The seignior had judicial powers, which, however, were carefully curbed and controlled. His jurisdiction, when exercised at all, extended in most cases only to trivial causes. He very rarely had a prison, and seems never to have abused it. The dignity of a seigniorial gallows with _high justice_ or jurisdiction over heinous offences was granted only in three or four instances. * Four arpents in front by forty in depth were the ordinary dimensions of a grant _en censive_. These ribbons of land, nearly a mile and a half long, with one end on the river and the other on * Baronies and comtés were empowered to set up gallows and pillories, to which the arms of the owner were affixed. See, for example, the edict creating the Barony des Islets. the uplands behind, usually combined the advantages of meadows for cultivation, and forests for timber and firewood. So long as the _censitaire_ brought in on St. Martin’s day his yearly capons and his yearly handful of copper, his title against the seignior was perfect. There are farms in Canada which have passed from father to son for two hundred years. The condition of the cultivator was incomparably better than that of the French peasant, crushed by taxes, and oppressed by feudal burdens far heavier than those of Canada. In fact, the Canadian settler scorned the name of peasant, and then, as now, was always called the _habitant_. The government held him in wardship, watched over him, interfered with him, but did not oppress him or allow others to oppress him. Canada was not governed to the profit of a class, and if the king wished to create a Canadian _noblesse_ he took care that it should not bear hard on the country. * Under a genuine feudalism, the ownership of land conferred nobility; but all this was changed. The king and not the soil was now the parent of honor. France swarmed with landless nobles, while _roturier_ land-holders grew daily more numerous. In Canada half the seigniories were in _roturier_ or plebeian hands, and in course of time some of them * On the seigniorial tenure, I have examined the whole of the mass of papers printed at the time when the question of its abolition was under discussion. A great deal of legal research and learning was then devoted to the subject. The argument of Mr. Dunkin in behalf of the seigniors, and the observations of Judge Lafontaine, are especially instructive, as is also the collected correspondence of the governors and intendants with the central government on matters relating to the seigniorial system. came into possession of persons on very humble degrees of the social scale. A seigniory could be bought and sold, and a trader or a thrifty _habitant_ might, and often did become the buyer. * If the Canadian noble was always a seignior, it is far from being true that the Canadian seignior was always a noble.