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and the fundamentals of the civil law, In fact, the Englishman just fresh from the old country is regarded in Canada as a foreigner, and experiences the curious sensation of being practically an alien in a land over which floats the Union Jack. He is more apt to feel at home in the United States, because all peoples newly independent have a tendency to insist upon the fact in an offensive way, while a nation secure in its greatness, resting upon a stable foundation of an historic past of its own, laughs at such insistence on its progress as a provincialism; it is beyond either criticism of self-assertion. This is the trouble with colonists: they antagonize one's sympathies by pointing out their achievements, instead of taking it for granted that you are acquainted with them. The national spirit is intermittent, and, therefore, occasionally ludicrous. The only really deep-rooted anti-American feeling in the country is the peculiar monopoly of those eccentric "patriots" who fought against their kith and kin in the Revolutionary War, and who, through the fortunes of war, were compelled to emigrate into what was then the wilderness of Nova Scotia.

There is much nonsense written about the Canadian distinctive national type (I am not now alluding to the French Canadians) as different from the American. As a matter of fact, only a person gifted with microscopic powers of observation can discover any essential differences between Canadians, in the English-speaking progressive provinces, and Americans that is, dissimilarities which are not equally marked between the inhabitants of different sections of any country. There is not, for instance, the striking contrast that exists between the people of Massachusetts and Virginia. It is worthy of remark also, that there is more in common between an average Canadian from the East or West, and an average American hailing from the same quarter, than there is between a Londoner and a genuine Yorkshireman or Cornishman, as the former do speak the same tongue, and the latter do not. A genuine Yorkshire farmer in London is to all intents and purposes a foreigner, and needs an interpreter in order to supply himself with the necessities of life—except, of course, beer, if that is a necessity; there is a universal language for the topers of all nationalities.

The Canadian when he crosses the border in search of a broader horizon and a competence has very little to unlearn. Once he has passed through the trying ordeal of unstrapping his trunks for the inspection of the Custom officers, and has recovered his equanimity as he rattles along into the heart of Uncle Sam's country, he is no longer in a foreign land. And the Canadians, English, and French, are flocking into the States at all points by thousands every year; as Professor Goldwin Smith aptly says in his recently published book, "Canada and the Canadian Question," If the Americans are not annexing Canada they are annexing the Canadians"; and who ever hears of a Canadian returning to his own country to settle after he has spent a few years in the States? On the contrary, one hears every day of the hearty welcome accorded to Canadians in all occupations, and of successes achieved by their per severance, patience, and wholesome love of hard work.

The Anti-American sentiment has absolutely no existence among the masses. There is, indeed, a tendency to regard the States as a veritable El Dorado, where dollars are picked up in the streets. Nearly every family in Canada has a son, and sometimes half a dozen sons, or nephews, or nieces, living and working in American cities; and un commercial unions in the way of matrimonial alliances between Americans and Canadian belles are of daily occurrence. New England, in particular, is crowded with Canadians. The writers who say that Canadians despise American institutions, and express contempt for American social life should study the really remarkable equanimity with which thousands of Canadian girls support their miserable existence with a family of little Yankees growing up at their knees. The continent of North America is the country of the Canadian of this generation, not a section of it. In his ideas, religion, aptitudes and training, business and social relations, he is practically as American as