"Montreal and Quebec (more especially) have the distinctive features of French towns with many of the peculiarities of English ones. Here is the well-known countenance of the northern parts of France. Carts such as might have been seen, no doubt, hundreds of years ago in France. The Norman breed of horses: small, round, strong, and enduring. Every other signboard presents a French name; the blacksmith styling himself 'forgeron;' the baker, 'boulanger;' the ladies' attendant, 'sage- femme;'--and so on. The professional man generally has two plates upon his door:--one telling you that he is 'M. Charles Robert,' 'avocat;' and the other, that he is 'Mr. C. Robert,' 'attorney at law.' In the 'Cote des Neiges,' behind the mountain, at Montreal, and in the suburb or quarter 'St. Henry,' this French appearance is universal. 'Notre Dame des Neiges,' in the former, with its gaudily painted inside and unpretending outside, its wooden roof and tin-covered steeple, would recall to you the wooded districts of France; and the houses in both quarters, the people with their 'bonnets rouges' (as distinguished from the 'bonnets bleus' and 'bonnets gris' of the Quebec district), and innocence of English and English ways of living, working, farming, and thinking, are even more French than the French themselves. Indeed, so little have they changed since the settlement of the country two hundred years ago, that they speak the French of that time without the alloy since introduced into the language. Their old modes of farming are still in vogue; and they despise all change, satisfied to live in quiet and simple comfort, without the worry of improvements. In the Quebec district the farmers singe their pigs when they have killed them, and despise the use of hot water. Just as farmers do in Normandy, and in some parts of the south of England. This pig-singeing is a great event; and on one occasion during the Rebellion, the singeing of two or three pigs on a hill-side at night, caused the Quebec garrison and the country volunteers to turn out, under the belief that the light seen was that of a beacon fire, and that the enemy were at hand. "Montreal, and Quebec also, abound in fine Catholic churches, and the streets swarm with comfortable-looking priests, dressed in black cassocks and bands, and wearing big-buckled shoes and broad-brimmed hats.