eat incentives to vice in
the very young exist.

Clerks in banks have gambled away the property of their employers in
these places to the amount of several thousands, and, the frontier of
the United States being so near, they have fled as soon as discovery
was apprehended, but, owing to the international arrangements for the
arrest of such criminals, have hitherto been detected, and consigned
to the laws of their offended country.

The spirit of insubordination, which so forcibly operates in
uneducated minds, where the constant example of the excess of freedom
in the neighbouring States is ever present, has much changed the
aspect of society in all the large towns and villages of Western
Canada. There is no longer that honest independence of the working and
labouring classes which existed fifteen years ago; but impudent
assumption has forced its way very generally, and among servants more
particularly. If they are not permitted to make the kitchen a
rendezvous for their friends, to go out whenever they like, and in
fact to be masters and mistresses of the habitation, they immediately,
and without warning, leave, and no laws exist to prevent the growing
evil: the consequence is that household economy is every where
deranged, and a _place_, as it is called, is only good where high life
below stairs is freely permitted.

The servants too are chiefly Irish, who have neither means nor
inclination for settling in the forest, and consequently there is
little or no competition, while they are so well known to each other,
and so banded in a sort of Carbonari system, that it is extremely
difficult to replace bad ones, even by worse.

The women servants are the worst. I saw an instance lately however of
a precocious young villain of twelve, who was footboy in a gentleman's
family, and his young sister, not fourteen, under-housemaid. His
mother, a widow in infirm health, recently imported from Dublin, had
brought up her children well, as far as reading and writing went, but
had indulged them too much, and beat them so much, that they neither
loved nor feared her. The little boy, only twelve, got into bad
company, and ran away from his place, where he was well fed, well
clothed, and kindly treated, and took his livery with him. He was
brought back, after being partially frost-bitten, by his uncle, and
received again from mistaken kindness. A cook of bad habits and worse
temper got hold of him, and, after staying a short time, h