The Canadian peasantry, or "habitans," were generally a healthy, simple, and virtuous race, but they were also extremely ignorant; indeed, the jealousy of their rulers would never suffer a printing-press to be erected in the country; few could read or write, and they were remarkably credulous of even the grossest fabrications which emanated from their superiors. Chiefly of Norman origin, they inherit many ancestral characteristics: litigious, yet impetuous and thoughtless; brave and adventurous, but with little constancy of purpose. The resemblance of the interior of a peasant's dwelling in Normandy, and on the banks of the St. Lawrence, was remarkable to a practiced eye: with the exception of the flooring--which in Canada is always of wood, and in France of stone--every thing is nearly the same; the chimney always in the center of the building, and the partitions shutting off the sleeping apartments at each end of the large room where the inhabitants dwell by day. The French minister, Colbert,[158] in his instructions to M. de Talon and the Sieur de Courcelles, dwelt much on the dangerous practice of the early Canadian colonists building their residences without rule or order, wherever convenience suited, and neglecting the important point of settling near together for mutual assistance and defense. This system being obviously a serious obstacle to successful colonization, an edict was issued by the king that henceforth there should be no clearing of lands except in close neighborhood, and that the dwellings should all be built according to rule: this ordinance proved useless, as it would have been necessary for the habitans to commence the toilsome task of new clearing, and to abandon the lands where their fathers had dwelt. In 1685, however, the French government again renewed the attempt to alter this pernicious system, but Charlevoix says that "every one agreed that their neighbor was in danger, but no one could be got to fear for himself in particular." Even those who had been the victims of this imprudence were not rendered wiser by experience;[159] any losses that could be repaired were repaired as soon as possible, and those that were irreparable were speedily forgotten. The sight of a little present advantage blinded all the habitans to the future. This is the true savage instinct, and it appears to be inspired by the air of the country. In the present day an evil of exactly the opposite description exists; as population became denser, the settlements became continuous, and the holdings smaller. The habitans, who are social to a vice, can not be induced to separate and clear new lands on a fresher but remoter soil.