age to cultivate them in the strips above-mentioned.
Thus re-granted, the _seigneur_ could not eject the _habitant_, but was
allowed to receive a nominal or feudal rent from the vassal, and the
usual droits. These droits are, first, the barbarous "_lods et
ventes_," or one thirteenth of the money upon every transfer which the
_habitant_ makes by sale only; but the original rent can never be
raised, whatever value the land may have attained. The rights of the
mill, that old European appanage of the lord of the soil, were also
reserved to the seigneur, who alone can build mills within his domain,
or use the waters within his boundaries for mechanical purposes; but he
must erect them at convenient distances, and must make and repair roads.
The miller, therefore, takes toll of the grist, which is another source
of seignorial revenue, although not a very great one, for the toll is,
excepting the miller's thumb rights, not very large.

The crown of England is the lord paramount or suzerain, and demands a
tax of one fifth of the purchase-money of each seignory sold or
transferred by the lord of the manor.

By law, the lands cannot be subdivided, and if a seigneurie is sold it
cannot be sold in parts, nor can any compromise with the habitants for
rent, or any other claim or incumbrance, be made.

An institution like this paralyzes the resident, paralyzes the settler,
and destroys that aristocracy for whose benefit it was created; for it
prevents the lord of the manor from ever becoming rich, or taking much
interest in the improvement of his domain; and thus every thing
continues as it was a hundred years ago. The British emigrant pauses ere
he buys land thus enthralled; and almost all the old French families,
who dated from Charlemagne, Clovis, or Pepin, from the Merovingian or
Carlovingian monarchies, have disappeared and dwindled away, and their
places have been supplied by the more enterprising, or the _nouveau
riche_ men of the old world, or by restless, acute lawyers, and
metaphysical body-curers.

It was no wonder, therefore, that, upon the removal of the seat of
government from Toronto, and the appointment of a governor-general
untrammelled by the lieutenant governorship of Western Canada, over
which he had had before no control, that it should be considered
desirable by degrees to introduce the English land system throughout
Canada, and that parliamentary inquiry should be made into the necessity
of abolishing all f