164 REVIEWS — THE CANADIAN NATURALIST AND GEOLOGIST. 



dare not reproduce more than this fag-end : "In Queb »c there are 

 more churches and more beggars than in any other place I have yet 

 seen on this side the Atlantic!" But we must select for our final 

 extract one which exhibits Canada in a more agreeable aspect ; and 

 here surely is a comfortable prospect for the vidual portion of forlorn 

 humanity, such as we may safely defy any other corner of the universe, 

 out of Utopia, to surpass : — 



" Colonel Tulloch, the Government Commissioner for settling and looking after 

 the military pensioners who have had grants of lands in Canada, dined here. He 

 has been very successful in improving their condition, and land is not — as it used 

 to be — a misfortune rather than a blessiug to the pensioned soldier. This im- 

 provement is partly owing to Colonel Tulloch's plan of making the grants consist 

 of three or four acres instead of one hundred, as was formerly the case ; when the 

 occupant, unfit to clear and bring into cultivation so large a portion, was ruined 

 by it. Now the smaller allotments are cultivated garden fashion : and one indi- 

 vidual made fifty pounds last year by his three acres, principally by growing 

 vegetables for the Toronto market. 



" In case of the death of an occupaut, his widow is left in possession on condition 

 that she remarries with no one but a soldier ; and no widow has ever yet (Colonel 

 Tulloch declares) remained two months without a husband. Such is the anxiety 

 for a housewife, that men of fifty marry widows fifteen years older than them- 

 selves rather than remain bachelors. What a chance for autiquated spinsters 

 wishing to change their state !" 



It would, of course, be ungallant to suppose that the favour for 

 widows of such a ripe maturity, implied any idea in the minds of their 

 chivalrous suitors of their being incumbrances on the military allot- 

 ments ! It will be seen from the brief passages we have quoted, that 

 these "Letters from the United States," &c, are not without such 

 attractions as may serve pleasantly enough to beguile a leisure half- 

 hour. That they are at all likely to influence the convictions of the 

 British public on the controversial questions they undertake to throw 

 a fresh light upon, we scarcely think many Canadians will admit. 



D. W. 



TJie Canadian Naturalist and Geologist : By E. Billings, Barrister 

 at Law. (No. 1, February 1856.) " Ottawa Citizen," Ottawa, 

 Canada West. 



A periodical especially devoted to the Natural History and Geology 

 of Canada, has long been a desideratum. In the Journal of the Ca- 

 nadian Institute, it is true, papers of undoubted merit on subjects of 

 natural history, essentially Canadian, have appeared from time to 

 time ; but the character of this Journal — a record in chief part of the 

 proceedings of a mixed literary and scientific Society— is clearly of 



