POSTSCRIPT. 249 



It is at such times as these that the superb 

 love of fatherland, or inexplicable inertness of the 

 human race, strikes the spectator with full force. 

 That professional men stay in England is com- 

 prehensible enough. Such a climate as ours at 

 this season of the year naturally produces ample 

 employment for the doctor and the lawyer. No 

 constitution, however strong, could resist the east 

 wind of a British spring for many years after the 

 cooling of boyhood's blood ; no temper, however 

 sweet, remain unimpaired by its attacks. ' Liver ' 

 and the litigious temperament thrive naturally in 

 our sweet London spring-tide. Besides all this, 

 professional men are not in great demand abroad. 

 In Canada, for example, the professions are just 

 as crowded as they are at home. But with the 

 labourer it is different. If he has nothing to do 

 here, there is enough for him to do across the 

 Atlantic if he is willing and able to do it. If he 

 is neither willing nor able, or unwilling or unable, 

 then, of course, he will be as useless and unpaid 

 and unhappy there as here. For my part, I 

 cannot help thinking that some kinds of paupers 

 are best cured, like biliousness, by a course of 

 starvation. It is true that on April 27 last 

 the Canadian Government discontinued the sys- 

 tem of assisted passages for English immigrants, 

 and that there is an outcry at present in Canada 



