Mr. Sheridan Hogan, the writer of a prize essay on Canada of no ordinary excellence, has devoted some of his pages to show that the growth of Canada in population has been overlooked in the scope of the wondering gaze which Europe has fixed on the development of the United States, although, in fact, the increase of Canadians in the land has been quite as astonishing as that of Americans south of the St. Lawrence. In 1800, he says the population of the United States was 5,305,925. In 1850 it was 20,250,000. The increase was therefore 300 per cent. nearly. In 1811 the population of Upper Canada was 77,000, and in 1851 it was 952,000, an increase of over 1100 per cent. in forty years. Within the decade up to 1855 the rate of increase in the United States was 13·20 per cent. In Upper Canada it was 104 per cent. from 1841 to 1851. Upper Canada exhibited in forty years nearly four times the increase of the United States in fifty years. Even the population of Lower Canada increased 90 per cent. from 1829 to 1854. In a table in the same work it appears that the Irish in Lower Canada were more than double the English and Scotch together, and that they equalled both in Upper Canada. The writer says:—
“The ‘World’s Progress,’ published by Putnam, of New York,—a reliable authority,—gives the population and increase of the principal cities in the United States. Boston, between 1840 and 1850, increased forty-five per cent. Toronto, within the same period, increased ninety-five per cent. New York, the great emporium of the United States, and regarded as the most prosperous city in the world, increased, in the same time, sixty-six per cent., about thirty less than Toronto.
“The cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati, which have also experienced extraordinary prosperity, do not compare with Canada any better. In the thirty years preceding 1850, the population of St. Louis increased fifteen times. In the thirty-three years preceding the same year, Toronto increased eighteen times. And Cincinnati increased, in the same period given to St. Louis, but twelve times.
“Hamilton, a beautiful Canadian city at the head of Lake Ontario, and founded much more recently than Toronto, has also had almost unexampled prosperity. In 1836 its population was but 2,846, in 1854 it was upwards of 20,000.
“London, still farther west in Upper Canada, and a yet more recently-founded city than Hamilton, being surveyed as a wilderness little more than twenty-five years ago, has now upwards of ten thousand inhabitants.
“The City of Ottawa, recently called after the magnificent river of that name, and upon which it is situated, has now above 10,000 inhabitants, although in 1830 it had but 140 houses, including mere sheds and shanties; and the property upon which it is built was purchased, not many years before, for eighty pounds.
“The Town of Bradford, situated between Hamilton and London, and whose site was an absolute wilderness twenty-five years ago, has now a population of 6,000, and has increased, in ten years, upwards of three hundred per cent.; and this without any other stimulant or cause save the business arising from the settlement of a fine country adjacent to it.
“The Towns of Belleville, Cobourg, Woodstock, Goderich, St. Catherine’s, Paris, Stratford, Port Hope, and Dundas, in Upper Canada, show similar prosperity, some of them having increased in a ratio even greater than that of Toronto, and all of them but so many evidences of the improvement of the country, and the growth of business and population around them.
“That some of the smaller towns in the United States have enjoyed equal prosperity I can readily believe, from the circumstance of a large population suddenly filling up the country contiguous to them. Buffalo and Chicago, too, as cities, are magnificent and unparalleled examples of the business, the energy, and the progress, of the United States. But that Toronto should have quietly and unostentatiously increased in population in a greater ratio than New York, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, and that the other cities and towns of Upper Canada should have kept pace with the Capital, is a fact creditable alike to the steady industry and the noiseless enterprise of the Canadian people.
“Although Lower Canada, from the circumstance already alluded to of the tide of emigration flowing westward, has not advanced so rapidly as her sister Province, yet some of her counties and cities have recently made great progress. In the seven years preceding 1851, the fine County of Megantic, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, and through which the Quebec and Richmond Railroad passes, increased a hundred and sixteen per cent.; the County of Ottawa, eighty-five; the County of Drummond, seventy-eight; and the County of Sherbrooke, fifty. The City of Montreal, probably the most substantially-built city in America, and certainly one of the most beautiful, has trebled her population in thirty-four years. The ancient City of Quebec has more than doubled her population in the same time, and Sorel, at the mouth of the Richelieu, has increased upwards of four times; showing that Lower Canada, with all the disadvantages of a feudal tenure, and of being generally looked upon as less desirable for settlement than the West, has quietly but justly put in her claim to a portion of the honour awarded to America for her progress.”