No class of the population of Canada is more orderly or less disposed to crime than the French Canadians. The standard of the morality of the people is high. Early marriages have been always encouraged by the priests, and large families—fifteen children being very common—are the rule in the villages. The habitant is naturally litigious, and the amount in dispute is, in his opinion, trifling compared with the honour of having a case in court, which demands the attendance of the whole village. The temperate habits of the French Canadian make them necessarily valuable employés in mills and manufactories of all kinds. Indeed, they prefer this life to that of the farm, and until very recently there was a steady exodus of this class to the manufacturing towns of Lowell, Holyoke, and other places in New England. A large proportion of the men employed in the lumbering industry of Canada is drawn from the province of Quebec. As their forefathers were coureurs de bois in the days of the French régime, and hunted the beaver in the wilderness, even venturing into the illimitable Northwest region, so in these modern times the French Canadians seek the vast pine woods which, despite axe and fire, still stretch over a large area watered by the Ottawa and other rivers.
In commercial and financial enterprise, the French Canadians cannot compete with their fellow-citizens of British origin, who practically control the great commercial undertakings and banking institutions of Lower Canada, especially in Montreal. Generally speaking, the French Canadians cannot compare with the English population as agriculturists, Their province is less favoured than Ontario with respect to climate and soil. The French system of sub-dividing farms among the members of a family has tended to cut up the land unprofitably, and it is a curious sight to see the number of extremely narrow lots throughout the French settlements. It must be admitted, too, that the French population has less enterprise, and less disposition to adopt new machines and improved agricultural implements, than the people of the other provinces.
As a rule, the habitant lives contentedly on very little. Give him a pipe of native tobacco, a chance of discussing politics, a gossip with his fellows at the church door after service, a visit now and then to the county town, and he will be happy. It does not take much to amuse him, while he is quite satisfied that his spiritual safety is secured as long as he is within sound of the church bells, goes regularly to confession, and observes all the fêtes d'obligation. If he or one of his family can only get a little office in the municipality, or in the "government," then his happiness is nearly perfect. Indeed, if he were not a bureaucrat, he would very much belie his French origin. Take him all in all, however, Jean-Baptiste, as he is familiarly known, from the patron saint of French Canada, has many excellent qualities. He is naturally polite, steady in his habits, and conservative in his instincts. He is excitable and troublesome only when his political passions are thoroughly aroused, or his religious principles are at stake; and then it is impossible to say to what extreme he will go. Like the people from whom he is descended—many of whose characteristics he has never lost since his residence of centuries on the American continent—he is greatly influenced by matters of feeling and sentiment, and the skilful master of rhetoric has it constantly in his power to sway him to an extent which is not possible in the case of the stronger, less impulsive Saxon race, with whom reason and argument prevail to a large degree.
In the present, as in the past, the Church makes every effort to supervise with a zealous care the mental food that is offered for the nourishment of the people in the rural districts, where it exercises the greatest influence. Agnosticism is a word practically unknown in the vocabulary of the French Canadian habitant, who is quite ready to adhere without wavering to the old belief which his forefathers professed. Whilst the French Canadians doubtless lose little by refusing to listen to the teachings which would destroy all old-established and venerable institutions, and lead them into an unknown country of useless speculation, they do not, as a rule, allow their minds sufficient scope and expansion. It is true that a new generation is growing up with a larger desire for philosophic inquiry and speculation. But whilst the priests continue to control the public school system of the province, they have a powerful means of maintaining the current of popular thought in that conservative and too often narrow groove, in which they have always laboured to keep it since the days of Laval.
Louis Fréchette.
It is obvious, however, to a careful observer of the recent history of the country that there is more independence of thought and action showing itself in the large centres of population—even in the rural communities—and that the people are beginning to understand that they should be left free to exercise their political rights without direct or undue interference on the part of their spiritual advisers. English ideas in this respect seem certainly to be gaining ground.