rish
gentleman told me that he lately hired a young man, an emigrant, to
plough for him; and, on asking him if he understood ploughing, the
good-natured Paddy answered, offhand, "Ploughing, is it? I'm the boy for
ploughing."--"Very well, I'm glad of it," said the gentleman, "for you
are a fine, likely young fellow, so I shall hire you." He hired him
accordingly at high wages--ten dollars a month and provisions and
lodging found. The first day he was to work, my friend told him to go
and yoke the oxen. Paddy stared with all his eyes, but said nothing, and
went away. He staid some time, and then returned with a pair of oxen,
which he was driving before him. "Here's the oxen, master!"--"Where are
the yokes, Paddy?"--"The yokes! by the powers, is that what they call
beef in Canady?" Poor Paddy had been a weaver all his live-long days.

The Irish are almost exclusively the servants in most parts of the
northern states and throughout Canada, excepting the French Canadians,
and very attached, faithful servants they frequently are; but notions of
liberty and equality get possession of their phrenological developments,
and they are almost always on the move to better their condition, which
rarely happens as they desire.

Then another crying evil in Canada and in the States is the rage for
dress. An Irish girl no sooner gets a modicum of wages than all her
thoughts are to go to chapel or church as fine or finer than her
mistress. Nearly every servant-girl in the large towns has a _ridicule_
(that must be the proper way of spelling it), a bustle, a parasol, an
expensive shawl, and a silk gown, and fine bonnet, gloves, and a white
pocket-handkerchief. The men are not so aspiring, and usually don on
Sundays a blue coat and brass buttons, white pantaloons, white gloves,
and a good fur cap in winter, or a neat straw hat or brilliant beaver in
summer. The waistcoat is nondescript, but the boots are irreproachable.
A cigar has nearly replaced the pipe in the streets.

I will defy a short-sighted person to distinguish her nursery-maid from
her own sister at a little distance; and, being somewhat afflicted that
way myself, I frequently nod to a well-dressed soubrette, thinking she
is at least a leading member of the aristocracy of the town; and this is
the more amusing, as in all colonial towns and in the _haute societe_ of
the Republic very considerable magnificence is affected, and a rage for
rank and pseudo-importance is not a little