The Irish come out in shiploads every season, and generally very indifferently provided and without any definite object; nay, to such an extent is this carried, that hundreds of young females venture out every year by themselves, to better their condition, which betterment usually ends in their reaching as far inland as Toronto, where, or at other ports on the lakes, they engage themselves as domestics. When we consider that nearly 25,000 emigrants leave the Mother Country every year for Canada alone, how important is it that they should be informed of every particular likely to increase their comforts and to conduce to their well-being! This kind of service can be but partially rendered by the present publication, which, being intended for the general reader, cannot be given in a form likely to reach the class of emigrants who usually proceed to America otherwise than through the advice which the reader may, whenever it is in his power, kindly bestow upon them. But it will, I am persuaded, be extensively useful in that way, and also to the settler with a small capital who can afford to consult it. Learned dissertations upon colonization are useful only to the politician, and so much venality has prevailed among those who have thrust themselves forward in the cause of Canadian settlement, that the public become a little alarmed when they hear of a work expressly designed for the emigrant. The very best informed at home, and the _haute noblesse_, have been repeatedly taken in. Dinnerings and lionizing have been the order of the day for persons, who, in the colony, cut a very inferior figure. But this is natural, and in the end usually does no harm. It is natural that the colonist, who is a _rara avis_ in England, should be considered a very extraordinary personage among men who seek for novelty in any shape; because those who lavish favours upon him at one time and eschew his presence afterwards are usually ignorant of the very history of which he is the type. It is like the standing joke of sending out water-casks for the men-of-war built on the fresh-water seas of Canada, for there are plenty of rich folks at home who want only to be filled. The different sorts of people who emigrate from _home_ to the United States or Canada, may be classed under several heads, like the travellers of Sterne. First, the inquisitive and restless, who leave a goodly inheritance or occupation behind them, because they have heard that Tom Smith or Mister Mac Grogan, very ordinary folks anywhere, have made a rapid fortune, which is indeed sometimes the case in the United States, though rather rare there for old countrymen, and is still more rare and unlikely in Canada, where large fortunes may be said to be unknown quantities. Settlers of this class usually fall to the ground very soon--if they settle in Canada, they become Radicals; if they return from the States, they become Tories.