292 INTEREST OF THE CLERGY. 



advanced with the times were generally prosperous, have, 

 one by one, been driven from their farms, and forced to 

 emigrate. Having sacrificed themselves at home to 

 their prejudices, they bear them religiously beyond the 

 Atlantic, and transmit them as heir-looms to their 

 descendants.* The changes in our corn-laws will not, 

 it is to be hoped, now send out any of our better men. 



With such men, holding at least a considerable share 

 of the land, it is not surprising that bad farming should 

 be found in North America, even among the Anglo- 

 Saxon race ; and if improvements are introduced slowly 

 among us, they cannot be expected to advance with a 

 less languid step among them. 



It is believed that the introduction of British settlers 

 into Lower Canada would improve the rural industry 

 of the French population ; and, in so far as the example 

 of a more patient and energetic blood goes, this might 

 possibly be the case. But, in addition to the unwilling- 

 ness which the British Protestant emigrant feels to place 

 himself in the midst of a people who speak a different 

 tongue, and belong to a different religious denomina- 

 tion, there is another obstacle to this admixture of races, 

 arising out of the law of tithes, of which I was not 

 aware until my friends explained it to me here to-day. 



Before the British conquest, the Roman Catholic 

 clergy were, by law, entitled to the tithes of all land — 

 one twenty-sixth part of the produce being the legal 

 due of the priest of the parish. But by what is called, 

 I believe, the Quebec Act, they are now permitted 

 to demand tithe of persons of their own persuasion only, 

 Protestants being exempt. Hence, every transfer of 

 land from a Boman Catholic to a Protestant proprie- 

 tor, is a money-loss to the Romish Church, and a 

 money-inducement is held out to the priest of the place 



* See, for instance, the state of farming in Lancashire even now. — 

 Royal Agricultural Journal, vol. x., part L 



