rmed," is a maxim of our forefathers, containing much
matter in its pithy brevity; and, following its spirit, the writer of
the following pages has endeavoured to afford every possible information
to the wives and daughters of emigrants of the higher class who
contemplate seeking a home amid our Canadian wilds. [Illustration:
Peter, the Chief] Truth has been conscientiously her object in the work,
for it were cruel to write in flattering terms calculated to deceive
emigrants into the belief that the land to which they are transferring
their families, their capital, and their hopes, a land flowing with milk
and honey, where comforts and affluence may be obtained with little
exertion. She prefers honestly representing facts in their real and true
light, that the female part of the emigrant's family may be enabled to
look them firmly in the face; to find a remedy in female ingenuity and
expediency for some difficulties; and, by being properly prepared,
encounter the rest with that high-spirited cheerfulness of which well-
educated females often give extraordinary proofs. She likewise wishes to
teach them to discard every thing exclusively pertaining to the
artificial refinement of fashionable life in England; and to point out
that, by devoting the money consumed in these incumbrances to articles
of real use, which cannot be readily obtained in Canada, they may enjoy
the pleasure of superintending a pleasant, well-ordered home. She is
desirous of giving them the advantage of her three years' experience,
that they may properly apply every part of their time, and learn to
consider that every pound or pound's worth belonging to any member of an
out-coming emigrant's family, ought to be sacredly considered as
_capital_, which must make proper returns either as the means of
bringing increase in the shape of income, or, what is still better, in
healthful domestic comfort.

These exhalations in behalf of utility in preference to artificial
personal refinement, are not so needless as the English public may
consider. The emigrants to British America are no longer of the rank of
life that formerly left the shores of the British Isles. It is not only
the poor husbandmen and artisans, that move in vast bodies to the west,
but it is the enterprising English capitalist, and the once affluent
landholder, alarmed at the difficulties of establishing numerous
families in independence, in a country where every profession is
overstocked, that