"It'll
Be A Good Spec When Congress Buys These Colonies; Some Of Our Ten-Horse
Power Chaps Will Come Down, And, Before You Could Whistle 'Yankee Doodle,'
We'll Have A Canal To Bay Varte, With A Town As Big As Newhaven At Each
End.
The Blue Noses will look kinder streaked then, I guess." The New-
Brunswicker retorted, with some fierceness, that the
Handful of British
troops at Fredericton could "chaw up" the whole American army; and the
conversation continued for some time longer in the same boastful and
exaggerated strain on each side, but the above is a specimen of colonial
arrogance and American conceit.
The population of New Brunswick in 1851 was 193,800; but it is now over
210,000, and will likely increase rapidly, should the contemplated
extension of the railway system to the province ever take place; as in
that case the route to both the Canadas by the port of St. John will
probably supersede every other. The spacious harbour of St. John has a
sufficient depth of water for vessels of the largest class, and its tide-
fall of about 25 feet effectually prevents it from being frozen in the
winter.
The timber trade is a most important source of wealth to the colony - the
timber floated down the St. John alone, in the season of 1852, was of the
value of 405,208l. sterling. The saw-mills, of which by the last census
there were 584, gave employment to 4302 hands. By the same census there
were 87 ships, with an average burthen of 400 tons each, built in the year
in which it was taken, and the number has been on the increase since.
These colonial-built vessels are gradually acquiring a very high
reputation; some of our finest clippers, including one or two belonging to
the celebrated "White Star" line, are by the St. John builders. Perhaps,
with the single exception of Canada West, no colony offers such varied
inducements to emigrants.
I saw as much of St. John as possible, and on a fine day was favourably
impressed with it. It well deserves its cognomen, "The City of the Rock,"
being situated on a high, bluff, rocky peninsula, backed on the land-side
by steep barren hills. The harbour is well sheltered and capacious, and
the suspension-bridge above the falls very picturesque. The streets are
steep, wide, and well paved, and the stores are more pretentious than
those of Halifax. There is also a very handsome square, with a more
respectable fountain in it than those which excite the ridicule of
foreigners in front of our National Gallery. It is a place where a large
amount of business is done, and the shipyards alone give employment to
several thousand persons.
Yet the lower parts of the town are dirty in the extreme. I visited some
of the streets near the water before the cholera had quite disappeared
from them, nor did I wonder that the pestilence should linger in places so
appropriate to itself; for the roadways were strewn to a depth of several
inches with sawdust, emitting a foul decomposing smell, and in which lean
pigs were routing and fighting.
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