I am not so philosophic as to witness the desolating emigrations which leave the homes of a country waste, and fill the lands of future kingdoms and possible rivals with an alienated population, without regret. Above all, I pity the fate of the poor pioneers whose hapless lot it is to labour unthanked and despised, to build up the stranger’s cities, to clear his forests, and make his roads, to found his power and greatness, and then to sit at his gate waiting for alms when the hour cometh that no man can work. It is most strange, indeed, and yet too true, that a race which, above all others, ought to seek the material advantages and the substantial results of hard work, should be the most readily led astray by windy agitators and by political disputes and passions. Here we are driving through the streets of Montreal, which owes much of its existence to Irish labour, and the labourer lives in filth and degradation, in the back slums of the city, intensely interested in elections and clerical discussions, little better cared for or regarded than the dogs thereof till his vote is required. The city is now in its winter mantle, but it shows fair proportions. The Roman Catholic chapels are well placed and handsome, and excel in size and numbers the Protestant churches. The Quarter-master-General, who has had to hire one of the Catholic colleges to serve as barracks for the troops, says the priests are remarkably keen practitioners at a bargain: good Churchmen always were in old times. The metal-covered domes and spires, the roofs of houses sheeted with tin, now began to glisten in the sun, and gave a bright look to the place which did not make it all the warmer. Montreal is a much finer-looking place than I had expected. The irregularity of the streets pleased the eye, wearied by straight lines and regular frontage. The houses of stone with double windows have plain bare fronts, and do not present so good an appearance as the best of New York; but the character of the residences as a whole is better, and the effect of the city, to compare small things with great, very much more interesting and picturesque. Our destination in this drive was the Rink, or covered skating-ground, which is the fashionable sporting resort of Montrealese in the winter time. The crowd of sleighs and sleigh-drivers around the doors of a building which looked like a Methodist chapel, announced that the skaters were already assembled.