
 bo3^s seen over there are a fine set of smart 
 looking fellows of good fighting stock 
 and would fight to a finish, I dare say^ 
 if ever called upon to do so. There is also 
 a Naval Academy here, but no navy and 
 no immediate prospect of one. The Cana- 
 dian Navy was wrecked in the same storm 
 that wrecked Laurier. 
 
 Most of the people in this city and 
 Province are of Keltic origin and Britishers 
 from scalp to toenails. They are of fine 
 physique and of serious and intelligent 
 mien. They are conservative in every- 
 thing and slow in most things. Their 
 conservatism is an intermingling of good 
 sense, intolerance and prejudice. They are 
 evidently so very much satisfied with 
 themselves that they seem unaware that 
 their Province is about to begin a backward 
 movement^, owing to the want of immi- 
 gration, while emigration is constantly 
 draining the population. 
 
 48 
 
View of Halifax, N. vS. 
 
Halifax claims the largest number of 
 family trees and ancient descents in the 
 Maritime Provinces. However some jealous 
 people in the sister province of New- 
 Brunswick come out with the statement 
 that the largest number of old families 
 in Halifax and the Province are not yet 
 dead, and that some of the dead ones took 
 part in the conspiracy that lead to the 
 crime at Grand Pre. 
 
 Nova Scotia has given Canada some 
 noted men, such as Charles Tupper and 
 Robert L. Borden in politics, and Thomas 
 C. Haliburton and Robert Christie in lite- 
 rature. Plaliburton is perhaps the most 
 gifted of Canadian authors of either English 
 or French speech. His great work '' The 
 Clockmaker or Sayings and Doings of Sam 
 Slick of Slick ville " brought him fame 
 and honors, wherever the English language 
 is spoken. Aside from being a historian 
 of note, he is the pioneer of American 
 humoristic literature. Yet, I met very few 
 people in his native province who knew 
 anything of him. Such is fame. 
 
 51 
 
Nova Scotia has been in- a donrfcart state^ 
 for many years and shows little inclination 
 to part with her sweet shinibe-r. The big 
 Peninsula needs new blood and a violent 
 shaking up, superinduced by the eruption 
 of new ideas. 
 
 PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 
 
 Having failed to pay a visit to the 
 diminutive Province of Prince Edward 
 Island^ I mast forgo the pleasure of saying 
 anything about it, unless it is that the 
 population, of the pretty Island shows a 
 decrease of over nine thousand during the 
 last decade. Not a very commendable, 
 showing, that. 
 
 
 52 
 
Part Seconi> 
 
 The Province of Quebec 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 Historic facts. — Victory of the conquered. — Fear the 
 
 French I^angnage. — Inhabitants and habitants. — 
 
 Religious extremists. — The good priests. — 
 
 New Year's Night. 
 
 QUEBEC of all the provinces of the 
 Canadian Dominion is the most sought 
 by tourists, sociologists, economists, histo- 
 rians and poets. One finds here a pictur- 
 esque corner of Europe : an intermingling 
 of the old and the new. The people who 
 cibide in this Province belong to a race 
 Vv^ho has been foremost amongst the build- 
 ers of the modern world. These Canadians 
 have done nothing as yet to startle the 
 world in intellectual endeavors, and it vv^ill 
 probably be a long time before they do. 
 However, their uninterrupted struggles of 
 a century for their rights of worship and 
 of language, and their final triumph assume 
 the proportion of an epic. 
 
 When I first looked at Quebec on a 
 
 53 
 
beautiful July morning, there flashed before 
 my mind's eye a vision of three centuries 
 of heroic deeds. 
 
 This was indeed " the place and all 
 around it as of old," the ragged, towering 
 cliffs, the hills and valleys are alive with 
 the echoes of war cries and the booming 
 of French and English guns fighting for 
 supremacy over a continent. It is the 
 historic city of Quebec, the cradle of the 
 Canadian nation and the coffin of French 
 occupation. 
 
 From this cradle I saw French pioneers 
 go forth with axes, spades and plows and 
 guns, and for the first time the solemn 
 solitude of the forests had to give place 
 to civilization. Progress was slow and 
 every acre cleared cost blood and often 
 lives. However, diminutive log hut vil- 
 lages, with their church steeples, arose here 
 and there on either side of the mighty 
 St. Lawrence. Mont Royal was reached 
 and the foundations of the future metro- 
 polis of Canada were laid. 
 
 The bearers of the standards of France 
 
 54 
 
View of Oiiehec. 
 
did not stop here. On they went westward 
 to the head of the Great Lakes ; eastward, 
 through New York and Pensylvania and 
 southward through the valley of the Mis- 
 sissippi. The Lily floated over an area 
 ten times the size of France. 
 
 The war cloud spreads its ominous sha- 
 dows over New France and the English 
 Colonies. Montcalm wins his last victories. 
 A British army, led by the gallant Wolfe, 
 is before Quebec. Finally the proverbial 
 tenacity, perseverance and valor of the 
 English troops win the day on the Plains 
 of Abraham. Wolfe and Montcalm fall 
 face to face, and then I see arising over 
 their mingled ashes, a shaft commemorative 
 of the long and bloody struggle of two 
 great nations. 
 
 The flag of England rules supreme over 
 the New France of yesterday. It is decreed 
 that the conquered shall continue in the 
 enjoyment of their religious and social life 
 as a reward for their loyalty to the crown. 
 
 However, the conquerors open forthwith 
 a war on the language of the new subjects. 
 
 57 
 
Faithful to the new flag, the French 
 fight and cheerfully give their lives for it. i 
 They save the colon}^ from American 
 invaders. Yet they stubbornly refuse to 
 forget their language. Threats, humili- 
 ations and the most cunning devices ima- 
 ginable avail nothing. They will not give 
 up their mother tongue a penny's worth. 
 
 The bloodless war continues between 
 conquerors and conquered with more or 
 less violence, craftiness and ever-changing 
 methods, with the conquerors finally rout- 
 ed, arms and baggage clear out of the 
 field. Harassed at every step by simingly 
 insurmountable difficulties, the sixty thou- 
 sand vanquished have increased to over 
 two millions and reconquered, from a racial 
 and linguistic view point, the greatest 
 province in the Dominion. 
 
 Here I stood for a moment bewildered 
 before a phenomenon unparalleled in the 
 history of the world. 
 
 Is this language question settled inde- 
 
 - finitely in Canada? It would seem so. 
 
 The two races are working in unison in 
 
 58 
 
upbuilding the country and everything 
 appears normal to the casual observer. Yet 
 more searching abservations will reveal 
 the same determination Avith most Cana- 
 dians of English speech to obliterate the 
 French language. 
 
 Here is a forcible article that fits the 
 case. I found it in the Canadian Courier 
 of January 1912, a weekly magazine of 
 a deservedly wide circulation in the Do- 
 minion. It is from the pen of the Monocle 
 Man. The very sort of man much needed 
 in English speaking Canada, 
 
 This is the article in part : 
 
 '^ One of the most remarkable thin2:s 
 in Canada to me is the fear which some 
 of us of English speech seem to have of 
 the French language. We are inclined to 
 treat it as we do a contasrious disease. 
 We want to isolate it — quarantine it- — ■ 
 vaccinate against it — make it the modern 
 version of a penal offence to be found 
 propagating a pernicious knowledge of it. 
 Now I do not imagine that it would hurt 
 us to know more French or more of anv- 
 
 59 
 
thing else which makes for culture. Edu- 
 cation will not spoil us — bitterly as we 
 fight against some of its more obvious 
 manifestations. No Englishman of stand- 
 ing who comes amongst us, thinks of him- 
 self as an educated man unless he can 
 speak French. The representatives of the 
 Crown invariably delight our fellow-Cana- 
 dians of French origin by addressing them 
 in their own language ; and they seem 
 to be entirely oblivious of the fact that 
 thereby they are "shattering Confederation 
 to its foundations " and turning this young 
 nation aside from a great and glorious 
 and homogenous — and homeopathic — 
 future. 
 
 Now the French language will not bite. 
 Its liquid beauty embahns much of the 
 best literature in existence. French drama 
 is a copious stream which never runs dry 
 — as does the English riverbed. Any 
 language is a more or less clumsy and 
 loose vehicle for elusive human thought; 
 but the French fits much more snugly to 
 certain of our more delicate and involved 
 
 60 
 
Wolfe and :\Iontcalm MoniTtiient 
 in the Citv of Quebec. 
 
conceptions than any other — especially 
 than any Northern speech. If I were 
 making the laws, I would be far more apt 
 to make it compulsory for every Canadian 
 school to teach French as well as English 
 in practical and workable fashion, than to 
 enact that coronation of contented and 
 bigotted ignorance whieli discourages the 
 teaching of literary French to children 
 who too often cannot get that quality at 
 home. And if I were going to extend 
 State assistance to either language, I would 
 not give it to the language which finance 
 and commerce and industry and all the 
 professions unite to '' boom " on this Con- 
 tinent. 
 
 This dread of French is a purely media- 
 eval and obsolete survival of a day when 
 ^' race lines " meant national division. 
 There was a time — there are countries 
 now — where a struggle for race supremacy 
 went on, and it made a very great dif- 
 ference which won. That gave us an 
 instinctive feeling against the spread of 
 any language save our own. But that 
 
 63 
 
instinct is about ois applicable to modern 
 conditions in this country as the instinct 
 which leads a horee to jump out of hi.s 
 skin at the rustle of a piece of paper by 
 the roadside. Once it meant a tiger creep- 
 ing in the dry grasses to leap upon his 
 back ; but tigers are a bit scarce on our 
 city streets these days. The horse shivers 
 and starts at nothing. So it is with English 
 people who think they see danger in the 
 spread of the French Language. They 
 are living yet in the days of their far- 
 ancestors 
 
 When we move against the French ton- 
 gue, we are not on the defensive — we are 
 persecutors. Moreover, we are depriving 
 life on this Continent of one of its too 
 few picturesque features — of an oppor- 
 tunity and an incentive to the rest of 
 us to learn the language of Moliere, of 
 Balzac, of Hugo, of many a great name 
 in the world's College of Culture. And,, 
 in doing this, we are not ''helping the 
 coimtry " or saving our own tongue,, but 
 feeding with savage satisfaction a remnant 
 
 64 
 
of belated barbarism that still soils the 
 ^' substance of our souls.'' 
 
 The bilingual schools figured as a prom- 
 inent issue in a recent election in Ontario, 
 This Province objects to the teaching of 
 French in connection with English in the 
 Public Schools, even in districts where the 
 population of French origin is greatly in 
 the majority. 
 
 The French of Quebec are wif«er, more 
 politic and far-seeing in their treatment 
 of the bilingual question. With an over- 
 whelming majority in the Province they 
 could easily fan into a conflagration the 
 spirit of retaliation against the English 
 minorit}^ On the contrary, the so-called 
 '' priest - ridden and ignorant " French 
 Canadians prove most conclusively their 
 broadmindedness and evident intellec- 
 tual superiority over their detractors, 
 by teaching English to English children 
 as well as to their own in their public 
 schools. 
 
 French Canadians do not study English 
 for commercial and political purposes only, 
 
 65 
 
but as a necessary accomplishment in the 
 rounding up of an education of the higher 
 sort. English Canadians have nothing to 
 lose and much to gain in emulating, with 
 regard to French, their fellow-countr3'^men 
 of Quebec. 
 
 A large percentage of French Canadians 
 in every walk of life in the large cities 
 of the Province can speak English fluently. 
 The best English I heard during the last 
 national election in Canada was from some 
 of the French Caiiadian orators who spoke 
 French equally as well. This fact alone 
 stands out prominently as a powerful factor 
 in French Canadian influence in the poli- 
 tical life of the Dominion, and constitutes 
 an evident intellectual superiority over 
 the English element wilfully unfamiliar 
 with the French tongue. 
 
 Mostly of Normand and Breton origin 
 
 the inhabitants of Quebec are indeed 
 
 « 
 
 worthy of the blood that is in them. They 
 are of flne stature, wiry and quick with 
 body and mind. Stubborness, patience, 
 integrity, thrift and politeness are their 
 
 66 
 
House of a habitant of the better class — Unebec. 
 
salient characteristics. They seem timid 
 and suspicious, but their uniform courtesy, 
 cheerfulness and hearty hospitality are 
 truly refreshing. They are polite without 
 being in the least servile, as one will 
 find to his discomfort when attempting 
 to lord it over them. They have con- 
 siderable wit and a great sense of the 
 ridiculous. Always courteous to their pre- 
 tentious fellow countrymen of English 
 descent, they quietly laugh at their pomp- 
 osity. 
 
 The habitants in most of the Province 
 are intelligent and prosperous. They are 
 well housed, well fed, well clad, contented 
 and happy. The illiterate habitant is a 
 thing of the past. He reads his newspaper 
 and is often a subscriber to agricultural 
 and other magazines. He talks intelli- 
 gently of politics and keeps in touch with 
 the conspicuous doings of the world out- 
 side of Quebec. He knows more of Ontario 
 than the farmers of that Province know 
 of Quebec. He no longer hides his econo- 
 mies in socks and mattresses but keeps 
 
 69 
 
an account at the nearest bank. He is 
 not a borrower, but a lender, and, like a 
 prudent man that he is, invariably prefers 
 a safe investment in farmland. His surplus 
 cash, however, often takes the form of stocks 
 in some safe manufacturing interests. 
 
 I have often met throughout the Pro- 
 vince in scores of parishes farmers reputed 
 worth from ten to one hundred thousand 
 dollars, and living in houses some of which 
 would not be out of place in fashionable 
 residential streets in hirge cities. The 
 better class of Quebec farmers use the latest 
 things out in the way of agricultural 
 implements. In harvesting time one sees 
 in the gilded fields the stalwart farmers 
 working the newest machines drawn by 
 two or three fine, spirited horses. The 
 science of agricultui'e is not generally un- 
 derstood here as it should be, but the 
 farmer loves his farm and stands by it 
 as he does by his family. While cattle 
 seen on most farms seem of inferior breed, 
 the horses are fine animals indeed and 
 much sought by American buyers. 
 
 70 
 
The indastry and thrift of the habitants 
 seem limitless. They are workers and 
 hard workers at that. Fathers, mothers, 
 sons and daughters, work from the rising 
 to the setting of the sun and often late 
 into the gloaming. How often I have seen 
 after the hard labor of the day families 
 of ten, fifteen ^and even twenty stalwart 
 children enjoying a much needed rest in 
 front of their comfortable homes. The 
 grandfather, frequently carrying the weight 
 of five and ninety and in some cases of 
 a hundred years and more, quietly smokes 
 his pipe under trees heavy with bran- 
 ches and foliage. The younger ones down 
 to the babies are seated about or comfort- 
 ably stretched over the grass, v/atching the 
 fireflies flashing their lights over the road 
 and fences, while the ubiquitous crickets 
 sing their monotonous song to the night. 
 
 However, it is on Sunday that the 
 habitants appear in their glory, when the 
 bells from the distant steeples call them 
 to the house of God. Dressed in their 
 best on they go with spanking teams 
 
 71 
 
harnessed to two and four wheel carriages 
 of the latest type and all paid for, if you 
 please. It is again a pleasure to see groups 
 of pretty and modest young girls and lusty 
 boys, who never forget to be polite, fro- 
 licking in the village streets and countr}^ 
 roads on their way to or from mass or 
 vespers. Their laughters are as genuine 
 and their enjoj-ments as pure as the thrills 
 of birds in yonder trees. 
 
 Canadians, English as well as French, 
 are religious extremists. The French are 
 more catholic than the Pope and the 
 English out -Calvin the famous reformer 
 himself. This is as it should be. Cynicism 
 and unbelief never contributed much to 
 the upbuilding of new countries. Puri- 
 tanism cleared the forests of New England, 
 built churches and schools and prepared 
 the ground upon which our social fabric 
 is reared, and even helped at the launching 
 of our diminutive and ill-equipped ship 
 of state, which has now assumed the pro- 
 portion of a gigantic Dreadnought manned 
 by a crew of ninety million up-to-date 
 
 72 
 
House of the average habitant - Oucbtc. 
 
sailors. However, Puritanism is fast dying 
 out. There is no place for it in modernism. 
 It is at best only a hindrance to intellectual 
 progress. The English speaking provinces 
 of the Dominion seem to be its main 
 abiding place now. 
 
 Roman Catholicism and French Canadian 
 priests saved the French race, and made a 
 French speaking Province of Quebec. All 
 hail to these French Canadian priests ! They 
 have done and are still doing their duty 
 well. They are more than spiritual adv- 
 isers to their parishioners ; they are their 
 friends, true, unselfish friends, in joy and 
 in sorrow from birth to death. 
 
 The social life of the rural population 
 of Quebec is seen at its best in the winter 
 months. Then the habitants have hardly 
 anything to do but to enjoy themselves. 
 Parties and dances and veillees (evening 
 calls) are indulged in throughout the season 
 and merriment runs high. 
 
 I never shall forget a night spent with 
 a well-to-do habitant family some eighty 
 miles east of Montreal. It was on New 
 
 75 
 
Year's eve and the Canadian winter was 
 at its best. The frozen earth lay cahnly 
 at rest under a solid white covering six 
 feet in thickness. The snow sparkled like 
 newly broken steel under the sun's rays. 
 Every step sent forth a cracking sound 
 like that of an electric spark. One's breath 
 could be seen a yard off and after a few 
 minutes' walk the moustache and beard 
 took on a thick coating of frost. The 
 sleigh bells tinkled merrily about the 
 village streets and along the highways. 
 On both sides of the roads tall and stately 
 trees shivered in their nakedness, and from 
 every chimney stood a column of smoke 
 straight and motionless like an obelisk on 
 the sandy plains of Egypt. 
 
 The day was fast waning when my driver 
 pulled up in front of a house at the angle 
 of a cross road. It was a large, two story 
 brick house with something like a mansard 
 roof Several steps led up to a wide 
 veranda. The only door in sight was 
 large, built of solid oak, and a shining 
 brass knocker hung over the central panel. 
 
 76 
 
^^^Misi^y: 
 
 Harvesting time — Quebec. 
 
I had hardly stepped on the veranda when 
 the door opened and my host came out to 
 meet me. 
 
 '^ Entrez, entrez, mecieu " — Come in, 
 come in, sir — he said with a smile and 
 a bow, and forthwith he led me to a sleep- 
 ing room on the second floor. The room 
 was comfortably heated by a large stove 
 in the hallway. The floor was covered 
 with a carpet of home industry. The 
 furniture consisted of a large, comfortable 
 looking bed, a small table in the centre 
 of the room, a washstand and an armchair. 
 On a wall of shining whiteness hung a 
 cruciflx and a picture of the Virgin Mary. 
 On the table stood a pitcher of water, a 
 bottle and a glass. 
 
 '^ E ben a c'theure j'vous laisse, rechauf- 
 fez-vous, la bouteille est la " — Now I must 
 leave you, warm yourself, the bottle is 
 there 
 
 I thanked my host and found the whis- 
 key of an excellent brand. 
 
 The moving of tables and chairs and 
 the clatter of dishes below, accompanied 
 
 79 
 
with feminine laughters and songs were 
 indicative of the nearness of supper. 
 
 At six o'clock I was invited to come 
 down and meet the family and neighbors. 
 And what a family to be sure : fourteen 
 children and eleven grand children. And 
 a finer lot of healthy, cheerful men, women 
 and children I have rarely seen. A table 
 extending the whole length of a long 
 reception room and through the adjacent 
 dinino; room was literallv covered with 
 eatables, dishes and bottles. The menu 
 consisted of a most excellent pea soup^ 
 a suckling pig, two turkeys, some chickens, 
 mashed potatoes, beet root, pickles, fifteen 
 or twenty pies and a cake, as big as a 
 large pumpkin. There was also an abun- 
 dance of 2:ood wines and spirits. 
 
 " A table, a table, mes enfants '' — Come 
 to the table, my children — cried out the 
 host. I was given the seat of honor bet- 
 ween host and hostess, a vivacious, dear 
 little woman of sixty who looked forty. 
 There were no servants to annoy us. 
 Everybody helped themselves. Among the 
 
 80 
 
forty-three persons at the table, there was 
 not a dull or a sombre face, and as to 
 appetite, well it seemed contagious. I ate 
 more at that meal than I do in three meals 
 at Martin's. The bottles were duly passed 
 around and merriment reigned supreme. 
 Songs soon followed. 
 
 ^' Dis done la, Gaudreau, arrive done 
 avec ta chanson " — See here Gaudreau, 
 come on with your song — called out a 
 young man with a hearty laugh. 
 
 Gaudreau stood up. He was a man of 
 middle age. A giant in stature, with the 
 chest and arms of a gorilla and the voice 
 of a lion. He began in this way : 
 
 '' Dedans sa main a quin tin marie " — 
 In her hand she holds a blackbird — 
 
 And everyone repeated in chorus : — 
 ^^ Dedans sa main a quin tin marie." 
 
 The song lasted a minute or two and 
 then the host called out : 
 
 " Alix la, 6coute done, not' mecieu icite 
 est in Americain qui parle le Fransah de 
 France. Chante done la Marseillaise, Vive 
 la France " — Listen here Alix, our gentle- 
 
 81 
 
man here is an American who speaks the 
 French of France. Sing the Marseillaise, 
 Long live France. 
 
 Alix, a fine looking chap of twenty-two, 
 was on his feet at once. He had a fine 
 tenor voice and his rendering of the famous 
 hymn was really good. Several other 
 songs followed, such as '' Vive la Cana- 
 dienne," '' En Roulant ma Boule," '' A la 
 claire Fontaine." The program of songs 
 seemed to have come to an end, when the 
 hostess said : 
 
 " Voyons, p'tite Rose, chante ta jolie 
 chanson d'ville pour mecieu " — See here, 
 little Rose, sing your pretty city song for 
 the gentleman. — 
 
 P'tite Rose was the hostess' younger 
 daughter. She was a modest and pretty 
 girl of eighteen. Her eyes were large and 
 lustrous and her cheeks had the color of 
 a ripe peach. She had just left the con- 
 vent. She sang a serenade, one of Gounod's 
 if my memory serves me well, and sang 
 it well with a rich mezzo soprano voice 
 of considerable volume. 
 
 82 
 
Boys and Girls on Sunday in rural Quebec. 
 
After the big cake had been disposed of, 
 the. table was cleared and everything made 
 ready for the dance. Eose at the piano and 
 Alix with the fiddle furnished the music. 
 
 I will not attempt a description of the 
 terpsichorean feats, but they were fast and 
 furious. I suggested a waltz to a buxom 
 young woman who politely declined on 
 the ground that the priest did not permit 
 such dances. 
 
 The big clock standing like a sentinel in a 
 corner of the parlor showed that midnight 
 was near at hand. The music ceased and 
 the neighbors made their exit. Everyone 
 had slowly disappeared I knew not where. 
 
 The old clock began to count in a sonor- 
 ous voice the last hours of "the day. It 
 was the knell of the d^dng year. The host 
 walked to the center of the room, and 
 stood there with a kindly face, erect and 
 smiling, unconscious of his three scores 
 and fifteen years. Before him on the wall 
 hung the pictures of Christ, the Virgin 
 Mary, the Pope and of Archbishop Bruch6si 
 of Montreal. 
 
 85 
 
Presently a procession began. Middle 
 aged men and women, young men and 
 girls and children knelt one by one before 
 the venerable old man saying : '' Votre 
 benediction, s'il vous plait? " — Your bene- 
 diction, if you please — and with hands 
 raised above their heads he answered : 
 '' Je te benis " — I bless thee. — Then an 
 embrace and a kiss and the blessed one 
 passed on. The last one was a little girl 
 four or Rwe years old. With her little 
 knees on the floor and her pretty head 
 bowed down, she muttered : 
 
 '^ Bon grand-pere, benis " — Good grand- 
 pa, bless me. — The grandfather raised her 
 in his arms and kissed her repeatedly. He 
 then came to me and, with moist eyes and 
 a voice trembling with emotion, said : 
 
 '^ Vous voyez, mecien, comme le bon Dieu 
 est ben bon de m'avoir donne tant d'enfants" 
 — You see, sir, how very good is the good 
 God to have given me so many children. — 
 
 It was early morning when I reached 
 the village inn, a very thoughtful and, 
 I believe, a better man. 
 
 86 
 
Chapter II 
 
 French as spoken in Quebec. — lyiteratnre and art. — Race 
 and religion in Politics. 
 
 '^E ARE taught to believe in the States 
 that the French spoken in Quebec is 
 a patois, a corrupt vernacular, a compound 
 of French, English, Indian and what 
 not. I was led into the same belief by 
 newspaper correspondents who don't know 
 French from Arabic, and by a book of 
 poems by Dr. Drummond, entitled the 
 '' Habitants." I carried that book vv^ith 
 me in my pilgrimage through Quebec, and 
 never found a single Canadian who use 
 the dialect the talented English Canadian 
 poet so cleverly evolved out of his own 
 brain. 
 
 It should be conceded that the French 
 of Quebec is not Parisian French. On 
 the other hand it must be admitted that 
 French is well spoken outside of Paris 
 and France. Belgians and Swiss speak 
 excellent French. Their intonation is 
 slightly different from that of Parisians, 
 
 87 
 
that is all. French Canadians, however, 
 have an intonation peculiar to themselves, 
 it is of a singing sort, but by no means 
 unpleasant. They give the letter r a lisp- 
 ing, musical sound the Parisians would do 
 well to imitate. The Canadian vocabulary 
 seems restricted, hence the frequent sub- 
 stitution of English for French words. 
 They also use such words as virer for 
 tourner ■ — to turn ; — /i/er for marcher — to 
 walk ; — embarquez en voiture for 7nontez en 
 voiture — get into the carriage. — They 
 have other still more pronounced pecu- 
 liarities of speech, such as : a dtheiire for 
 maintenaiit — now ; maganer for inalmene^' 
 — to ill-treat ; — frette for froid — cold ; — 
 drette for droit — straight ; — 7nentrie for 
 mensonge — lie ; — fnouiller for pleuvoir — 
 to rain. I have also noticed the meaning- 
 less use of the adverb la — there — at the 
 end of sentences. Obviously this is not 
 the language of the cultured classes. The 
 language of a Vermont farmer differ consi- 
 derably with that of an average Bostonian. 
 Educated French Canadians speak very 
 
 88 
 
nearly as Frenchmen do. The dilBPerence 
 consists mainly in intonation and a broader 
 sound given to the letter a and the dipth- 
 ong Ai when final and followed by s, t, d, 
 X. These defects will eventually disappear 
 as they should. In fact I frequently met 
 Canadians, especially in the cities of Quebec 
 and Montreal, who spoke French exactly 
 as the French do. 
 
 A Parisian who has lived over twenty- 
 five years in Montreal and other parts of 
 Quebec, told me that the French language 
 is improving wonderfully everywhere in 
 the Province, in the rural districts as well 
 as in large centers of population. He 
 attributed this linguistic awakening to the 
 following causes : 
 
 1^^- To the greater number of and much 
 better schools. 
 
 2nd. To the increasing number of teach- 
 ers from France in institutions of learn- 
 ing- 
 s'^- To the great increase of students 
 
 from Quebec in France, and the more or 
 less prolonged sojourn in that country of 
 
 89 
 
hundreds of Canadian, tourists who cross 
 the sea in increasing numbers annually. 
 
 4th. Tq French theatres in Montreal 
 where the sonorous language of France, 
 fresh from the mouth of Parisian actors, 
 is heard nightly by thousands of natives 
 from the metropolis and other cities and 
 towns in the Province. 
 
 5^^- To societies of ^' Bon parler Fran- 
 gais " organized and being organized in 
 large cities and minor towns throughout 
 Quebec. 
 
 A conclusive proof that the seventeenth 
 century is moving out of Quebec. 
 
 French Canada still holds fast to leading 
 strings, a tottering child, in the field of 
 literature and art. Youth, the want of 
 encouragement and the limited number 
 of reacler-s or wealthy art connoisseurs in 
 Quebec, are given as a very plausible 
 excuse for the paucity of authors and 
 artists worthy of the name. Thoughtful 
 and thoughtless readers alike seek intel- 
 lectual food in books from France ; and 
 lovers of art who can indulge their taste 
 
 90 
 
Praying on the highway — Ouetec. 
 
patronize artists of the same country, which 
 is very much as Americans do. A very 
 limited number of French Canadian lit- 
 terateurs a,re known outside of Quebec. 
 Francois -Xavier Garneau, the historian, 
 and Octave Cr^mazie, Louis - Honore Fre- 
 chette and Pamphile LeMay, the poets, 
 are read and translated abroad. LeMay's 
 translation of Evangeline was highly 
 prized by the author of that immortal 
 poem, as I happen to know from 
 Longfellow himself. Two of Frechette's 
 poems : '' Les Oiseaux de Neige " and '' Les 
 Fleurs Boreales " were crowned by the 
 French Academy. This truly great poet 
 deserves a monument at the hands of his 
 countrymen. Such authors as Benjamin 
 Suite, M. de Gasp6 and M. de Boucherviile 
 are also a credit to their country and the 
 French language. 
 
 In the plastic art, Philippe Hebert and 
 M. A. Laliberte deserve the praise bestowed 
 upon them by art connoisseurs in and 
 outside of their country. 
 
 French Canadian authors have left the 
 
 93 
 
field of romance to their brothers of 
 English descent. Yet it is well known 
 that novelists from Ontario and the States 
 have often sought their inspiration in the 
 old Province. The novels which made 
 Gilbert Parker famous in two hemispheres 
 deal with French life in Quebec. Canadian 
 novelists of English speech are favored 
 in having a much larger market for their 
 literary wares, near at hand in the English 
 speaking provinces and in the United 
 States, than French Canadian writers whose 
 readers are mostly limited to Quebec. Fur- 
 thermore, the number of people given to 
 miscellaneous reading in English speaking 
 provinces, notably in Ontario, is much 
 greater than in Quebec. The reason for 
 this is that Quebec is less receptive to new 
 ideas than Ontario. It must also be said 
 that the Church has a good deal to say 
 as to what shall be read or not in the 
 French Province. In other words, English 
 Canadians, as a whole, are better informed 
 than their countrymen of French descent. 
 This is esp.ecially true of women who are 
 
 94 
 
more than men given to reading works 
 of fiction. 
 
 Have you read such and such an author ? 
 — all standard authors, — I asked of a 
 young French Canadian woman of many 
 accomplishments. 
 
 ^' Pardon, monsieur," she answered with 
 a look of surprise, ^' but these books are 
 all indexed." 
 
 In English speaking provinces, notabl}^ 
 in Ontario, I found scores of young 
 women of excellent home training who, 
 let it be said to their credit, v/ere fa- 
 miliar with the works of the very same 
 authors. 
 
 Young men of exceptional literary talent 
 are not wanting in Quebec, but they lack 
 the initiative, energy and perseverance of 
 their brother writers of English speech. 
 Their vanity is also quite amusing, and 
 their ambition is easily satisfied. However, 
 Quebec is no longer a slow going province. 
 It is now striding upv/ard in the broad 
 highway of intellectual and material pro- 
 gress. From this highv/ay there may come 
 
 95 
 
some day a French Canadian novelist 
 worthy of his race. 
 
 I am writing this seated near the ruins 
 of a French Chateau. A thick carpet of 
 moss and ivy hides most of the pile of 
 crumbling stones. A dead three stretches 
 its long and naked arms over the walls, 
 and skeleton-like seems to grin at death 
 below. Is there not in Quebec a young 
 and ambitious French Canadian writer, 
 gifted with enough imagination to evoke 
 from these ruins alone the material needed 
 for a good novel ? 
 
 We of the Stars and Stripes have politics 
 served to us by the daily press, morning 
 and evening, everyday in the year. Politics 
 are poured into our ears from breakfast 
 to dinner and later well into the night 
 by hungry politicians, of every grade and 
 hue, foaming at the mouth at the prospect 
 of a fat job ahead. Yet in all this aval- 
 anche of newspapers, speech-making and 
 bar-room talk, one rarely hears of an 
 attempt to awake religious controversy 
 and race prejudice in this big nation, the 
 
 96 
 
Ruins of a chateau — Quebec. 
 
abiding place of every race and creed on 
 earth. 
 
 Our neighbors to the north do things 
 differently. With them, races, religions 
 and languages are pitted against one an- 
 other, in their fights for political power. 
 Conservatives, Liberals and Nationalists, 
 with the Conservatives as formidable lead- 
 ers, are well skilled in that form of 
 campaigning. Of course, that sort of elec- 
 tioneering is mostly done in the dark, 
 quietly but effectively done in a house 
 to house canvas, when the infamous gospel 
 of hatred is preached by adepts at the 
 trade. 
 
 I am firm in the belief that reciprocity, 
 ostensibly the main issue of the campaign, 
 did not by long odds effect the defeat of 
 Laurier, in the recent general election in 
 Canada. His Catholicism and French des- 
 cent, together with the Ne Temere decree 
 and Eucharistic Congress, held in Montreal 
 in 1910, are mainly responsible for his 
 overthrow. I reached this conclusion after 
 a careful study of political manoeuvring 
 
 99 
 
throughout the campaign in Quebec, On- 
 tario and the Maritime Provinces. Laurier 
 was Protestant in Quebec and too Catholic 
 in Ontario. Henri Bourassa contributed 
 his share of misrepresentation in Quebec, 
 and Orangemen led the campaign of vili- 
 fication in engiish speaking provinces. 
 Net result : the defeat of Laurier, the 
 wonderfully gifted statesman and patriot 
 who, during his fifteen years of power, 
 lifted Canadians from obscurity and seem- 
 ing stagnation to the threshold of great- 
 ness. 
 
 The following conversation, among scores 
 of the same sort, will serve to illustrate 
 the political mentality at that time of a 
 large number of Quebec voters. I will 
 give the picturesque French with a trans- 
 lation. 
 
 ^' Ben, mecieu," said a sturdy habitant, 
 '' J'su liberal, moe, mais j'vote pas pour 
 Laurier cette fois " — Well sir, I am a 
 liberal myself but I wont vote for Laurier 
 this time. — 
 
 " How is this ? " I inquired, " Laurier is 
 
 100 
 
your greatest French Canadian. Why go 
 back on one of your race ? " 
 
 " Grand Canayen, oui, mais Canayen 
 Fransah, j'sais pas. D'pu que le Roi I'a 
 fait Prince, il est pu Anglais que Fransah 
 et pu protestant que catholique. C'tin 
 r'negat, j'vote pas pour lui " — Great Cana- 
 dian, yes, but French Canadian I don't 
 know. Since he has been made a Prince 
 by the King, he is more English than 
 French and more Protestant than Catholic. 
 He is a renegade, I wont vote for him. — 
 
 I suggested that Laurier had not been 
 made a Prince, but simply knighted as 
 they say in English. 
 
 '^ Bon, c'est 9a. J'sais pas I'Anglais, mais 
 j'sais (\y\' night veut dire nuit. C'est 9a, i 
 s'cache dans la nuit, veu pas s'montrer 
 aux pauves Canayens. Bon, c'tin prince 
 de nuit, nighty comme vous dites. Un 
 traite, un Anglais, un protestant. Quin, 
 lisez-9a.... — Well, that's it, I don't know 
 English, but I know knight means night. 
 That's it, he hides in the dark. Don't 
 want to show himself to the poor Cana- 
 
 101 
 
dians. Good, he is a prince of the night 
 as you say. A traitor, an Englishman, a 
 Protestant. Here read this.... — 
 
 And he took from the pocket of his 
 trousers a soiled circular I had seen several 
 times before in various parts of the Pro- 
 vince. The circular said in part that 
 Laurier was a traitor to his race and 
 religion since he had been knighted ; that 
 he was building a big navy at the enorm- 
 ous cost of a hundred millions to be paid 
 by French Canadian tax payers ; that 
 thousands of able bodied young French 
 Canadians vv^ould be taken from the farms 
 and sent away to serve as food for cannon. 
 
 In Ontario I was told a thousand times, 
 by seemingly intelligent farmers and Avork- 
 ingmen, that they had enough of French 
 rule and Pope rule. Laurier, they said, 
 as the agent of the Pope, wanted to impose 
 the Catholic religion and the French lan- 
 guage on the English speaking provinces. 
 
 '' We don't want no d... French language 
 and no Pope," I often heard them say with 
 a frown and a shaking of the fist. 
 
 102 
 
Sir Wilfrid Laurier. 
 
I selected for publication the following 
 circular amongst others bearing likewise 
 upon the subjects of religion, race and 
 language, and sent throughout the Domi- 
 nion. It will be found interesting reading 
 on this side of the line at least. 
 
 Who's going to Rule this Country ? 
 
 SPECIAI, ORDKRS FROM 
 
 His Holiness the Pope. 
 
 Down on your knees, Ontario ! and make obeisance low, 
 To me, your sovereign Lord and King, as Canada shall 
 
 [know. 
 Too long your recreant Protestants have scorned my holy 
 
 [plans, 
 But now your haughty populace must bow to my com- 
 
 [mands. 
 
 Down on your knees, Ontario ! grovel and lick the dust, 
 Your sons and daughters fair are mine, by all tha'ts good 
 
 [and just. 
 I own your bodies, souls and minds, as well as all your 
 
 [cash, 
 
 And to the lowest depths of hell, your proud ones I will 
 
 [dash. 
 
 Close up your Schools, Ontario ! and I will teach your 
 
 [young. 
 
 Your Knglish cannot be compared with the old Latin 
 
 [tongue. 
 
 You educate them far too well, you make them sharp and 
 
 [wise, 
 
 And what you call ' ' the sins of Rome, ' ' you keep before 
 
 [their eyes. 
 
 105 
 
Stop ! right away, Ontario, I claim your lands and 
 
 [schools, 
 
 Your teachers, ministers and "guides," are but a pack 
 
 [of fools. 
 
 For years my men have worked with you, and with entire 
 
 [success. 
 
 You never dreamed they WERE my men — they are, tough, 
 
 [none the less. 
 
 Back down, back down, Ontario ! my work is spreading 
 
 [fast. 
 
 Your trusted men are in my pay, though you may look 
 
 [aghast ; 
 
 My system permeates your towns, the French have won 
 
 [the day. 
 
 And French your province must become, no matter what 
 
 [you say. 
 
 Crawl dovv^n, crawl down, Ontario ! your Orangemen are 
 
 [curs'd. 
 Your Masons damned, your True Blues doomed, for these 
 
 [have all been nursed 
 In bigotry and villainy, but now ueath Heaven's dome. 
 Ontario must swear that she will serve the Church of 
 
 [Rome ! 
 
 Hearken to me, all Canada ! Sir Wilfrid is my son ; ■ 
 All that a son could do for me, he verily has has 
 
 [done. 
 
 His plans are laid, his men told off — and soon with one , 
 
 [great rush \ 
 
 The enemies of Holy Church, for ever we wtll crush. J 
 
 Down on your knees, proud Canada ! my word must be ' 
 
 [obeyed. 
 I hold the keys, I rule the state ! and though I have j 
 
 [delayed 
 To exercise my Ro5^al Will — my day has come at 
 
 [last, 
 And Canada is mine — for sure, and I will hold her 
 
 [fast. 
 
 i 
 
 106 
 
Canada's Reply to the Pope of Rome 
 
 Ye Protestants of Canada arise in all your might, 
 
 Your liberties are threatened, grave dangers are in sight. 
 
 The sky is dark, the clouds are black, and soon the 
 
 [thunder's roar 
 Will echo loud, while lightenings flash from distant shore 
 
 [to shora — 
 The storm blows straight from Rome ! 
 
 The enemy is on the ground, prepared for bitter fight. 
 Up then! young Canada, arise prepared to guard the 
 
 [right 
 A foreign potentate has sent to rob you of your laws, 
 To crush your schools, despoil your Church, and keep you 
 
 [down because 
 You will not bow to Rome ! 
 
 Will he succeed ? shall we submit to be slaves of Rome — 
 Shall we allow her priests and nuns to regulate the home ? 
 To part asunder man and wife, and let the children go ? 
 Ten thousand voices cry aloud emphatically " No," 
 We will not bow to Rome ! 
 
 We treat with scorn and deep contempt her " Ne Temere " 
 
 [decree. 
 And flying the answer in her face — ' ' Young Canada is 
 
 [Free ! 
 We stand beneath the Union Jack, ready to face the foe, — 
 To chase the tyrant from the land and let the world know, 
 Wo do not bow to Rome. 
 
 We scorn to use the cry of race, religion, faith or creed, 
 Let each man workship as he will, for Canada has need 
 Of truly conscientious men, but not for those who hope 
 To raise supreme the yellow flag of any foreign Pope, 
 Or make us bow to Rome. 
 
 Our trusted men have faithless been — have played into 
 
 [her hands. 
 
 Bent low the knee, obeyed her call, and granted her 
 
 [demands ; 
 
 107 
 
Let us now say with one accord ' ' we must have righteous 
 
 [laws, 
 We have no use for Rome's decrees, we're done with her 
 
 [because — 
 We will not bow to Rome ! 
 
 Stand firm, young Canada ! unfurl your banners to the 
 
 [breeze. 
 United we will bring those dark Italians to their knees. 
 We're free men born, free we remain, to guard our hearth 
 
 [and home 
 But no commands will we receive or listen to from Rome, 
 We never bow to Rome ! 
 
 Cheers for King George ! up with the Jack ' the Maple 
 
 [Leaf for ever 
 
 Down with the white and yellow flag, and those who try 
 
 [to sever — 
 
 Canadians from their fealty to Britain's lawful King, 
 Loud let our song of triumph swell, and make Heaven's 
 
 [arches ring, 
 We do not bow to Rome ! 
 
 Canadians will jog along many decades 
 before the realization of their dream of 
 national greatness, if persistent in fostering 
 race hatred and religious bigotry. Great 
 breadth of mind untramelled by prejudices 
 of any sort, and intelligent cosmopolit- 
 anism are indispensable for the assimila- 
 tion of armies of immigrants representing 
 various races who find their way to the 
 Dominion, or at least to keep those who 
 do go. It is a matter of history that of 
 
 108 
 
Habitants at a political meeting — Quebec. 
 
the two million immigrants who landed 
 in Canada during the last decade, one 
 million cannot be accounted for. They 
 have disappeared mysteriously like the 
 lost tribe. Evidently they have come over 
 the line to the States, where more opport- 
 unities to better themselves can be found, 
 and where language prejudice and religious 
 intolerance are seldom seen anywhere from 
 New-York to San Francisco. 
 
 Ill 
 
Part Third 
 
 Future of Canada and the French Race 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 A dream that may not materialize as dreamed. — 
 Independence and Annexation. 
 
 'pHE DOMINION OF CANADA is big 
 enough to care for six hundred million 
 human beings, with plenty of food and 
 elbow room to spare. She has inexhaust- 
 ible natural resources of everything found 
 on ajid in the earth, and in the waters 
 about and in the air above the earth. 
 Take your choice from forests to farm 
 land ; from beasts to birds ; from all 
 minerals known to blue clay, and from 
 a whale to a minnow. 
 
 Truly, the possibilities of Canada appear 
 limitless, but there is often what seems 
 an insurmountable distance between actu- 
 ality and possibility. All depends on men 
 and conditions. The United States built 
 up a mighty nation of ninety millions in 
 one hundred and thirty six years. Canada 
 
 113 
 
would unquestionably be satisfied with the 
 same result in one hundred and fifty years. 
 She begins her upward movement with 
 about the same population credited to the 
 States in 1776, but here the comparison 
 ends. In the new Republic, we find a 
 strong-willed and ambitious people begin- 
 ing housekeeping on their own account. 
 Independence and liberty are theirs and 
 the best of prospects loom up on all sides. 
 Trappings and tomfoolery incidental to 
 monarchical rule were thrown to the wind, 
 and life began under entirely new con- 
 ditions. The past was killed very dead 
 and nothing but the present and the future 
 remained. The world knows to-day how 
 that present and that future were utilized. 
 Intelligent and energetic individualism be- 
 gotten of freedom overcame every obstacle, 
 and, out of a dormant colony, built up a 
 colossal Republic now dominant in the two 
 Americas. 
 
 Canada has begun her upward journey 
 under many favorable conditions that were 
 lacking at the birth of our Republic. Her 
 
 114 
 
seven millions of people are hardy, intel- 
 ligent, energetic and comparatively well 
 to do. Her railway system, reaching from 
 Ocean to Ocean, is superior to many and 
 second to none in the World, and her 
 steamships go out to every sea. The 
 country is prosperous, and immigrants are 
 coming to her shores at the rate of half 
 a million a year. 
 
 So far so good, but let it be borne in 
 mind that Canada is only a Colony enjoy- 
 ing autonomy by the grace of grandmama 
 across the sea. While practically inde- 
 pendent bhe is not, in the broad sense of 
 the term, a free agent. There is a guiding 
 hand in the rear that says : right, left, 
 about face, forward, march, halt, wait a 
 while 'till I see. Implicit obedience to 
 these various commands is required and 
 given. Now that sort of dependence can 
 by no means accelerate the work pro- 
 jected. 
 
 Yes, progress must necessarily be slow, 
 first owing to the reason just given, and 
 then to the lack of harmony between the 
 
 115 
 
two races in the older provinces. The two 
 million French Canadians refuse to be 
 bulldozed by dragonnades from the English 
 majority. They have no fear of the East, 
 but look at the growing West with alarm. 
 They believe, and rightly too, that an 
 increasing majority hostile to their lan- 
 guage and race forshadows their ultimate 
 route, as a powerful political factor in the 
 Dominion. There is a pulling apart here 
 which is not conducive to an agressive 
 policy of national growth, the dream of 
 far-reaching Canadian statesmen. But no 
 doubt should be entertained as to the 
 ultimate partial realization of that dream. 
 English gold, pluck^ perseverance and won- 
 derful commercial genius can transform 
 alcali deserts into gardens, and a towering 
 mountain of naked rocks into a fertile 
 valley. However, it can hardly be the big 
 dream dreamed but a very substantial 
 dream for all that. 
 
 An increase of about three millions in 
 Canada is most probable during the coming 
 decade, that is, if fifty per cent of the 
 
 116 
 
immigrants remain in the country. Cana- 
 dian optimism goes farther than that, and 
 places the figures at fifteen and even twenty 
 millions. Ridiculous of course. But these 
 young and ambitious Canadians are af- 
 flicted with the swelled head. They really 
 and seriously think themselves quite big — 
 a civilizing agent of very great weight. 
 A moment's reflection would disclose the 
 important fact that they have lost their 
 reckoning ; that they are in reality next 
 to nothing in the scale of conspicuous 
 human achievements. 
 
 However, a young and vigorous nation 
 of ten millions, with prospects of larger 
 growth and greater wealth, has to be rec- 
 koned with. But when the ten millions 
 have been reached, what then ? Will Canada 
 be then at, or is she not already within 
 sight of the parting of the way ? 
 
 Diplomats and economists who have 
 been watching, with clear brain and vfide 
 open eyes, the multitudinous and mys- 
 terious manoeuvering over the political 
 checker-board of Europe, know in their 
 
 117 
 
inner souls that the fate of England is now 
 hanging npon a thread. One battle lost 
 in the North Sea and the practical des- 
 truction of her fleet will bring that proud 
 and mighty nation to her knees, and the 
 subsequent collapse of the Empire. The 
 logical sequence of such an event, by no 
 means improbable, would be the inde- 
 pendence of Canada, the birth of a new 
 nation. A nation of say ten million 
 people alongside of a colossal Republic \ 
 of a hundred millions. A Republic whose 
 dream is to see the Stars and Stripes float 
 over the Continent of North America. 
 
 With the British Empire buried in the 
 North Sea or some other seas, it becomes 
 at once evident that the existence of 
 Canada as an integral power is wholly at 
 the mercy of her big neighbor. AVhile 
 not wanting in magnanimity Uncle Sam 
 alwa3^s attends to business first and to 
 pleasure afterwards. Canada will be given 
 opportunities and time to come into the 
 fold. Persistance in holding back will do 
 no good, and resistance would be madness. 
 
 118 
 
Right Honorable Robert L,. Borden, 
 Premier of Canada. 
 
The fable of the wolf and the lamb is still 
 in print, and will be found interesting 
 reading to Canadians. Anexation of Ca- 
 nada by the United States, by peaceful 
 means or otherwise, seems to me inevitable 
 and for the ultimate good of the two 
 countries. The Union Jack will meet with 
 the fate of the flag of France in North 
 America. Furthermore, I expect to see 
 the day when the talented statesman, the 
 Right Honorable Robert L. Borden, now 
 Premier of Canada, will find himself com- 
 fortably installed as a cabinet minister in 
 Washington. 
 
 4 
 
 '^^ 
 
 121 
 
Chapter II 
 
 The material side of Quebec. — Roads and railways. 
 
 A GLANCE at the material side of Quebec 
 may be found interesting. In the first 
 place the old Province with the Territory 
 of Ungava annexed is the largest in the 
 Dominion and larger than France, Germany 
 and the British Isles combined. The last 
 census gives a population of over two 
 millions. About one million seven hun- 
 dred thousand are of French descent and 
 speak the French language. The king of 
 rivers, the majestic St. Lawrence, winds its 
 way through the Province from West to 
 East down to the Gulf. The land and 
 buildings owned by Quebec farmers are 
 estimated at three hundred and sixty 
 millions, and the value of field crops for 
 1910 foots up to ninety-five millions. The 
 six hundred and forty-one farmers' clubs 
 in the province have a membership of 
 sixty thousand, and twenty-one thousand 
 farmers are members of seventy- eight agri- 
 cultural societies. The available land for 
 
 123 
 
settlement comes up to seventy-five million 
 acres. There are nearly three thousand 
 factories and creameries. 
 
 The timber supply — the recently annexed 
 territory is not included here — of soft and 
 hard wood is estimated at one hundred 
 and sixty-five billion feet ; thirty - five 
 billion cords of pinewood and thirty billion 
 cords of pulp-wood. The whole is estimated 
 to be worth five hundred millions. There 
 are over forty-five thousand lumbermen 
 employed. Quebec is the chief spruce pro- 
 ducing province. In 1911 nineteen pulp 
 and paper companies with a total capital- 
 ization of forty-one million seven hunckred 
 thousand dollars were in operation in 
 Quebec. The forest land is estimated at 
 one hundred and thirtj^-five million acres 
 and brings to the Government a revenue 
 of over a million a year. 
 
 There were in 1905 nearly five thousand 
 manufacturing establishments with a capi- 
 tal of two hundred and fifty-five millions, 
 and an output of three hundred and 
 nineteen millions. More than forty-seven 
 
 124 
 
millions were paid to one hundred and 
 nineteen thousand employees. The hy- 
 draulic power in Quebec — 17,075,939 — 
 is double that of all the other provinces 
 combined. The value of mining product 
 is estimated at nearly six millions, and two 
 million ninety-four thousand three hun- 
 dred and fifty-seven dollars were paid to 
 six thousand three hundred and twenty- 
 five workingmen in 1908. There are twelve 
 Banks in the Province with a paid up 
 capital of forty-seven millions in round 
 figures. 
 
 The English language has the best and 
 most voluminous vocabulary in stock for 
 swearing purposes than any language I 
 know. This may be accounted for from 
 the fact that English is the language of 
 heavy commerce and of the masses, where 
 forcible language is most frequently used. 
 Now if I ever hear of any man of English 
 speech boasting of a car tour over the 
 Quebec roads with is mouth shut, I shall 
 stamp him forthwith as the champion liar 
 of the world. Good roads in Quebec, 
 
 125 
 
especially in the early Spring, are as rare 
 as roses in a desert. 
 
 There is, however, a man at the head 
 of affairs in the Province who is the right 
 man in the right place, at the right time. 
 Sir Lomer Gouin is a progressive man — 
 a tenacious man of deeds. He has done 
 much for the material and educational 
 progress of his Province, and as he most 
 probably will continue in power, his good 
 work will go right on. 
 
 His Government is up and at it, trying 
 to get out of the mud in good earnest. The 
 pretty sum of ten millions has recently 
 been appropriated for road improvements 
 and a fine boulevard is now being built 
 through a rich farming country, from 
 Montreal to Rouses Point on the northern 
 frontier of Nevf-York. 
 
 Railway facilities are also lacking in 
 Quebec. The mileage of this province is 
 hardly half that of Ontario. This is to 
 be deplored, in as much as colonization 
 of the fertile land of the North must 
 necessarily proceed at a very slow pace 
 
 126 
 
Sir Lomer Gouin. 
 
I 
 
 
without the iron horse in the fore, and 
 colonization is the most urgent need of 
 Quebec. 
 
 Montieal like Chicago and Milton's Par- 
 adise Lost is a mingling of the sublime 
 and the ridiculous„ Viewed from the 
 heights of Mont Royal, all about to ever}-- 
 point under the rich blue sky, down to 
 a far horizon of more sombre tints, the 
 majestic beauties of the landscape illum- 
 inate the soul with an enthusiasm akin 
 to sublimity. Then the eye leaving the 
 regions overhead slowly sweeps over a 
 seemingly endless forest of houses, high 
 and low, of cross covered domes and 
 steeples and princely buildings half hid- 
 den down below amongst the trees of the 
 mountain ; and again, coming to the imme- 
 diate vicinity, lingers with reverence over 
 magi>ificent cities of the dead. 
 
 The ridiculous and annoying side of the 
 picture looms up in the way of outrage- 
 ously ill-paved and dirty streets. There 
 are quite a number of streets and a few 
 squares were imposing buildings are found, 
 
 129 
 
but a few hours' touring through the city 
 discloses the fact that the commercial 
 m.etropolis of Canada is in the making. 
 The making is, however, going on fast 
 and furious. Tearing down and building 
 up here, there and everywhere. Much of 
 the dust one sees flying about in clouds 
 of more or less dimension is the dust of 
 labor fanned by the breath of energy and 
 activity. When the old gives place to the 
 new, there must be a shaking of things. 
 Old Montreal is going, melting, sinking 
 away out of sight, and new Montreal is 
 coming up like a vengeance. This city 
 has doubled its population in ten years 
 and at its present rate of increase, Boston 
 and St. Louis will be left in the rear in 
 three years. At the end of the present 
 decade, it is not at all improbable that 
 the names of the largest cities in North 
 America will be given in this order : New 
 York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Montreal. 
 From five hundred thousand to a million 
 in a decade is the dream of the big and 
 ambitious city in the Province of Quebec. 
 
 130 
 
Now, we will all agree that a city increasing 
 at the rate of fifty thousand a year must 
 necessarily raise considerable dust. Op- 
 timism is a great thing, it is the inextin- 
 guishable, unerring lighthouse of the hardy 
 and ambitious, and the Montrealer is op- 
 timistic from head top to heels. 
 
 One of the most interesting features to 
 be met with in Montreal is the bilingual 
 feature. Of the supposed population of 
 five hundred thousand, the French speak- 
 ing citizens including the France French, 
 the Belgians and the Swiss, claim about 
 three hundred and thirty thousand. The 
 remaining one hundred and seventy thou- 
 sand may be approximately divided into 
 one hundred and thirty thousand of En- 
 glish speech, such as English, Irish and 
 Scotch, and forty thousand Jews, Italians 
 and Germans, with a sprinkling of every 
 nationalitv under the sun. 
 
 The English element dominate the 
 French in high finance and commercial 
 influence. They have a much greater 
 amount of capital invested in manufactures 
 
 131 
 
and industries of all sorts. The French, 
 however, have been doing pretty well with 
 the capital available. The great French 
 Canadian financier, Sir Rodolphe Forget, 
 is doing much to stimulate his country- 
 men to a higher standard of commercial 
 endeavors, by inducing capitalists from 
 Paris and elsewhere to invest their over- 
 flowing surplus gold in Montreal and other 
 parts of Canada. 
 
 Political power in Montreal as in the 
 whole Province of Quebec is entirely in 
 the hands (;f French Canadians, and it is 
 of the utmost import that it should remain 
 such in the interest of their race and lan- 
 guage. Of thirty-one councilmen, twenty- 
 eight are French, and the same proportion 
 is held in most of the elective oflices in 
 the city. The Chiefs of Police and Fire 
 Department are of the same race also. 
 French Mayors could very well succeed 
 themselves indefinitely, had not French 
 chivalry willed it otherwise. The high 
 position of chief magistrate of the city 
 is held alternately by a French, English 
 
 132 
 
and Irish Canadian. Being an American 
 of French and English descent, whoever 
 is elected mayor of Montreal must neces- 
 sarily be something of a compatriot of 
 mine. Yet, I must sav it in all sincerity, 
 
 %J ,1 7 
 
 French Canadian chivalry will cease to 
 meet with grateful appreciation, should 
 the tables ever be turned with the Britishers 
 on top. An English majority would never 
 consent to the election of a French Mayor 
 in Montreal. And as to the Irish, history 
 shows no record of an Irishman having 
 died of gratitude. 
 
 The common class of immigrants take 
 more readily to English than French in 
 Montreal. The Jews for instance are En- 
 glish in speech and sympathy, although 
 most of them speak passably good French. 
 It is, however, my candid opinion that 
 French Canadians will hold more than 
 their own in Montreal as well as in Quebec. 
 It Avill be many years, if ever, before im- 
 migration can be diverted from the West 
 to the East. Meanwhile the Eastern En- 
 glish speaking Provinces shall have to be 
 
 135 
 
contented with a natural increase, which 
 will in all probability^ continue to fall far 
 below that of Quebec. 
 
 136 
 
Chapter III 
 
 Important statistics. — A Republic and other dreams.— 
 The Tricolor and the Church. 
 
 pRENCH CANADIANS are very proud 
 of their large families and of the 
 longevity of their members. Families of 
 twenty children are not rare in Quebec, 
 and an average of eight children to every 
 family in the Province would be a con- 
 servative estimate. Here are some statistics 
 I gathered from French Canadian parents in 
 some of the rural districts and three cities of 
 Quebec, and from farmers and workingmen 
 of Ontario and the Maritime Provinces. 
 In rural Quebec I found that five hundred 
 and fifty-three children had been born in 
 fifty families. Of this number one hun- 
 dred and seventeen died, ten had gone to 
 the States, five studied for the priesthood, 
 four were nuns and twenty were engaged 
 in business or followed some professions. 
 The remaining three hundred and ninety- 
 seven worked on the farms. The number 
 of births in the same number of families 
 
 137 
 
in the cities of Quebec, Trois-Rivieres and 
 Montreal averaged five hundred and two. 
 
 The. number of children born in fifty 
 families of farmers in Ontario came up to 
 two hundred and fifty-nine. There were 
 forty - seven deaths, and eighty - two had 
 gone to the cities and the West, leaving 
 one hundred and thirty on the farms. 
 I found that two hundred and sixty-three 
 children had been born in fifty families 
 of the well to do working class in Toronto. 
 The Maritime Provinces made about the 
 same showing as Ontario. I am speaking 
 here of families of English speech only. 
 There were five hundred and sixty-one 
 children born in fift}^ families of French 
 speech or Acadians in New Brunswick — 
 a better showing than Quebec. I met 
 fifteen centenarians in Quebec and Ontario. 
 Amongst these was the son of a soldier 
 of Waterloo. He is now 103 years old, 
 straight as an arrow, hale and hearty. His 
 name is Athanase Eocray and his abiding 
 place, Berthierville, Quebec. 
 
 Now it will be seen by the foregoing 
 
 138 
 
Sir Rodolphe Forget. 
 
I 
 
that the French Canadian Birth rate ex- 
 ceeds by about one hundred per cent that 
 of Ontario and the Maritime Provinces. 
 Should French Canadian mothers keep up 
 their enviable reputation for three score 
 years, and the English speaking provinces 
 of the East fail to make a better showing 
 in the future than in the past, the result 
 is easily foreseen. An Eastern French 
 Canada against a Western English Canada. 
 However, quite a number of ifs are to be 
 met with in connection with such a hypo- 
 thesis. Aside from a high birth rate other 
 things are required to overcome English 
 stubborness, whether from a majority or a 
 minority. French Canadians must meet 
 stubbornness with stubbornness, arrogance 
 with arrogance, aggression with aggression, 
 boldness with boldness and stupidity with 
 cleverness. Dissensions and petty jealousies 
 manifestly rampant in the Province, should 
 cease forever and give place to a bold 
 and patriotic unit. No time should be 
 spent in tickering over nothing. The 
 most urgent need is a concentration of 
 
 141 
 
strength in the Province through coloniza- 
 tion, and again colonization. The scattering 
 of the . race in the West is equivalent to 
 emigration to the States. Quebec is the 
 place and only place for the expansion 
 of the race and a corresponding increase 
 of strength and power. A source of weak- 
 ness to Quebec is a lack of technical 
 education. Most of the young men I met | 
 in the Province engaged in enginering 
 works, were of English speech and quite 
 a number of them came from Ontario. 
 Quebec young men have a weakness for 
 liberal professions. There is here an idle, 
 poverty-stricken army of lawyers, doctors, 
 notaries, and the like ; and again an other 
 army of seekers of shadows, sentimental 
 loafers and penurious sons of those ever- 
 lasting old families of yesterday. Mean- 
 while seventy-five million acres of farm 
 land are waiting for the plow. However, 
 all this rubbish will eventually be utilized 
 or swept away, and Quebec will continue 
 her march upward. 
 
 I frequently heard it stated that French 
 
 142 
 
Canadians aim at the establishment of a 
 Republic on the banks of the St. Lawrence. 
 It is said to be the dream of the talented 
 Bourassa, head of the Nationalists. Only 
 a dream of course. Yet, I must say that 
 a French Republic in Quebec seems to 
 me as probable as the existence of Canada 
 as an independent nation The morsel is 
 too tempting for Uncle Sam to let go, and 
 then it would be so easy to swallow it 
 and digest it in due time. 
 
 French Canadians, all Canadians for 
 that matter, have an exaggerated opinion 
 of England as a military power. They 
 always think of the England of Trafalgar 
 and Waterloo. They seem to have no 
 recollection of the South African war, when 
 the whole Empire had to be summoned 
 to her help, to overcome her repeated de- 
 feats at the hands of twenty thousand 
 farmers. 
 
 The prestige of England has fallen quite 
 low since that war, and she is not now 
 resting on a bed of roses. She is facing 
 economic conditions at home such as 
 
 143 
 
existed in France before the Revolution, 
 and the nightmare of German invasion 
 leaves her no peace for one good, quiet 
 sleep. She has to lean on France for safety, 
 while throwing out in the neighboring 
 seas, barricades of dreadnoughts. But all 
 her dreadnoughts without a Nelson to 
 command them will probably not make 
 the good showing expected against the 
 combined fleets of Germany, Austria and 
 Italy. The fate of the British Empire 
 hangs on a thread, as I said before, and, as 
 a logical sequence, the fate of the Dominion 
 of Canada hangs on a hair held by Uncle 
 Sam. 
 
 While I met a great many well educated 
 men in Quebec who favored annexation, 
 most French Canadians however are op- 
 posed to it. They take the ground that 
 such a political union spells the ultimate 
 extinction of the French language in the 
 Province. They seem to overlook the fact 
 that the solid and rapidly growing English 
 West with the English majority East are 
 working to that very end, and with uncon- 
 
 144 
 
Typical French Canadian family in rural Quebec. 
 
I 
 
cealed aggressiveness, too. The simple fact 
 of the matter is that the perpetuity of the 
 French idiom in the old Province rests 
 exclusively with the people themselves. 
 The American people, and much less 
 American statesmen, would never oppose, 
 but most likely encourage the expansion 
 of the French tongue in Quebec. Our 
 Republic would welcome and appreciate 
 the civilizing influences of a little France 
 in her midst. The French language is 
 left to go on its own way and prosper in 
 Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hamp- 
 shire, Maine, Vermont and Illinois. A French 
 Canadian is Governor of Rhode Island, 
 and other more or less important offices, 
 such as that of Mayor, District Attorney, 
 Councilman, etc., are held by man of the 
 same race throughout New England. In 
 quite a number of minor towns in the 
 Eastern States, French Canadians are the 
 controling element. 
 
 The one million French Canadians in 
 the States stand as a unit for annexation. 
 The tremendous industrial and commercial 
 
 147 
 
activity ensuing from the influx of un- 
 limited American capital and modernism, 
 would . bring a great percentage of these 
 Canadians back to their native Province. 
 There would then be no lack of opport- 
 unities to lift up ambitious young men, 
 from obscurity and inertia to a life of 
 activity with wealth and fame as a fre- 
 quent sequel. 
 
 Now, to my way of thinking, a French 
 Republic in Quebec is an impossibility : 
 an independent Canada would meet with 
 an early death, and the colony with the 
 Empire gone ceases to have a raison cfetre, 
 Canada is then left with only one course 
 to fellow, namely, to bow to the inevitable, 
 and extend a cheerful grasp to the might- 
 iest of Republics. 
 
 Now let me assume the gift of prophecy. 
 Whatever may be in store for Canada, the 
 unique and picturesque people of Quebec 
 and their musical idiom as well, shall keep 
 right on expanding in and beyond the old 
 Province. 
 
 Here is an article, descriptive of a 
 
 148 
 
sadly magnificent spectacle I witnessed in 
 Montreal in June 1911, and which left a 
 deep impression upon my mind. 
 
 The clipping was handed to me by a 
 traveling companion, a traveled and well 
 bred Englishman — such Englishmen are 
 the most delightful companions in the 
 world — with the following request : 
 " Please read this. It is one of the most 
 delightful bits of descriptive work I have 
 read for some time.'' It is certainly a 
 little chef'iV oeuvre, and I enjoyed reading 
 it the more, in as much as I had been 
 an eye witness of the scenes so graphically 
 depicted by the author, Albert Lozeau. 
 
 The burning church, now being rebuilt, 
 and the victorious French Tricolor seemed 
 to symbolize the conquest, the struggles 
 and the final triumph of the French race, 
 language and religion in Quebec. 
 
 I publish the original French for the 
 benefit of students of that language : — 
 
 " Je sais un drapeau frangais qui s'est 
 bien conduit. 
 
 Hisse depuis la St-Jean-Baptiste sur le 
 
 149 
 
fronton de mon gglise paroissiale, il a brav6 
 sans une brulure les flammes d'un mons- 
 trueux brasier. 
 
 Le temple flambait. De la base au faite^ 
 ce n'etait que tourbillons d'6tincelles et 
 colonnes de feu. La coupole croulait par 
 morceaux et la toiture crevait ; par les 
 orifices se ruait en sifflant un affreux vent 
 rouge. D'enormes pieces d'acier, tordues 
 comme des allumettes calcinees, s'effon- 
 draient en un fracas horrible. Des plaques 
 de cuivre d'une phosphorescence verdatre, 
 a demi fondues, volaient pareilles a des 
 bardeaux lumineux. Sous le ciel rose, la 
 fumee large eployait un voile opaque ou 
 passaient des tisons incandescents. Tout 
 cr^pitait epouvantablement. Les pompes 
 a vapeur retentissaient de vibrations et de 
 sifflements lugubres, et I'edifice se consu- 
 mait aux exclamations sourdes de la foule. 
 De temps en temps, d'immenses langues 
 cramoisies serpentaient par les ouvertures 
 et lechaient les murs de pierre. Le brasier 
 6clairait la nuit d'une lueur infernale. 
 
 La foudre toute seule avait fait cela. 
 
 150 
 
Athanase Rocray, 103 years old, 
 Berthisrville, Que. 
 
Un eclair rapide avait touche le toit, et 
 Teglise s''an6antissait. 
 
 Entre deux clochetons lateraux, fr616 
 par la poussiere ardente, au-dessus de la 
 fournaise dont la chaleur empourprait au 
 loin les visages, le drapeau fran9ais battait 
 au vent. 
 
 De r^norme cuve en ebullition montaient 
 des vagues pourpres et jaunes, et des lances 
 de flammes aigues. Le drapeau frangais 
 battait au vent ! 
 
 Sur la frenesie du feu, sur le sinistre 
 incendie que rien n'apaisait, sur la rage de 
 Telement feroce, le drapeau francais battait 
 au vent ! 
 
 Dans le firmament ebloui, ou fuyaient 
 des milliers de petites etoiles, dans les cris 
 d'angoisses et les appels rauques, en pleine 
 catastrophe, seul dans le danger, chiffon 
 tricolore intrepide, le drapeau frangais bat- 
 tait au vent. 
 
 Aujourd'hui, il n'y a plus que des mines 
 oil se posent les oiseaux. Dans les cloche- 
 tons, les cloches sont mortes. Des frag- 
 ments de structure d6form6e dessinent leurs 
 
 153 
 
silhouettes desolantes. Un pilier solitaire 
 se dresse, intact^ au milieu de renceinte. 
 Ou 6tait le d6me s'arrondit la coupole 
 des cieux. Le silence habite le temple 
 ouvert ou les orgues nouvelles avaient hier 
 chant6. . . . 
 
 Mais, comme une esperance dominant la 
 tristesse, seul entre les clochetons lateraux, 
 joyeux dans la brise qui le rend sonore, 
 sans une brMure a ses plis triomphants, le 
 drapeau fran§ais flotte encore/' 
 
 (tkanslation) 
 
 I know a French flag which has behaved 
 gloriously. 
 
 Raised on St. John the Baptist's Day 
 on the pediment of my parish church, it 
 stood unscorched by the flames of a mon- 
 strous conflagration. 
 
 The whole sacred edifice wos a prey to 
 the flames. From its highest pinnacle to 
 its very foundations, nothing could be 
 seen but columns of fire and a whirling 
 of sparks. The coupola was crumbling 
 
 154 
 
French Canadian guide in Northern Quebec. 
 
bit by bit, and the roof, eaten by the 
 fire, burst open everywhere and through 
 the orifices thus made, the red flames 
 broke with a frightful, whistling sound. 
 Big blocks of steel, blackened and twisted 
 like burnt matches, crashed through the 
 building with a horrible din. Plates of 
 copper, emetting a green phosphorescent 
 light, half melted, whirled through the 
 air like luminous shingles. Beneath the 
 rose-tinted sky, there hung a heavy, opaque 
 cloud of smoke through which burning 
 firebrands rushed to and fro. The whole 
 building crackled ominously. The steam 
 pumps vibrated and hissed lugubriously, 
 and the crowd uttered muffled cries and 
 exclamations as they saw the edifice being 
 slowly consumed. Now and then immense 
 crimson tongues, serpent - shaped, burst 
 through the openings and licked the granite 
 walls. The seething furnace lit up the 
 blackness of the night with an infernal 
 light. 
 
 A single stroke of lightning had caused 
 all this ruin. A rapid flash had touched 
 
 157 
 
the roof and the church was being slowly 
 destroyed. 
 
 Between two lateral bell-turrets, closel}^ 
 beset by the burning dust, above the fiery 
 furnace whose heat flushed the faces of 
 distant beholders, the French flag floated 
 in the wind. 
 
 From the enormous vat in ebulition 
 ascended purple and yellow waves and 
 sharp tongues of flames. The French flag 
 floated in the wind ! 
 
 Over the frenzy of the fire, over the 
 sinister conflagration which nothing could 
 appease, over the raging and ferocious 
 
 element, the French flag floated in the 
 wind. 
 
 In the blue azure of the skies, dotted 
 with myriads of little stars, amid cries of 
 anguish and hoarse shouts, at the very 
 heart of the catastrophe, isolated and con- 
 temptuous of danger, intrepid tricolored 
 cloth, the French flag floated in the wind. 
 
 Today, nothing is left but bird haunted 
 ruins. In their towers the bells are bushed 
 for ever. Fragments of the building, 
 
 158 
 
lonely and desolate, show their formless 
 outlines against the sky. A solitary pillar, 
 intact, stands within the enclosure. Where 
 the dome of the church onces tood, no- 
 thing is seen but the blue expanse of 
 heaven — silence broads over the ruined 
 temple where yesterday the organ rang 
 with songs of praise and adoration. 
 
 But like a note of hope dominating this 
 symphony of sadness, standing alone bet- 
 ween the lateral bell-turrets, sonorous in 
 the joyous breeze, its triumphant folds 
 unscorched, the French flag is still float- 
 ing." 
 
 The talented writer might have, seen but 
 a short distance from the burning temple, 
 another flag which floats at this writing 
 over 400,000,000 human beings scattered 
 in every part of the Globe, over an area 
 of more than eleven million square miles. 
 It was the Union Jack flying from an 
 unpretentious staff. The grand old flag 
 now in full swing, angril}^ shaking its 
 
 159 
 
colors at the conflagration, and then slowly 
 falling and rising in seeming sympathy 
 with the Tricolor, its ancient enemy, but 
 now its best friend and ally. 
 
 Now, I will conclude with a bow, a 
 most respectful bow, to Eastern Canadian 
 mothers — the representatives of all that 
 is sane, wholesome and enobling in do- 
 mestic life. 
 
 160 
 
^C^ 
 
 Comparative numerical standing of the French and 
 Lritish races in Eastern Canada. 
 
ERRORS 
 
 page; 
 
 1.INE 
 
 RKAD 
 
 FOR 
 
 II 
 
 9 
 
 Spring 
 
 spring 
 
 17 
 
 12 
 
 English 
 
 english 
 
 25 
 
 10 
 
 this 
 
 these 
 
 25 
 
 19 
 
 pursuit 
 
 poursuit 
 
 40 
 
 12 
 
 this is a 
 
 this a 
 
 58 
 
 14 
 
 seemingly 
 
 simingly 
 
 81 
 
 4 
 
 eat 
 
 do 
 
 88 
 
 23 
 
 differs 
 
 differ 
 
 89 
 
 8 
 
 speak 
 
 spoke 
 
 148 
 
 16 
 
 fallow 
 
 fellow 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 017 373 380 P 
 
 ^