The Savings Bank is the strong-box of the prudent man of moderate means and humble position; there he places his little surplus capital, generally after having built for himself a house or 'store,' as a shop is termed in America. The position and character of the Irish working classes in Montreal may be fairly estimated from the fact, that of $1,000,000 deposited in the Savings Bank of that city, four-fifths, or $800,000, belong exclusively to them. A large portion of the stock of the Ontario Bank also stands in their name. Then they possess considerable house property, two-thirds of which is insured. Griffintown, the principal Irish quarter, is almost entirely owned by the working classes; and here, as in Quebec, not a single house of ill-fame is to be found in the entire district. In Griffintown, poverty and wretchedness, miserably clad children and slatternly women are occasionally to be seen; but they are comparatively rare; and in almost every case the drunkenness of the father, or the tippling of the mother, is the sole cause of the wretchedness and degradation which, happily exceptional, form a dark contrast to the prevailing sobriety, thrift, and good conduct distinguishing the Catholic Irish of Montreal.
While it is true that the Irish Catholic feels himself more at home in Lower Canada than in the other Provinces, Upper Canada especially, it must not be supposed that he has not had many and serious difficulties to contend against. Whatever may now be the feelings of the French Canadians towards the Irish, they were strongly hostile to them at one period; for in the rebellion of 1837, the Irish, influenced in a great measure by two eminent priests of their own country - Father McMahon, of Quebec, a man of surpassing power as an orator, and in every respect one of the most remarkable men of his time; and Father Phelan, afterwards Bishop of Kingston - generally sided with the British Power, and against the insurgents of that day, This was one and a very natural cause of
