No More Learning

I quote these old statistics, not merely because of the difficulty of
obtaining more recent ones, but also because I saw there so little
evidence of any recent growth. There were in this county, at the same
date, five Roman Catholic churches, and no others, five cures and five
presbyteries, two schools, two corn-mills, four sawmills, one
carding-mill,--no medical man or notary or lawyer,--five shopkeepers,
four taverns (we saw no sign of any, though, after a little
hesitation, we were sometimes directed to some undistinguished hut as
such), thirty artisans, and five river crafts, whose tonnage amounted
to sixty-nine tons! This, notwithstanding that it has a frontage of
more than thirty miles on the river, and the population is almost
wholly confined to its banks. This describes nearly enough what we
saw. But double some of these figures, which, however, its growth will
not warrant, and you have described a poverty which not even its
severity of climate and ruggedness of soil will suffice to account
for. The principal productions were wheat, potatoes, oats, hay, peas,
flax, maple-sugar, etc. , etc. ; linen cloth, or _etoffe du pays_,
flannel, and homespun, or _petite etoffe_.

In Lower Canada, according to Bouchette, there are two tenures,--the
feudal and the socage. _Tenanciers_, _censitaires_, or holders of land
_en roture_ pay a small annual rent to the seigneurs, to which "is
added some articles of provision, such as a couple of fowls, or a
goose, or a bushel of wheat. " "They are also bound to grind their corn
at the _moulin banal_, or the lord's mill, where one fourteenth part
of it is taken for his use" as toll. He says that the toll is one
twelfth in the United States where competition exists. It is not
permitted to exceed one sixteenth in Massachusetts. But worse than
this monopolizing of mill rents is what are called _lods et ventes_,
or mutation fines,--according to which the seigneur has "a right to a
twelfth part of the purchase-money of every estate within his
seigniory that changes its owner by sale. " This is over and above the
sum paid to the seller.
In such cases, moreover, "the lord possesses
the _droit de retrait_, which is the privilege of preemption at the
highest bidden price within forty days after the sale has taken
place,"--a right which, however, is said to be seldom exercised.
"Lands held by Roman Catholics are further subject to the payment to
their curates of one twenty-sixth part of all the grain produced upon
them, and to occasional assessments for building and repairing
churches," etc. ,--a tax to which they are not subject if the
proprietors change their faith; but they are not the less attached to
their church in consequence. There are, however, various modifications
of the feudal tenure. Under the socage tenure, which is that of the
townships or more recent settlements, English, Irish, Scotch, and
others, and generally of Canada West, the landholder is wholly
unshackled by such conditions as I have quoted, and "is bound to no
other obligations than those of allegiance to the king and obedience
to the laws. " Throughout Canada "a freehold of forty shillings yearly
value, or the payment of ten pounds rent annually, is the
qualification for voters. " In 1846 more than one sixth of the whole
population of Canada East were qualified to vote for members of
Parliament,--a greater proportion than enjoy a similar privilege in
the United States.

The population which we had seen the last two days--I mean the
habitans of Montmorenci County--appeared very inferior, intellectually
and even physically, to that of New England. In some respects they
were incredibly filthy. It was evident that they had not advanced
since the settlement of the country, that they were quite behind the
age, and fairly represented their ancestors in Normandy a thousand
years ago. Even in respect to the common arts of life, they are not so
far advanced as a frontier town in the West three years old. They have
no money invested in railroad stock, and probably never will have. If
they have got a French phrase for a railroad, it is as much as you can
expect of them. They are very far from a revolution, have no quarrel
with Church or State, but their vice and their virtue is content. As
for annexation, they have never dreamed of it; indeed, they have not a
clear idea what or where the States are. The English government has
been remarkably liberal to its Catholic subjects in Canada, permitting
them to wear their own fetters, both political and religious, as far
as was possible for subjects.