100 persons in the city are of foreign extraction, the
prevailing nationality being French-Canadian, a people who are so rapidly
displacing other operatives, even the Irish themselves, in the
manufacturing centers of New England that they must not be dismissed
without remark.

The Canadian-French were recently described in a grave State paper as a
"horde of industrial invaders," and accused of caring nothing for American
institutions, civil, political, or educational; having come to the States,
not to make a home, but to get together a little money, and then to return
whence they came. The parent of these immigrants is the Canadian
_habitan,_ a peasant proprietor, farming a few acres, living
parsimoniously, marrying early, and producing a large family, who must
either clear the soils of the inclement north, or become factory
operatives in the States. They are a simple, kindly, pious, and cheerful
folk, with few wants, little energy, and no ambition; ignorant and
credulous, Catholic by religion, and devoted to the priest, who is their
oracle, friend, and guide in all the relations of life. Such are the
people--a complete contrast with Americans--who began, some twelve years
ago, to emigrate to the mills of New England. They came, not only
intending to return to their own country with their savings, but enjoined
by the Church to do so. Employers, however, soon found out the value of
the new comers, and Yankee superintendents preferred them as operatives
before any other nationality, not only on account of their tireless
industry and docility, but because they accepted lower wages, and kept
themselves clear of trade-union societies. Thus, finally, it has come
about that nearly 70 per cent. of the cotton operatives at Holyoke are of
French-Canadian origin, and the social condition of all these people is
precisely similar to that which has already been described as
characterizing the inhabitants of "Little Canada" in Lowell.

It has already been said that the average rate of inhabitancy is six
persons per house in the State of Massachusetts, but the presence of the
French in Holyoke actually doubles the inhabitancy of the whole town, with
what effect upon their own special quarter may easily be imagined.
Probably nowhere in Europe could there be found more crowded houses, and
worse physical conditions of life, than in the quarters inhabited by
certain alien operatives in many manufacturing towns of the United States.

Shar