Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-08-03
French.Canadian Peasants.


The french-Canadian peasants are
generally rather small, but sturdy,
muscular, well-kpit. They are dull
looking, but their rather heavy faces
are not animal and course. Even the
young women are very seldom pretty,
but they are all wholesome, modest and
unaffected. As they advance in life
they become stout, and reach old age
with comfortable and placid express
sion. The beauty of the race seems to
be confined to the children, who are
bright, robust and cherubic. Thus the
people are externally unprepossessing,
but the more l study them. the more
like them for the quiet courtesy and
perfect simplicity of their manners,
and their hospitality and unfailing
kindness.
Several types of Canadians were
there, each standing as page of the
country's history. There was the
original Canadian, the peasant of
Normandy and Brittany, Just as he
was when first landea on the shores of
the 1t. Lawrence over two hundred
years ago; he has kept his material
and mental traits with such extraor-
binary fidelity that Canadian travel
ing now in those parts of France
seems TO be meeting his own people.
He Is small, muscular man of dark
complexion, with black eyes. a round
head, rather imperviouS, and an honest
lace, rather heavy with inertia. He
sums up the early DAYS of Canada,
when endurance and courage of no or
binary stamp were required to meet the
want tho af,I q
their struggle. And his phenomenal
conservatism was not a whit to- strong
10 preserve his nationality after the con-
quest OF Canada by a race having en-
tirely opposite tendencies. There also
was the Canadian with Indian blood;
he Is by no means feeble element in
the population, in either numbers or in
huence. He is often well marked with
Indian features high cheeks. small
black eyes and slight beard. The most
characteristic specimens are called
"petits brules," like burned stumps,
black, gnarly and angular But now
and then you meet large fine-lOoking
hah-breeds, with swarthy complexion
warmed with Saxon blood. There were
no women of low character sent TO
Canada in the early days, as there were
To New Orleans and the Antilles: the
lew women who came sufliced to marry
only small portion of the colonists, so
that many of the gallant Frenchmen,
and later some of the Scotch and En-
glish, engaged in the fur trade. married
squaws, and founded legit mate families
OF half-breeds. Thus Indian blood be-
came regular portion of the national
HOftVs and tho national Ill
ance and religious union with the say
ages helped the assimilation of In
dian traits as well rs of Ind an blood.
There was also the Saxon who had
become Gaui. There are Wrirhts.
Blackburns. McPhersOns, with blue
eyes and red hair, who can net speak
word of English; and there are Irish
tongues rolling off their brogue in
French. Some of these strangers TO the
national body are descendants of those
English soldierSwho married Canadians
and settled here after the conquest.
Others are orphans that were taken
from some emigrant ships wrecked in
the st. Lawrence. But these straUplers
from the conquering race are now con-
quered, made good French Catholics.
by the force of their environment. and
they are lost as distinctive elements,
absorbed in the remarkable homorene-
GUS nationality of the French Canadian
people. The finest type of Canadian
peasant Is now rare. He is a descend
ant of the pioneer mobiles of France.
After the conquest Q763) some of these
noble families were too peer to follow
their peers back to France; tkev be-
came farmers; their facilities for edu
cation wers very limited, and their de-
scendants soon sank to~the level of the
peasantry about them. But they have
not forgotten their birth. They are
commanding figures, with features of
marked character, and with much of
the pose and dignity of court:crs. Some
OF them, still preserving the traditions
of their sires, receive you with the man.
ners a Prince might have when in rough
disguise.-C II. F'drnham, in HarpeT's
Magazine.