The Emigrant (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. THE LONG TROT. When an engineer has to construct, in a foreign country, a work of magnitude upon which his reputation must stand or fall, his first object should be, by repeated trials, to ascertain the quality of the timber, iron, stone, lime, cement, and other materials of which his work is to be composed. The same precaution is evidently necessary in the administration of the government of an important colony; and accordingly my principal endeavour during the time I was in Canada was to make myself acquainted with the antagonist opinions, dissenting sects, and conflicting interests, as represented by the conglomerated population of the Province. As my despatches were almost invariably written at night, for upwards of two years I was principally occupied in receiving for six days in the week, from ten in the morning till three or four o'clock in the afternoon, whoever might desire to see me; and as everybody had either some little grievance to complain of, some little favour to ask, or some slight curiosity to become acquainted with me, --in short, some small excuse for a holiday-trip to Toronto, my waiting-room was almost constantly supplied with a round-robin list of attendants, to which there was apparently no end. I need hardly say that I had some endless, objectless, rrriserably-unimportant, and consequently most wearisome stories to listen to; and that the bulk of the business, if such it could be termed, would have been infinitely better transacted by written memorials, to be carefully examined and reported on, by the various departments to which each respectively belonged. On the other hand, though I was often much fatigued by giving attention to such a variety of minute statements, many of which had neither head nor tail, and which w..