COLOURED PEOPLE IN HALIFAX. 7 



such distinctions in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 

 would certainly not be permitted to exist for another hour. 

 On the field upon M'Nab's Island, where the people 

 were assembled, were music and dancing parties in differ- 

 ent places ; swings and refreshment stalls, whites of all 

 grades, and darkies of different shades ; but I saw neither 

 intoxication nor disorder, nor rudeness, nor incivility 

 anywhere. A little of the liveliness of the early French 

 settlers probably clings to the modern Nova Scotian; but 

 though there were many both Irish-born and of Irish 

 descent among the crowd, there was no shade of a dispo- 

 sition to an Irish row. 



Many coloured people, some apparently full-blood 

 negroes, were to be seen in the streets of Halifax acting 

 as porters, and in other humble employments. A few of 

 these looked miserable enough. 



As far back as the close of the American war, numbers 

 of coloured people came here, either with their loyalist 

 masters, or alone, and at the expense of Government. 

 These early settlers have multiplied and become to a cer- 

 tain extent acclimatised, and many of them are industrious 

 owners of small farms. Generally, however, the negroes 

 are spoken of as indolent, as hanging about the towns, 

 and as suffering much from the severity of the winter. 



People of colour enjoy, I believe, in all the British 

 colonies of North America, the same political privileges 

 as are possessed by other classes of her Majesty's subjects. 

 I went into the jury court, where the author of Sam Slich 

 was the presiding judge, and I was both surprised and 

 pleased to see a perfectly black man sitting there in the 

 box as a juror. 



Among the other novelties to a stranger in Halifax is 

 an encampment of the Micmac Indians, whose wigwams 

 I found pitched upon some high ground above the town 

 of Dartmouth, on the opposite side of the bay. These 

 Indians have a broad Asiatic face ; and are more intelli- 



