prejudice against them. Difference of language must at all times, even under the most favourable circumstances, create a barrier against international fusion, or thorough sympathy between races; added to which, the humbler class of the newcomers soon began to occupy situations and even monopolise branches of industry previously occupied and monopolised by the French Canadians. Then, as may be supposed, the Catholic Irish were not much befriended by the English-speaking portion of the population; so that here, as in most other places, the Irish emigrant had to fight his way up under circumstances sufficient to daunt any other people, but which difficulties seem to have had the effect of bracing their energies and ensuring their success. It is nearly a quarter of a century since Francis Hincks. now Governor of the Bermudas, and Louis Drummond, now an eminent and highly respected Judge of the Supreme Courts of Lower Canada the one a Unitarian, the other a Catholic, and both Irishmen infused life and spirit into the Catholic Irish of Montreal, and gave them a sense of pride and consciousness of strength, which they much required. Now they form a large and important section of the population of the finest and most prosperous city of British North America, and they are thoroughly conscious of their strength and legitimate influence.
I had the pleasure, on several occasions in Montreal, of meeting the very élite of my countrymen of all denominations; and I found among those who, when they commenced, had to rely altogether on their own exertions, more of the American spirit than in almost any other city in the colonies. There is greater manufacturing enterprise in Montreal than elsewhere in British America; there are therefore larger sources of employment throughout the year for the working classes, to many of whom, indeed to most of whom, the winter is a season of trial and privation.
