The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1916-03-17

Last week | spoke of Canada; it
set me thinking and remembering. Be-
fore the Civil War most of the "help"
in the New England mills had been
American or Irish; but during that
war It almost seemed as though
canada emptied herself into "the
States; before the English conquer
ed Canada the French settlers Joined
with the Indians and made forays on
the New England settlements; but
now it was a peaceful incursion, and
soon after the war the majority of
operatives in the mills were French
Canadian; the increase of that part of
the population was phenomenal; and
by lSOO they comprised nearly or more
than half of the population of the
mill cities. In Woonsocket, R. l., in
l9OZ ~ per cent of the population was
French For few years my
duties led me to study such move
ments and it was during that study
that l discovered the facts / mention
ed last week. And another fact that
impressed me was the utter lack of
education among them. and particul-
arly among the women; French
Canadian woman who could read was
rare; but in maternity they excelled;
l frequently met young women
twenty years of age with from two to
four children, and even more l look
ed for the cause and found it in Park
mans history of the French in North
America. A few years before l had
read Mary Johnston's ITO Have and
To Hold" in which she tells of the
sending of ship-loads of young women
to Virginia in the early XVIIth GEN.
fury to become wives for the bachelor
settlers; l had known it from my
school history; but l did not know
that it was practiced on much
larger scale in Canada; the early set
tiers of Virginia had. been almost
wholly single men, and what were
termed Adventures" nearly all the
other English colonies were original
ly settled by families. which meant a
better class OF people, and insured
better ordered state of society from
the beginning.
But Parkman, concluding one of
his most interesting and informing
chapters says: at is popularity Of
Canadian immigration, at its most
fourishing epoch, that it was mainly
an immigration of single men and
single women. The cases in which en-
tire families came over were COM
paratively few" ~
have this winter read some
Memories of Duke who was cour-
tier at the Court of Louis XIV, and
the revelations he makes of the stupid
ity of that Grand Monarch, shows his
dullness in some directions to equal
his absolutist ideas of government;
for it was he who once said Il am the
state" He was not Of the same class
with James | of England, wise
fool; but he was pompous in his de-
liverances regarding governmental
matters; he read the reports of the
colonial officers of Canada, and with
out informing himself regarding the
country or its conditions, without
knowing why it had come to its pres
ent status. he pronounced judgment.
Although his own life was a notorious
one of moral irregularity he was hor-
rifed when he learned that the French
population of Canada was not increas-
ing, but that of half-breeds was grow
ing; He declared that if the French
people would not go over to Canada
then the regiments he sent over for
service should be disbanded there and
become settlers, particularly as he
would literally aid them to settle
ment; and then there should be an in
crease of French settlers; but he was
shown that the root of the trouble lay
in the fact that there were almost no
French women besides nuns in that
country. Then the Grand Monarch
had an inspiration; French women
should be sent over to become wives
for the men of the disbanded regi-
ments. Ten companies of one regi-
ment were thus disbanded and asked
to settle in Canada, and when some
declined and went home to France,
they were afterwards constrained to
return to Canada. The officers were
told that if they wished to please his
Majesty this was the way to do SO;
liberal offers of opportunity and ad-
vancement were offered the officers,
and the private soldiers were promis--
ed grants of land and good SUM OF
money. Parkman says: But 1t the
colony was to grow from within the
new settlers must have wives
Girls for the colony were taken from
the hospitals of Paris and Lyons
which were not so much hospitals for
the sick as houses of refuge for the
poor. (Of which there were many at
that time throughout France; many
abandoned children), The case was
urgent. Complaints. however. were
soon heard that women from cities
,,,,J. indifferent Mariners: and peas.