ill. I was complaining of my first terrible night to Sir Leonard Tilley,

the Finance Minister, and he said that when he first came to Ottawa it was the same with him.

A lady told me that Lady Tupper, who has just left the Colony for England, where, it is said, her lord and master hopes to find a seat in the Imperial Parliament—a consummation devoutly to be wished, as to my mind it is clear that all our colonies should have representatives in Parliament—made a similar complaint as to the effect of the place on her children, and I have it on the best authority that scarcely a session passes but an M.P. pays the penalty of a residence in Ottawa.

In my case I was preserved, as the man in the ‘Arabian Nights’ says, for the greater misfortunes yet to befall me by the use of Dr. Browne’s far-famed ‘Chlorodyne’—an indispensable requisite, I am bound to say, when an emigrant takes his trial trip to Canada. I know not who is the inventor—I believe it is what we call a patent medicine—that is, a medicine not sanctioned by the faculty—but, as has been observed of the Pickwick pen, it is indeed a boon and a blessing to men. I used ‘Chlorodyne,’ and was soon all right. Sir Leonard Tilley told me he did the same, and no one should go to Ottawa without having a small bottle of it in his carpet-bag.

Yet Ottawa is not without a certain freshness of beauty that one associates _primâ facie_ with perfect health. The stately Government buildings, all of grey stone, are placed on a hill, whence you have a peerless view of river and country and distant hill, and far away forests all around. A more picturesque site it would be assuredly most difficult to find. As to the town itself, it is a curious compound—almost Irish in that respect—of splendour and meanness. There are magnificent shops—and then you come to wooden shanties, which in such a city ought long ere this to have been improved off the face of the earth. If on a rainy day, unless very careful, you attempt to cross the streets, you are in danger of sticking in the mud, which no one seems to ever think of removing, and in many parts there are disgraceful holes in the plank pavement on which you walk, which are dangerous, especially to the aged and infirm.

In Ottawa the contrasts are more violent than I have seen elsewhere. Everyone comes to the place. It is the headquarters of the Dominion. I met there statesmen, adventurers, wild men of the woods, or prairie, deputies from Manitoba, lawyers from Quebec, sharpers and honest men, all staying at one hotel; and it seemed strange to sit at dinner and see great rough fellows, with the manners of ploughmen, quaffing their costly champagne, and fancying themselves patterns of gentility and taste. In one thing they disappointed me. Sir Charles Tupper was to leave for England, and his admirers met outside the hotel to see him off. There was a carriage and four to convey him to the station, and other carriages followed. There was a military band in attendance, much to the disgust of the Opposition journals—and yet, in spite of all, the cheers which followed the departing statesman were so faint as to be perfectly ridiculous to a British ear, and seemed quite out of proportion to all the display that had been made. Certainly they seemed quite childish compared with those which greeted a certain individual, whose name delicacy forbids my mentioning, when, on the last night on board the _Sarnia_, he ventured humbly to reply to the toast of the Press which had been given in the smoking-room by a Quebec artist returning home from study in Paris.

In Ottawa, certainly, there is no demand for emigrants, unless it be good female servants, who are wanted much more, and can have much more comfortable living, at home. A lady asked me to send her a few good servants from England. I replied that my wife wanted them as much as she did, and that it was my duty to attend to her requirements first.

It is curious the airs the raw servant-girls from Ireland give themselves out here. One day, when I was at Peterborough, one of the head-quarters of the lumber trade—which yesterday was a dense forest, and is now a town of 8,000 people—I heard of the arrival of a lot of girls from Galway. The drill-hall was set apart for their use, and there they were respectfully waited on by the chief ladies of the district in need of that rarest of created beings—a good maid-of-all-work. In this particular case one of the arrivals was fixed on.

‘What can you do?’ said the lady.

The girl seemed uncertain on that point.

‘Can you wash?’

‘Oh no!’

‘Can you cook?’

‘Oh no!’

‘Can you do housemaid’s work?’

Well, she thought she could.

Then came the question of wages.

‘Will you take eight dollars a month?’

No, she would not. Would she accept of nine? Oh no! Would she take ten? Certainly not.

‘What do you want?’ said the lady, beginning to be alarmed.

‘They told me I was to have twelve dollars a month,’ said the girl, and that put a stop to the negotiation.

When I state that an English sovereign is worth at this time four dollars and eighty-six cents, I think you will agree with me that this charming daughter of Erin somewhat overrated the value of her services. The Canadians are a well-to-do people, but they cannot afford twelve dollars a month for a mere housemaid. I think it would be well if the respectable young women—of whom there are thousands in England who do not care for the pittance given to a governess, and who prefer the life of a lady-help—were to come out. They would soon be appreciated.

The average girl selected to be sent out to the colony, so far as I have seen her, is not a model of loveliness or utility. Were I a Canadian mother, I would sooner have a lady-help. Nor need the lady-help be afraid of the roughness of her lot. In Ontario, all the difficulties of the pioneers of civilization have long since disappeared. One hears strange tales of what those brave men and delicately nurtured ladies had to suffer.

I have seen two—whom I had known when a boy—who were familiar with the best of London literary society, who figured in all the annuals of the season, who were famous in their day, whose sires came over with William the Conqueror. They were sisters, and married two officers, who had land allotted to them in Canada, and brought out these wellborn and delicately nurtured women into what was then a waste, howling wilderness, where they had to slave as no servant-girl slaves in England, and to fight with the severity of the climate in a way of which the present generation of Canadians have no idea. Only think, for instance, of your joint roasting at the fire on one side and freezing on the other! In the settled parts of Canada, such horrors are now amongst the pleasant reminiscences of the past.

But I must return to Ottawa, where the universal testimony of all the heads of the Government was to the effect that Canada is the place for the poor, hard-working man. There is an emigration-office in every town, where the emigrant is sure to hear of work, if work is to be had.

Canada is a charming place for the traveller. He sees friends everywhere. Mr. John H. Pope, Minister of Agriculture, and Mr. John Lowe, Secretary, were especially useful in aiding me. As I called on the Minister of Finance, he insisted on my seeing the Premier—Sir John Macdonald—who came out of a Council to give me a friendly chat for half an hour, and who kindly asked me to call on him again on my return. In Canada the Council sits almost daily, and the sitting generally lasts from two till six, as all the business which is left in England to the departments, in Canada is transacted in the Council. Sir John seemed to think that a good deal of time was wasted in speeches in Parliament, which were intended not for the House, but for the constituents outside: in this respect the Canadian Parliament much resembles a more august assembly nearer home.

I had also the honour of an interview with the Marquis of Lansdowne at the Government House, in a pretty park about a mile out of the town. His lordship enjoys his residence at Ottawa very much, and said he should leave it with regret. His idea seemed to be that now was the time for English farmers with a little capital to come out to Ontario, as the old farmers are selling off their farms and going further, to take up large tracts of land in the North-West; and I think many English farmers would be wise if they adopted some such plan. The Province is called the Garden of Canada.

At present I have seen no very superior land. There is a good deal of sand where I have been and wheat-growing is out of the question; but the barley is excellent, and is in great demand in the United States, and a good deal of money is made by raising stock and horses. At any rate, no farmer here is in danger of losing all his capital—most of them are well off, and their sons and daughters prosper as well.

Let me give a few further particulars respecting Sir John Macdonald—perhaps the most abused, and the hardest working man, in all Canada. He has good Scotch blood in his veins. In the thirteenth century one of his ancestors looms up as Lord of South Kintyre and the Island of Islay. When the emigration movement to Canada began, a descendant of this Macdonald settled in Kingston, then the most important town in Upper Canada, and, next to Halifax and Quebec, the strongest fortress in British North America. He was accompanied by the future Premier, then a lad of five years of age. The boy was placed at the Royal Grammar School of Kingston, under the tuition of Dr. Wilson, a fellow of the University of Oxford, and subsequently under that of Mr. George Baxter. Meanwhile, his father moved to Quinté Bay, near the Lake of the Mountain, a lonely, wild country, in which the future Canadian statesman was often to be seen in the holiday time, with a fishing rod in his hand, with other companions as gay-hearted as himself. At that time he is described as having ‘a very intelligent and pleasing face, strange furry-looking hair, that curled in a dark mass, and a striking nose.’

Indeed, Sir John’s admirers see in him a resemblance to the late Lord Beaconsfield, and that there is a slight resemblance the most superficial observer must admit. As a lad, Sir John seems to have specially distinguished himself in mathematics. His master also, we are told, frequently exhibited the clean-kept books of young Macdonald to some careless student for emulation, and as often selected specimens of the neat penmanship of the boy, to put to shame some of the slovenly writers of his class.

At sixteen young Macdonald commenced the study of law, to which he devoted three years. The gentleman to whom he was articled speaks of him as the most diligent student he had ever seen. Before he was twenty-one years of age he was admitted to the Bar, opened an office at Kingston, and at once began to practise his profession. ‘He was,’ says a fellow-student, ‘an exemplary young man, and had the goodwill of everybody. He remained closely at his business, never went about spreeing, or losing his time, with the young men of his own age and standing, did not drive fast horses, but was always to be found at his post in his office, courteous, obliging, and prompt.’ When Sir John commenced his legal career, the country was full of revolution, and every county in Canada had its Radicals ready to take up muskets or pitchforks against the oppressor. Sir John, though a Tory, was often the means of doing good service to his friends of the opposite party. In defending a rebel who was tried for murder, the future Premier gained his first legal success. It was a time of intense excitement, and crowds thronged to see the prisoners and hear the trials. Everyone was struck with the masterly character of Sir John’s defence; and though they knew it was not within the power of human tongue or brain to save the prisoner, they admired the skill with which he marshalled his arguments, the tact he displayed in his appeal to the judges, and, above all, the deep interest he displayed in the cause of his unfortunate client. This was in 1838; from that date Sir John was looked to as a rising man. In a little while afterwards he commenced his stormy political career.

In 1841 Kingston was made the seat of Government, and Sir John was returned to Parliament, in place of a politician who had lost his popularity. The assembly was an excited one, and everyone made furious speeches, with the exception of the new member, who sat unmoved at his desk while the fray went on, looking, says a gentleman who well remembers him there, half contemptuous and half careless. In 1844, he commenced his executive career by being appointed to the Standing Orders Committee. His first speech was delivered with an easy air of confidence, as captivating as it was rare. The time ripened rapidly. The old Tory Compact Party was being swiftly broken up, and when Lord Elgin arrived in Canada, a new Government was formed, with Sir John as Receiver-General. In a little while he was moved to the Office of Crown Lands, then the most important department in the public service, and one that in the past had been most shamefully, if not most criminally abused, but he was soon out of office, and a new Ministry came into force, pledged to a Bill for the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose property had been destroyed in the rebellion. There were awful riots. The Parliament buildings in Montreal were burned, and it seemed as if the old feud between Frenchman and Englishman had been roused, never more to die.

Lord Elgin was ready to return to England The reformers were strong, but Macdonald did not despair. The new Government, amongst other things, were pledged to increased parliamentary representation, the abolition of seignorial tenure, and the secularization of the Clergy Reserves. Of the Government that attempted to do this, Sir John was a bitter opponent, on the ground that they had hesitated about questions which had set the country in a blaze. The Government had to retire, and in the Liberal-Conservative Ministry which succeeded to office we find Mr. Macdonald Attorney General, and he held office till he was defeated in his Militia Bill. He returned to office, however, in time to carry a confederation of the Colonies, and to become Premier, when Lord Monck was Governor-General.

Since he has been at the head of affairs the Hudson Bay Company has handed over its gigantic territory in the North West to the Dominion. That great work, the Canada Pacific Railway, has nearly been brought to a successful termination, and Canada has taken a leap upwards and onwards to matured life and independence, of which not yet have we seen the end. It is a terrible scene of personal attack, political life in Canada. Even since Parliamentary Government has been established, the fight between the ins and the outs has been bitter and constant. No one can understand it, unless he is a native of the country; and it says much for Sir John that he has risen to the top, and kept himself there so long. To have done so, he must have possessed more merit than his enemies give him credit for.