while in the affairs of State they exert a large and legitimate
influence. Any one acquainted with the commercial life of Halifax, or
Montreal, and the agricultural districts of Ontario, will bear witness
that no more loyal and law-abiding, no more intelligent and progressive,
no more industrious and thrifty people than the descendants of Irishmen
are to be found. As to the progress of the race in Montreal, Mr. Curran
was able to present many interesting facts. From a community so small
that, in the expressive words of the late Dr. Benjamin Workman, a
good-sized parlor carpet would cover all the worshippers in the church,
they have grown, by continuous and healthy progression, into a
population of thousands, possessed of wealth, of influence, of activity,
of loyal citizenship, with its established schools, its district
congregations, its charitable institutions, its temperance societies,
which have administered the pledge to more than twenty-five thousand
people. In the two facts that since 1867 the assessed value of real
estate possessed by the Irish people in Montreal has increased from
$3,500,000 to more than $12,000,000, and that on the books of the City
and District Savings Bank there are eleven thousand Irish names, mostly
of the working classes, whose deposits exceed $2,000,000, the highest
testimony of the industry and opportunity of the race is found. The
prosperity of the Irish is not singular in this free country, but,
brought out as Mr. Curran has done, it serves to exemplify the splendid
field for honest toil Canada affords.

The French in Canada.

An Ottawa correspondent writes:--The race prejudices between the French
and Anglo-Saxon elements of the country seem to be acquiring violent
vitality. Such a consummation as a fusion of the two races is out of all
calculation. The French Canadians will continue, as they have always
been, isolated from their fellow Canadians; nor would this matter very
much if good feeling and mutual tolerance prevailed between the two
races. An incident has just fanned this race animosity into a flame. A
Toronto newspaper recently libelled a French Canadian regiment which was
sent on service to the North-West. This regiment, for obvious reasons,
was not sent where there was any chance of its being employed against
Riel's Half-breeds. The editor was brought from Toronto to Montreal to
answer for his writing before the Law Courts, and has just been
condemned to pay a fine of tw