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


ant girls, healthy, strong and accust-
omed to field work were therefore
sent, but that was not ALL Officers as
well as men wanted wives; and the
young ladies. His request was prompt
ly answered; fifteen or twenty of
pretty good birth being sent, several
of them tolerably we'll brought up.
Some OF them complained of neglect
and hardship during the voyage, and
the Governor sent back word that
care must be taken in shipping, that
they have good treatment. or they will
write back home and discourage others
from coming. Naturally. AS regard
ed peasant girls the supply never
equalled the demand. And later Count
Frontenac said: IF a hundred and
fifty girls, and as many servants had
been sent out this year they would
have found husbands within a month";
AS to the quality of these girls.
French and Canadian writers differ.
One who is sail to be always apply
ing caustic wrote about it some years
afterwards: after the regiment of
Carignan was disbanded, ships were
sent out freighted with girls of indif-
ferent virtue, under the direction of a
few pious old duennas, who divided
them into three classes. These YES
tails were, so to speak, piled one on
the other in three different halls,
where the bridegrooms chose their
brides as butcher chooses his sheep
out of the midst of the flock. There
was wherewith to content the most
for, t1 IN har Cor
were to be seen the tall and the short,
the blonde and the brown, the plump
and the lean; everybody, in short,
found shoe to fit him. At the end of
a fortnight not one was left. | am
told the plumpest were taken first, be-
cause it was thought that, being less
at home, and that they could resist the
winter cold better. Those who want
ed wife applied to the directresses,
to whom they were obliged to make
known their possessions and means OF
livelihood before taking from the
three classes the girl whom they found
most to their liking. The marriage
was concluded forthwith, with the help
day the goWernor-general caused the
COW, a pair of swine. pair of fowls,
two barrels Of sailed meat, and eleven
crowns of money" All this sounds
by matrimonial disappointments, but
says it is an over-drawn picture; but
the real facts are funny enough. For
Mother Mary, one of the most promin-
Some who caused great deal Of
some of the girls had husbands at
home in France. and of another con-
| signment she wrote back to the home
goods" We are glad to- learn that
the right of choice was not all on the
mans part; the girls were permitted
Parkman says 1.-THE new settler was
lock. Bounties were offered on early
marriages" Colbert, the French
Minister, wrote the Governor to see
to it that all young men of nineteen
or twenty were married and all girls
at fourteen or fifteen, and had much
to say about the whole subject again
dIiu dSdlu but tHC PdtSihaA SdiS "a
government went even further. The
king in council, passed a decree that
in future all inhabitants of the said
country of Canada who shall have liv-
ing children to the number of ten,
born in lawful wedlock, not being
priests monks, or nuns, Chat, sounds
queer, shall have paid to them out of
moneys sent by the king to said coun-
try pension of three hundred livres
year, and those who shall have
twelve children a pension of four hum
tdred livres;" and if an officer had hf-
teen children he should have a PEN
sion of twelve hundred livres year,
And to an impartial observer it al
most seems as though the main social
idea of French Canada has been to
marry their children young and then
to rear large families. Records OF
sixteen, eighteen, even, children, are
not unc ommon; and occasionally as
many as twenty. and one case was
called to my attention, said to be we'll
authenticated, of twenty-five children
of the same father and mother. II
has been very interesting to observe
the change in social and family ideas
which come over those French Cana
dams when they mix with Americans
and their children attend the public
schools. -OBSERVER.
Mrs Edgar Meek has returned from
a months visit with her daughter
| AZ al hn 81 &c