l the unformed, unfinished public establishments in Canada, it has
always appeared to me that the Crown Lands department, and the Board of
Works, are pre-eminent. One costs more to manage the funds it raises
than the funds amount to; and the other was for several years a mere
political job. No very eminent civil engineer could have afforded to
devote his time and talents to it, as he must have been constantly
exposed to be turned out of office by caprice or cupidity. I do not
know how it is now managed, but the political jobbing is, I believe, at
an end, as the same person presides over the office who held it when it
was in very bad odour. This gentleman must, however, be quite adequate
to the office, as some of the public works are magnificent; but I cannot
go so far as to say that one must approve of all. The St. Lawrence Canal
has cost the best part of a million, is useless in time of war, and a
mere foil at all times to the Rideau navigation, which the British
government constructed free of any provincial funds. The timber slides
on the Trent are so much money put into the timber-merchants' pockets,
to the extreme detriment of the neighbouring settlers, whose lands have
been swept of every available stick by the lawless hordes of woodcutters
engaged to furnish this work; and who, living in the forest, were beyond
the reach of justice or of reason, destroying more trees than they could
carry away, and defying, gun and axe in hand, the peaceable
proprietors.

It was intended, before the rebellion broke out, to render the river
Trent navigable by a splendid canal, which would have opened the finest
lands in Canada for hundreds of miles, and eventually to have connected
Lake Huron with Lake Ontario. A large sum of money was expended on it
before the Board of Works was constituted, and an experienced clerk of
works, fresh from the Rideau Canal, was chosen to superintend; but the
troubles commenced, and the money was wanted elsewhere.

When money became again plentiful, and the country so loudly demanded
the Trent Canal, why was it not finished? I shall give by and by an
account of a recent excursion to the Trent, and then we shall perhaps
learn more about it, and why perishing timber slides were substituted
for a magnificent canal.

But the Devil's Elbow should be straightened by the Board of Works at
all events, otherwise it may stick in the mud, and then nobody can help
it; for the marsh is very extensive, and there