THE FRENCH ACADIANS.
• [To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.") read with interest_ a few weeks ago Dr. Macphail's letter on the French-Canadians of Quebec, and the ensuing correspondence, and am tempted to write to you about some other French-Canadians. At the western end of Nova Scotia, along the barren, wind-swept shore of an arm of the Bay of Fundy, there dwell the descendants of the few trench Acadians who escaped expulsion in 1759. The district is known as French Town and the people speak a French dialect which is hard to understand for one like myself whose French is of the Stratford-atte-Bow order. They are Catholics to a man. Along a street some thirty miles in length, bordered on both sides by houses, you will not find a single Protestant place of worship. They are a fairly prosperous community, engaged in fishing, lumbering, and building wooden ships. Their houses, though very plain and unpretentious, are comfortably fur- nished and spotlessly clean, as far as I have been able to
observe. Quite a few own motor-cars, -but the advantage of having water laid on in the house does not seem to have eocurred to them yet.
In dress, too, they differ from the rest of the Province. The elder women still wear the black kerchief that forms the headdress of the French peasant-woman, and the dress of the younger women can only be described as hideous. They show none of the love of finery and display that is so eminently characteristic of. all Canadian and American women. It is on their churches that they vent their love-of beauty and display. All their churches are large and lavishly decorated inside, and St. Anne's at Church Point, their great rallying place, is a marvel of beauty. Observing them at one of their great fes- tivals one would say they were a priest-ridden people, but are they? It seems to me that, like the Oriental, their concern is more with the next world than with this, and they care little for the amusements and attractions of this life. Those who cannot devote themselves entirely to the religious life seem to aim at getting as near to it as possible.
There are plenty of Catholics of Irish and Highland extrac- tion in Malifax and other parts of Nova Scotia, but, with few exceptions, they bear no resemblance to these French.- Canadians, who so far are ,not numerous enough to constitute a " proldem," but are nevertheless interesting to observe and
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