The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1885-10-14
THE DOMINION OF CANADA.
Her Wars and Notwithstanding of He'
SoI-weaIth of Her Forests
r.Gath,- in Boston Globe.I


Sou-weaIth of Her Forests
l''Gath-' in Boston GIobeI
Considering her situation and scat
tered pOpulace, Canada has been lis
more danger during Ire past 100 years
than the 'nited tates, and has had
more real wars. During her co
lonial period Montreal was taken
two or three times and many
of the people burnt at the stake.
Huge ornaments for those days We're
launched upon Lewisburg and Quebec
time and time again. The isolated posts
OF France IN our western regions were
assaulted and the people inSHltcd.
Louisiana had her revolutions before
the American occupation. When the
Americans reVolted they kept anada IN
constant alarm The people in distant
British Columbia have been repeatedly
| Threatened with invasion from the
American side. Fenian attempts have
been made on Canada, and in her little
civil wars of almost fifty years ago her
authorities hanged more men for the
crime of treason and rebellion than the
United States hanged in a colossal war
fare.
The Canadian dominion will never
have any other quantity than length;
it will be impossible to make an empire
out of "a mere fringe. Last summer |
went to ottawa and was struck with the
almost awful sCantneSS of the land
through which the costly Canadian "a
citic railroad had been run. Soon after
leaving Montreal the ground becomes
rocky and with that cold greenness in
dicative of terrible winters The sta
lions on the road are generally of the
scrimpiest Sort and the towns, cluster
r1fr Oh al ~ hnl IR
church with its tin roof, remind one of
the pictures of Siberia or the Russian
plains. The Ottawa river, one of the
largest streams on our continent, rolls
through this cold country, showing a
boat of some kind hardly more than
once in the whole journey to Ottawa.
AT Ottawa nature seems to terminate
on that rocky plateau. with atlectationS
of mountains in the distance, one stands
beside the really beautiful public build
ings and wonders to himself if the true
populace of such country Is not the
lumber and the saw-mills instead of hui
man souls. lie sees plenty OF lumber,
perhaps hundreds of acres of it, but it
is probably destined TO build habitatiOns
for the enOrmO sly growing country to
the south. ttawa itself reminded me
of sone of the little towns perched
" indsor or at Cowes. The most vigor-
Gus town in the oininion, Montreal
probably excepted, is Toronto. | went
to that place few years ago, and was
on the whole disappointed with it; the
appearance of the people in the streets
was common, and they all seemed to
wear the dirty, unchanged wOOlens one
finds in Scotland, where they stand out
in the rain without an umbrella all day
long. men and women, and not know
the difference between a shower and the
sunshine.
1t is just 2O5 years since one of the
French promoters, Duluth, settled on
the north shore of | axe Superior. That
was in 1880, or about the time Phila-
delphia was planted by Penn. So the
Canadian shore OF Lake Superior has
been as many years in progress, so to
speak, as the shores of the Delaware
What is the result. The population of
Pennsylvania is probably three quarters
as great as that of all Canada, and con
sidering the natuSc of the population is
equal to two or three such nations as
the Canadians. After one leaves
Lake Superior, which is now frozen
up, and cannot Ice used for British
troops to attack Riel, he has to go 400
miles by train to Winnipeg, or some
thing like the distance from Boston to
Buffalo. Mr. Sandford Fleming, whose
book was published last summer in Mon
treal, and who had every reason to ex-
plot the country, said: Nothing is to
be seen but rock and forest in their
most rugged form The surface is a
succession of rocky lodges, with tortuous
streams and deep muskegs intervening.
No great area of land is to be seen
suitable for farming. The only source
of wealth is in the forests"