This is his wisest plan, even should he bring out (which is not generally the case) sufficient capital to start with. We sadly feel the want in our settlement of a few farmers of better education, and of a higher range of intelligence, who, having a little experience as well as money, might leaven the ignorance which occasions so many mistakes and so much failure among our poorer brethren in the Bush. It has been said that “a donation of a hundred acres is a descent into barbarism,” but few would be inclined to endorse this opinion who had witnessed, as I have done for two years, the patient daily toil, the perseverance under difficulties and privations, the self-denial, the frugality, the temperance, and the kind helpfulness of one another, found in the majority of our settlers. A black sheep may now and then be found in every flock, and it is undeniable that the very isolation of each settler on his own clearing, and the utter absence of all conventional restraint, engenders something of lawlessness, of contempt for public opinion, and occasionally of brutality to animals, but only I am bound to say in the ungenial and depraved natures of those whose conduct out of the Bush would be equally reprehensible.
After all the pros and the cons of emigration to Muskoka have been fully discussed, one fact stands prominently forward for the consideration of the labouring classes of Great Britain.
The free grants offer an inestimable boon to the agricultural and the manufacturing population. The workmen in both these classes spend the prime of their health and strength in working for others, and after suffering with perhaps wives and families incredible hardships from cold and hunger, which cannot be kept away by insufficient wages, have nothing to look forward to in their declining years but the tender mercies of their parish workhouse, or the precarious charity of their former masters. In emigrating to Muskoka they may indeed count upon hard work, much privation, and many struggles and disappointments, but they may be equally certain that well-directed energy, unflagging industry and patient perseverance, will after a few years insure them a competence, if not affluence, and will enable them to leave to their children an inheritance and a position which would have been almost impossible of attainment in the old country.
A PLEA FOR POOR EMIGRANTS.
