The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1872-09-25
LETTER FROM CANADA.
French Railroad-ToWn Life Horses
and Vehicles ss-Manners and
Customs. .s

c'ion, in the town L'Industrie' Ar
we East or West of the Atlantic
Around and about Us are gabEerln
Frenchmen and French women
whose dialect is so peculiarly
provincialism that were L'llomm
de Paris set down in their midst h
would scarcely recognize his Yer
nacular tongue.
This town is about fifty mile
North East of Montreal, and i
reached by steaming forty mile
on that grandest Of Rivers the ST
Lawrence, and then by Rail twelv
miles North, on a Railroad, too
that is emphatically sm gene11s.-
Each one presents a side view 0
three carriage bodies, each carriag
having a door in either side an'
the passengers sit facing each othe
as in a carriage, the seats holding
five persons comfortably, thus seat
ing thirty passengers to the car
All the doors are shut as the trail
starts, and the conductor walk
around the car on an outside plat
form as he collects his fare. The
feature of the road, however, is thai
the wheels roll directly upon the
wooden stringers, not a bar of iron
being laid on the road, The stock
holders built tie road as the tailor
cuts, his coat-according to his
cloth. No money to buy iron, but
the train had to be run, and hence
they dash along on the wood twelve
miles per hour. Does the Able
vile bronch beat that? While the
latter may live in hopes Of avoiding
bankruptcy as long as a wooden
stringer can be substituted for iron
bars, so this Road lives in hopes Of
better times, as piles Of 7. iron lie
along its entire length.
This town is the result of natural
circumstances. The surrsanding
country was settled anterior to the
French war by the ancestors ofthose
whom Wolf conquered, and from
that day to this there has been little
or 10 immigration. Natural in
crease demanded a town, and here
it was located. For aught can
see, it may as well have been placed
anywhere else in this beautiful val
ley. The surrounding country is
fiat, tolerably productive aud dot
ted all over with little farms meas
uring from so to 500 acres. The
people are French in habits, man-
ners, customs and language. Their
laws are peculiarly their own, and
were preserved unaltered by a con-
dition of the treaty after their sur
render to the English. Seldom
have they been amended, and never
improved, from that day to this.
Real estate here sells high, but the
purchaser always sues for titles, as
nothing bntyan action at law is sup
posed to be able to give validity to
deeds.
The farmers grow cabbage, pota-
toes, apples, onions, chickens, tur-
keys, pigs, sheep, beef for home
consumption, horses and hay. Sat
urday is the market day for this
town, and from day dawn until
noon the farmers and their wives
are arriving in the oue-horse ve-
hicles, (no such thing as a two
horse vehicle here) loaded down
With produce which they sell en-
tirely out during the day, but for
the life of us we could not find out
who were the purchasers, for the
farmers and their wives seemed to
make up the crowd. They come
from twenty-five and thirty miles
around, and on arrival they string
themselves along On each side Of
the two streets that run parallel
with the market houses, and such a
chattering as they keep up during
theaday, no one has ever heard who
has seen this town. The tout ensena-
Tile is perfect bedlam.
Their vehicles, too, are certainly
peculiar. Of the hundreds we saw
last Saturday, not one had steel
springs, and except the tire there is
scarcely a pound Of iron in one of
them. Large carts with wooden
axles and wooden lynch pins as
large as your finger, one horse wag-
gons with spring board seats, and
every possible style. of vehicle seen
nowhere else that ever I have been,