to build again, and is anxious to sell his land, that he can go and rent a house to live in. The land in almost every part of the burnt district will drop, and has already dropped, in value. It is still there, and so it was there a hundred years ago. It is more valuable now than it was then. I don't pretend to say that we are no better off than when the loyalists landed, for we are. Our roads are laid out; our people are thrifty, enterprising, and skilful. The greater portion of the city is still intact. We have a splendid system of water supply and sewerage. We have, or, will have very soon, gas burning again. We will have comforts once more. But what I do mean to say is, that it will take very many years to build the city up again as it was before the fire. It will take very many years to enable the land-owner to realize anything like the price he once commanded for his property. Of course, in the leading business streets there will be but little difference, though it will be felt in a good many quarters. Take some portions of King and Prince William streets, for example. Some men realized a snug income from the rental of the shanties which were erected on good business sites in these streets. They owned the land, and the shanties were theirs. Their whole income came from this source. Their wooden buildings yielded them a far more handsome return for their outlay than many of the massive brick buildings near them did to their owners. Why was this? Simply because they were in a good locality. These shanties are now level with the earth. The revenue is swept away. These men own the land, but their means are gone. They cannot rebuild. If they did, the rent they would receive would be far less than the rookeries yielded, and they must sell their property or mortgage it. The land has lost a great deal of its value, and it will take a long time for it to regain that loss. We must look these things boldly and seriously in the face. No reflection is made on the people when these statements are advanced. No more enterprising populace lives than the people of St. John. Many are used to hard work. They have hewn out of the solid rock one of the most beautiful cities in the Dominion. They have met a thousand obstacles in their path, and they have swept them all aside. And they will ride over their calamity and begin again the hard road upward. They will rebuild the city once more, and plant bright things where ruin and despair now stand, but we must not flatter ourselves that we have lost nothing, and that our land has not deteriorated in value. It is as wrong to be over sanguine as it is to give way to gloom and do nothing to better our misfortunes. We must work with determination and lose no time. We must show the world--that kind world which has fed the mouths of our poor and clothed the unfortunate--that there is backbone and muscle still left in the city, and that while we have men to work we have no women to weep. It might have been worse.