. The feasts of the
Church are kept with great zeal,--especially the _fetes
d'obligation_--and consequently the French Canadian has holidays
without number.

[Illustration: A Canadian caleche of old times.]

No class of the population of Canada is more orderly or less disposed
to crime than the French Canadians. The standard of the morality of
the people is high. Early marriages have been always encouraged by the
priests, and large families--fifteen children being very common--are
the rule in the villages. The _habitant_ is naturally litigious, and
the amount in dispute is, in his opinion, trifling compared with the
honour of having a case in court, {446} which demands the attendance of
the whole village. The temperate habits of the French Canadian make
them necessarily valuable employes in mills and manufactories of all
kinds. Indeed, they prefer this life to that of the farm, and until
very recently there was a steady exodus of this class to the
manufacturing towns of Lowell, Holyoke, and other places in New
England. A large proportion of the men employed in the lumbering
industry of Canada is drawn from the province of Quebec. As their
forefathers were _coureurs de bois_ in the days of the French regime,
and hunted the beaver in the wilderness, even venturing into the
illimitable Northwest region, so in these modern times the French
Canadians seek the vast pine woods which, despite axe and fire, still
stretch over a large area watered by the Ottawa and other rivers.

In commercial and financial enterprise, the French Canadians cannot
compete with their fellow-citizens of British origin, who practically
control the great commercial undertakings and banking institutions of
Lower Canada, especially in Montreal. Generally speaking, the French
Canadians cannot compare with the English population as agriculturists,
Their province is less favoured than Ontario with respect to climate
and soil. The French system of sub-dividing farms among the members of
a family has tended to cut up the land unprofitably, and it is a
curious sight to see the number of extremely narrow lots throughout the
French settlements. It must be admitted, too, that the French
population has less enterprise, and less disposition to adopt new {447}
machines and improved agricultural implements, than the people of the
other provinces.

As a rule, the _habitant_ lives contentedly on very little. Give him a
pipe of native tobacco, a chance