roughout British North America. The poor settlers were not
able to pay the three or four shillings, and even more, demanded for
letters mailed from their old homes across the sea, and it was not
unusual to find in country post-offices a large accumulation of dead
letters, refused on account of the expense. The management of the
postal service by imperial officers was in every way most
unsatisfactory; it was chiefly carried on for the benefit of a few
persons, and not for the convenience or consolation of the many who
were always anxious for news of their kin in the "old country." After
the union there was a little improvement in the system, but it was not
really administered in the interests of the Canadian people until it
was finally transferred to the colonial authorities. When this
desirable change took place, an impulse was soon given to the
dissemination of letters and newspapers. The government organized a
post-office department, of which the head was a postmaster-general
with a seat in the cabinet.

Other important measures made provision for the introduction of the
decimal system into the provincial currency, the taking of a census
every ten years, the more satisfactory conduct of parliamentary
elections and the prevention of corruption, better facilities for the
administration of justice in the two provinces, the abolition of
primogeniture with respect to real estate in Upper Canada, and the
more equitable division of property among the children of an
intestate, based on the civil law of French Canada and old France.

Education also continued to show marked improvement in accordance with
the wise policy adopted since 1841. Previous to the union popular
education had been at a very low ebb, although there were a number of
efficient private schools in all the provinces where the children of
the well-to-do classes could be taught classics and many branches of
knowledge. In Lower Canada not one-tenth of the children of the
_habitants_ could write, and only one-fifth could read. In Upper
Canada the schoolmasters as a rule, according to Mrs. Anna
Jameson,[11] were "ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-paid, or not paid at
all." In the generality of cases they were either Scotsmen or
Americans, totally unfit for the positions they filled. As late as
1833 Americans or anti-British adventurers taught in the greater
proportion of the schools, where the pupils used United States
text-books replete with sentiments hostile to Englan