The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-24 00:00:00

The British American Provinces.

(From the Specid Correspondent of the Times.)
HAL:FAX, NOVA SCOTIA, OCt. 10.

Were there anything like a tolerable steamboat
on the route, the vonge from St. John, New Bruns-
wick, across the Bay of Fundy, to Windsor, in
Nova Scotia, would in fine weather, be one of the
most agreeable that a pleasure tourist could select
in this hemisphere. But in America, whether in the
United States or is the British colonies, no one
travels unless compiled by necessity. The fact is
well known to the purveyors of locomotion, and they
act accordingly. Railway cars and railway appli-
ances of the most inferior and uncomfortable cha-
racter are the rule throughout the continent, and
as all who travel must travel, all who travel must
content themselves with such accommodation as
railway directors may see fit to supply. The steam-
boat companies in New York and New England
have a little more conscience, and on the Hudson
River their mode of dealing with travellers forms a

isplendid .viteotion to lad-gvitetwaly preVailing mug_
torn of treating them as it they were cattle or bales
of cotton. The Hudson River boats are so conve-
nient as well as gorgeous that they have received
and merit the name of floating palaces. Were it
not for the overcrowding, which is the fault of the
public rather than of the owners, they might be
fairly considered as providing the highest amount
of ease and luxury of which locomotion is capable.
But their exceptional magnificence only darkens the'
contrast exhibited by the tawdry and perilous tubs
that do duty for steamboats in the inland waters of
North America. If there be degrees in this kind of
badness, the boats that ply on the rivers, harbours,
and coasts of the British colonies merit the distinc-
tion of being the worst, and suggest but too palpably
the idea that their proprietors buy up the old and
worn-out steamers of the Yankees , as the Jews in
London buy up old clothes, to revamp them for an
inttrhafeeinrßiotarhtontr
woafamsmoariie easily deluded class of customers.
It is hard to resist the belief, when on board of such
paevrielseseelf iennaaggcierogss, sea, that the creaking craft has
for 15 years or thereabout escaped the manifold
collision in the fog, conflagration,
and boiler bursting in the States, and then been dis-
posed of in her old age to a colonial purchaser as
quite good enough for Canadians and Blue-noses.
The Emperor, on which I took passage at St. John,
was declared by some of myfellow-travellersto be the
bworst s
ebrovaetdi no
rAnmo et rii c
ea
a. n
nloVth say.e Whether r tIl r
only
characternblaydlnow th that
t
settingnever
junk, b ei before r
and ef e he
feet
never
lie Iry trustedupon
rn terrabefore myself
firdid
inal as
seo e
when,
suchhe
n such, wallow-
inga2o reliefhours
in
after embarcation, I trod the red soil at the head of
even
convey
yn
insecurity
edy
nawaitedeexperiencedto at
Halifax. Windsor
during
y fore t tt
hh notthe
voyage was sufficient to deaden all the feeling of
enjoyment to be derived from the surpassing loveli-
ness, and at times the magnificence, of the scenery.
Ranodllifnasgtesant and wallowing gwoonr
1. thed t
hcor
Emperorest of the heaviestsped bn
t
slowly for 70 miles across the bay through the
Channel of Minas. A little after daybreak we ar-
rived at the remarkable headland known as Split
Rock, and often, with equal appropriateness, called
bbleeeDnowshna,t't'earedprobmyornitoghrtymw.nlrig cohr
of Nature, and left in such a
seems
rer
ma"s
stateeCrifae poietf Thuterriblemad
agencychaotic ruin as to be liable at every howl of
the tempest or every dash of the billows to be
washed into the sea. From this point the course
lies through the Basin of Minas,
bounded on each
side by those portions of Acadia which Mr. Long-
fellow has celebrated in his poem of " Evangeline
—a fact which several of my fellow-travellers took
especial pains to impress upon my mind ; such of
them as were either Nova Scotians or New Bruns-
wickers supplementing the information by their re-
grets that Mr. Longfellow had not condescended to
visit the province which he undertook to describe.
It
the didscenery notn appear, however, that his descriptions of
and productions of the Acadian wilder-
ness did any serious outrage to the truth of Nature,
did
or that his pictures of Acadian life and character
would
been very different if he had lived
gthe have
scenes and the people portrayed in his
flowingen hexameters.
e t e r s .
a
Arriving at Windsor at about 11 o'clock in the
morning,
and submitting to an examination of our
luggage at the Custom-house—though
we had come
from no foreign State, but only from the sister colony
am
of New Brunswick, that persists, like Canada and
N
having her own tariff of customs
duties—weo
to wait until half-past 12 for the
trainv a
thatS
s to convey us to Halifax. There is
nothing ctootlivbalalea idli
seen at Windsor but a great hotel on
the American model, about ten times as large as the
trade of the place demands oris ever likelyto require,
and remarkable among establishments of its kind
1 for its sublime indifference to the wants of travellers.
There were upwards of 100 hungry andthirst people
who had nothing to do for an hour and a half but
to eat and drink, yet this huge hotel, large enough
to accommodate 500 or 600 guests, had nothing to
to offer them—not even a welcome or a place to sit
1 down in, or a civil functionaryto answer the simplest'

question. It is true there was a bar where a Yankee
girl made cocktails out of execrable brandy, but
nothing except cocktails was procurable for love or
money. The consequence was that the hungry and
thirsty hundred of male and female malcontents dis-
tributed themselves through the town, prudently
keeping within sound of the railway whistle, and
sought the hospitality denied them at the Clifton
House at the minor but very inferior inns, of which
there are about a dozen in the place. Nor did they
search in vain. The more the hungry travellers
complained of the big hotel, the more did the pro-
prietors of the little hotels endeavour to solace them
with good cheer. The result at the time when the
train was announced to be in readiness was that
everybody out of the big hotel was satisfied, and
that perhaps even in that lethargic establishment
the clerks, waiters, and chambermaids had gone to
sleep, and were as happy as their neighbours.
The road from Windsor to Halifax lies over what
in the United States would be called " a God-
forsaken country." A more barren-looking, de-
solate, unpromising wilderness it would be diffi-
cult for a landscape painter or a poet to con-
ceive. Huge unshapely rocks and boulder stones
encumber the ground. The vegetation in the cre-
vices is sparse and short, and the trees that take ad-
vantage of every little oasis in the dreary waste to
woo the winds and the moisture appear as if they
had a hard struggle to maintain their vitality amid
so many discouragements. But appearances are pro-
verbially deceptive, and the wealth of this howling
wilderness, if not to be found above, is -to be disco-
vered beneath the soil. The whole district is aurifer-
ous. Four years ago nobody suspected that there
was gold in Nova Scotia. Now, in the short dis-
tance between Windsor and Halifax scores of gold
mines have been excavated, and most of them are
paying large returns on the capital invested. In a
future letter I propose to describe what I saw in the
course of two visits to German Town and the Wa-
verley Mines, and to give some account of the past
history and presentprospects of gold mining in Nova
Scotia. For the present I must confine myself to the
general subject, and hurry on to Halifax, alike the
commercial capital and seat of Government, and the
only considerable town in the province.
The entrance to Halifax, either by the railway or
from the harbour, is not prepossessing, and conveys
no better idea of the place than used to be conveyed
of London when foreigners in the prse-railway age
entered the great city via the Thames and Wapping.
Further acquaintance with the Nova Scotian capital
tends, however, to remove the first unfavourable
impressions. The place looks like an old-fashioned
English cathedral town, with this differer ce, that
there is no cathedral worthy of the name, and that
the houses are mostly of wood and have no pre-
tensions to architecture. Five or six years ago a
fire swept through two of the principal streets,
and acted to this extent as a public benefactor. It
cleared away hundreds of mean-looking buildings,
which without its agency might have stood for a
century, and the owners had sense and public spirit
enough to take advantage of the calamity, and
re-build their shops and homesteads of bricks
and stone. The result is two handsome business
streets, containing several substantial and orna-
mental public buildings, and a vast improvement
upon the general squalor of the place. A municipal
law prohibits the erection within certain limits of
any new wooden buildings, and in case of fire, or
other destruction of any existing " shanty," its place
must, if supplied at all, be supplied with brick or
stone. Yet the people of Halifax are greatly attached
to their wooden houses. They declare that stone and
brick are damp, and that the only warmth and com-
fort are to be found in the behind timber. Doubtless,
the Micmac Indians who erect their wigwams in the
woods within ten miles of the city, could give rea-
sons equally satisfactory to themselves why wigwams
are ereauy 41, marble uttle- T-T.l;far_ in
its main aspects, looks like an inferior copy of Ports-
mouth, and is inhabited by the same classes of people
—soldiers and sailors, crimps and outfitters, publi-
cans innumerable, and a sprinkling of merchants and
professional people. The population is under 30,000,
and is slowly but steadily on the increase. Manu-
factures have made as yet but little progress, but
a start has been taken which will probably lead to
favourable results. There are in the city two or three
ironfoundries, a tobacco manufactory carried on by
two enterprising Scotchmen, which turns out Virgi-
nia tobacco in the shape of cigars and quids in quan-
tities sufficient to meet nearly all the wants of the
province without any aid from Havannah or other
foreign ports, and a flourishing oakum factory
worked by steam power which supplies the merchant
navy frequenting the harbour with all the material
it requires. When this last factory was established
considerable opposition was manifested to it on the
part of the philanthropists of the place, who
argued that the poor negro population, who during
the long winters passed their time in picking
oakum painfully with the fingers, as paupers and
prisoners do in England, would be deprived of
work, reduced to destitution, and thrown upon
public charity for the means of subsistence. The
result has falsified the prediction. The negroes
still continue the oakum-picking, and receive much
higher pay from the mill which buys their inferior
work to place it under machinery than they ever
received before the factory was established; their
experience thus adding another to many thousands
of similar proofs afforded by the history of mecha-
nical and industrial progress that machinery is the
poor man's friend, and not his enemy, and employs
a much greater amount of human labour in one
way than it displaces in another.
The Nova Scotians and the people of Halifax, like
the New Brunswickers, but unlike the Canadians,
take the greatest possible interest in the question of
Confederation. It is the one topic of discussion in
the press and in society, and is canvassed under all
its aspects, local, intercolonial, and Imperial, by
every class of the people. If there be degrees of
loyalty in the Provinces, and Canada be taken as
the positive, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia may
rank as the comparative and the superlative. New
Brunswick is not fed, as Nova Scotia is, with sop
from the Imperial Treasury, in the shape of the
large dockyard expenditure consequent upon the
selection of Halifax as the principal North Ameri-
can station of the British navy, so that if the loyalty
' of New Brunswick maybe considered to rest upon a
purely sentimental basis, that of Nova Scotia
will be found to have a groundwork of solid self-
interest as well as of pure affection. There are in
Canada many who talk secretly in favour of annexa-
tion to the United States, but no such persons exist
in the maritime provinces. Hence, in New Bruns-
wick and Nova Scotia the question of Confederation
is not complicated by any overt or latent disaffection
to British rule, and is always debated within the
limits of a cordial allegiance to the mother country.
In Halifax the great majority of the people are
strongly in favour of Confederation, though not en-
thusiastic in support of all the details of the scheme.
I gather, however, from the Parliamentary discus-
sions of the last session, that closed in May last,
that in the rural district and the smaller towns on
the coast, and in the interior, the project is not
viewed with the same satisfaction, and that the op-
ponents of the measure are of opinion that if a gene-
ral election were now to take place the result would
be the return of a House of Assembly opposed to
the measure. But a dissolution is not probable. The
actual Ministry, under the Premiership of Dr.
Charles Tupper, a practising physician in this city,
possesses the confidence of the house, and on any
other question than that of the Confederation can
command 37 votes out of 55. Dr. Tupper and the
members of his Governmeutare ardent Confederates.
As such they do not think it advisable to force a
premature verdict, which would either cause their
removal from office, or compel them to appeal to the
country on a single issue, on which the public judg-
ment is not yet sufficiently educated to record a
dispassionate decision.
The opposition to confederation in the rural dis-

The antipathy to the Uanacbans—wnicn i uut,
however, entertained by leading politicians or edu-
cated professional classes, though widely diffused
among the rural and industrial as well as mercantile
population—is difficult to be accounted for. When-
ever a New Brunswick or Nova-Scotian Anti-Con-
federate orator wishes to make a point that is sure
to hit the popular taste, he has but to declare that
the politicians of Canada are notoriously corrupt--
that the people are " Yankees," or something worse,
and that Canadian finance is so mismanaged as to
be certain to end in bankruptcy. Some Nova
Scotians even go so far as to assert that they
would prefer the withdrawal by the British Go-
vernment of the right of self-government ac-
corded to the colonies to a union with Canada,
which in their estimation can only lead to the esta-
blishment of an ultra-Republican form of govern-
ment, antagonistic to British ideas, and incom-
patible with allegiance to a Constitutional Monarchy,
if it would not be a stepping-stone to that colonial
independence which in its turn would be a stepping-
stone to incorporation with the United States.
This hostility to Canada continually betrays itself.
The last time the question of Confederation came
before the House of Assembly, immediately prior
to the adjournment of the Legislature, Mr.
Le Vesconto, formerly Financial Secretary, de-
clared that " Nova Scotia would never con-
sent to be a dependency of Canada" that
" three hundred thousand Nova Scotians, after
their country was annexed to Canada, would have
no chance of obtaining justice in the matter of
taxation against the overpowering influence of three
millions of Canadians ;" and that, in short, the pro-
ject of Confederation was an unholy compact, in-
tended to barter away the rights and liberties of the
Nova Scotian people." Of course all this was the
merest moonshine, but was none the less acceptable
to those whose prejudices it flattered. It is not my
purpose to defend Canada and her statesmen from
such attacks as these, but only to record the state of
feeling that exists, and endeavour, if I can, to ac-
count for it. The main source of the jealousy en-
tertained of Canada appears to be ignorance. At
the reading rooms and places of public resort in St.
John and Halifax the Canadian newspapers are
rarely seen. The New York papers can be purchased
at the booksellers' shops, but the journals of To-
ronto, Montreal, or Quebec, are not to be obtained,
44-- on much need for them as
to subscribe for them in advance. Canadian affairs
receive about as little attention from the newspapers
of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia as those of New
Zealand or the Cape of Good Hope. The trade be-
tween the provinces is small, and the amount of
travel is proportionate. One little steamer, with
scanty accommodation for passengers and not much
capacity for freight, making a fortnightly trip dur-
ing the summer months from Shediac to Quebec
through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and stopping at
almost every little village and ferry on the way,
suffices or is made to suffice for all the wants created
by the intercolonial business that does not flow west-
ward to St. John, New Brunswick. This imperfect
knowledgeproduces misapprehension. The Canadian
rebellion of 1837 is the main incident of Canadian
history which remains indelibly imprinted on the
minds of the eminontlyloyal people of Nova Scotia,
who never rebelled against their lawful Sovereign or
dreamed of perpetuating a crime so heinous. One
ground of the covert dislike entertained against the
Canadians is their alleged tendency to what is callede,
" Yankeeism," and in the case of the Lower Ca-
nadians the difference of race, language, and creed,
which, as they have already acted as disturbing
influences in Canadian politics, would, it is calcu-
lated, act in a similarly prejudicialmanner upon the
politics of the Confederation. The principle of re-
presentation by population embodied in the Quebec
scheme is also distasteful on account of the over-
shadowing preponderance which its adoption would
give to the Canadians in the general Government of
the Confederacy. For a similar reason the Nova
Scotians look with disfavour on the project, so dear
to the President of the Canadian Council and the.
Toronto Globe, of purchasing out of the general re-
' venues of the Confederacy the rights of the Hud-
son's Bay Company over the North-Western terri-
tory, which the anti-Confederates persist in calling
the " North Pole," as a scheme that can be but of
nominal advantage to Canada, while it will be of
very remote, if any advantage whatever, to the
maritime colonies ; and still more strongly as against
Canada, though not as against the Imperial
Government, the dilatoriness of the Canadians in
the matter of the intercolonial railway, acts as a
damper on Confederation. Were the construction
of that line fairly commenced, and its completion
within a reasonable time guaranteed—not by a
Canadian Administration, that is in office to-day
and may beernscomoutteinaontf,s
moaffinandceyNtooe: fmtßhoreruronswmswi—al.belkuoetbr
objections
ytoiotuhnldes
ofßritish
theNGO ov va
lose their force and be gradually dropped out of dis-
cussion. But a fear that Confederationmay be forced
upon them without the railway, and that, by some
hocus-pocus of party politics in Canada or in Eng-
land, this immense boon to the maritime provinces
may even yet be withheld, lies at the bottom of an
opposition that takes many other shapes and names,
and uses many other and apparently less selfish cries
to keep itself before the public.
As far as my means of observation enable me to
judge, the opposition of Nova Scotia to union with
the other provinces is neither obstinate nor general.
It goes to the detail rather than to the principle,
and owes what little bitterness it may possess en-
tirely to the exigencies of party warfare in a small
colony, where personal considerations have more
weight than matters of public policy. Many Nova
bSeceontiadnics— ta
tpe edr htoa
ththate
amn a joatrtietmy —p t t hin
has k
bteheeny
made
aet sv
e,
nts, whethertiithey
ttioi
eythrust tvlemi
tschemenote
;down
that, at
a tt throats,
o
have not been allowed sufficient time to study it out
in all possible and probable effects upon their local
interests. But in none of the complaints that are
made is a single word of dissatisfaction expressed
against the Imperial Government. Even the Irish,
who in Canada and New Brunswick, under anti-
British leaders and agitators, find abundant reason
to oppose Confederation in the fact that the British
Government supports it, have not in Nova Scotia a
single objection to raise against it on this pretence,
or any other that is not advocated by their Anglo-
Saxon fellow-subjects. In this respect the province
is highly fortunate in having at the head of the

The details of the wreck of the brig Janet Allison, of
Dundee, which took place off Berwick on Tuesday night
last, are of a most distressing and painful character. Tho
report of the catastrophe given by Capt. Bailey, the only
survivor, is as follows :—On Tuesday at noon he bore up
for the Firth, and at that time it was -blowing very hard
from the E.SE., with a very heavy sea. At seven p.m.
he saw the land, hauled the brig on the wind, and after-
wards tried to stay. She missed stays, however, and
striking the ground she remained fast, lying broadside on
the rocks. Captain Bailey then had the small boat put
out to leeward, but the sea breaking over the ship filled
her (the small boat), and at the same time smashed the
long boat, which was on deck. The crew took to the
rigging. The captain tried to get them to make an
attempt to reach the shore, but they were all afraid.
He then got hold of an oar, and left the ship, and
succeeded in reaching the rocks, though very much ex-
hausted. After recovering strength, he shouted to the men
to follow, but none carne. If ho could have got a small
line he could have thrown it on board, but having none he
went in search of assistance, but it came too late. The tide
had flowed, and at midnight, after two rockets had been
fired over the ship, the masts fell over to seaward, and in
one moment the cries of the suffering men were stilled for
ever. Their cries wore hoard from the ship until the masts
went, and when the engine which was sent from Berwick
with assistance stopped abreast of the ship, the fellows
made a hearty cheer. Captain Bailey acted with the most
praiseworthy courage and promptitude in the very trying
circumstances in which he was placed. 'With great pre-
sence of mind ho opened up a way of escape from the
wrecked vessel; but, unfortunately, none of the poor follows
board had sufficient nerve to try It, or thoy
had been trusting with too great confidence in the refuge
of the masts, to which they had betaken themselves.
About nine o'clock on Thursday night, at a place known
as the "Rock Ends," a little south of Burnmouth, a ship
struck and speedily went to pieces. There was no possi-
bility of rendering any assistance, as the storm raged with
such violence nothing could bo heard, and in consequence
of the darkness of the night the crow could not be observed.
From papers found, it turns out that the ship was the
Henrietta, from Drammen, Norway, Captain Andreas M.
Hjorth, master. Several articles of women's wearing ap-
parel have come ashore, together with the photograph of a
lady. The vessel has gone completely to pieces, and all the
crew have perished. s

On Thursday, a little after twelve o'clock at noon, a
small vessel, supposed to be a billy-boy or Scotch schooner,
of about ten keels, was observed to be buffeting with the
gale at a distance of three milesfrom Whitby. The general
impression on shore was that she was water-logged, and
would probably try to take the harbour or run on the
beach. At times the vessel could not be discerned at all ;
but at about half-past one she was observed to founder
on the edge of Whitby Sand, a distance of two miles
from the shore. Glasses wore at once turned to th
place where she had been engulfed by the raging elements,
in quest of the boat ; but no signs were to be seen of any-
thing. Shortly after some men saw what they thought to
be a boat with three men in it, running towards the beach.
The men after waiting for a few minutes saw the boat
again, and at once communicated with the pilot and others
on the pier. After losing a deal of time, they got permis-
sion to bring the National lifeboat out, but not before the
fisherman's life-boat was out. The National lifeboat was
at last got into the water, and pulled by a rope to the
pier end ; but after getting thus far, no further way could
be made. Meanwhile the boat, which contained three men
from the ill-fated vessel, came rapidly towards the beach,
and when about 100 yards from tbe pierand 200 yards from
the lifeboat, a heavy sea struck the boat, lifting her stern
entirely out of water, and turning her completely over
The poor fellows were observed for some time after cling-
ing to the bottom of their boat. The boat has since washed
up, and it appears that the name of the ill-fated schooner
was the Elizabeth, of Goole.

THE SCOTS GREYS.—The masterly tactics which
left Lancashire without its usual cavalry regiment on
the eve of a disturbed election, and took away a cavalry
corps from Ireland within four or five days of the Govern-
ment action against the Fenians, are now being worked
out to the final point. The Scots Greys, which had been
bundled down from Aldershot by train to Manchester be-
fore the elections, to repair the error caused by the gratui-
tous withdrawal of the 3d Hussars a week or two previ-
ously, are now ordered to Ireland to fill the gap left vacant
by the departure of the 11th Hussars on the eve of the
Fenian business. This move was, no doubt, necessary;
but we may ask, with all humility, why it was not ordered
to take place at the usual time of moving troop.
the Greys had been sent over contemporaneously
departure of the 11th, nothing can be said against
ts
either as regards the public interests or the convenience
iy with the
th. e
of the regiment. But the delay has caused great incon-
veniencehen they got to Newbridge, will
married soldiers, who, w
allmainmthede roefagimeeresn,t,afwtehrichhavhina:
have had five changes of quarters altogether
. within the
to all, and a cruel expense to the unfortunate
.
last 15 or 16 months. The order roomy ed last Saturday
just got settled down in Manchester. and the out-quar-
ters with surprise
upon all
tors for the winter.
hesitated for a long time, thought they could at
last count with safety upon a six months stay, and had
taken houses accordingly; the leave season had begun; the
leaves were actually out, some of the officers had gone
away, and others were on the point of starting; the bad
weather had fairly set in, and there was a certainty of a
cold and wet march to Liverpool, as well as a" probability
of a bad passage across the Channel; tho horses had got
their winter coats, and the men were beginning to look
forward to their furloughs. This is the particular moment
selected by the authorities for amove, which ought to have
been made in August or not at all, and the necessity
for which was as palpable then as now. Of course, if any
sudden occasion had arisen for sending over the regiment,
no ono could complain, for individual comforts must be
sacrificed to the public interest ; but this is not an increase
to the usual cavalry strength in Ireland ; it is an ordinary
relief postponed from the usual time to just the period
when it could cause the maximum amount of loss and in-
convenience, leaves being stopped, and a troublesome work
called for, extending probably into the first we!li in Novem-
ber. The relieving detachments are also subjected to the
same discomforts. After mentioning this admirable effort
to make the servicepopular—this ingenious contrivance for
having the work of the public done with the least amount
of loss and discomfort to those who have to do it—we need
scarcely add that air Richard Airoy, although gazetted
govornor of Gibraltar, is still discharging the duties of
quartermaster-general at the Horse Guards.--Irmy and
Nau Gazette.