eir being fixed in.

To understand the use of carpenter's tools, I assure you, is no
despicable or useless kind of knowledge here. I would strongly recommend
all young men coming to Canada to acquire a little acquaintance with
this valuable art, as they will often be put to great inconvenience for
the want of it.

I was once much amused with hearing the remarks made by a very fine
lady, the reluctant sharer of her husband's emigration, on seeing the
son of a naval officer of some rank in the service busily employed in
making an axe-handle out of a piece of rock-elm.

"I wonder that you allow George to degrade himself so," she said,
addressing his father.

The captain looked up with surprise. "Degrade himself! In what manner,
madam? My boy neither swears, drinks whiskey, steals, nor tells lies."

"But you allow him to perform tasks of the most menial kind. What is he
now better than a hedge carpenter; and I suppose you allow him to chop,
too?"

"Most assuredly I do. That pile of logs in the cart there was all cut by
him after he had left study yesterday," was the reply,

"I would see my boys dead before they should use an axe like common
labourers."

"Idleness is the root of all evil," said the captain. "How much worse
might my son be employed if he were running wild about streets with bad
companions."

"You will allow this is not a country for gentlemen or ladies to live
in," said the lady.

"It is the country for gentlemen that will not work and cannot live
without, to starve in," replied the captain bluntly; "and for that
reason I make my boys early accustom themselves to be usefully and
actively employed."

"My boys shall never work like common mechanics," said the lady,
indignantly.

"Then, madam, they will be good for nothing as settlers; and it is a
pity you dragged them across the Atlantic."

"We were forced to come. We could not live as we had been used to do at
home, or I never would have come to this horrid country."

"Having come hither you would be wise to conform to circumstances.
Canada is not the place for idle folks to retrench a lost fortune in. In
some parts of the country you will find most articles of provision as
dear as in London, clothing much dearer, and not so good, and a bad
market to choose in."

"I should like to know, then, who Canada is good for?" said she,
angrily.

"It is a good country for the honest, industrious artisan. It is a fine
country for the poor labourer,