A CITIZEN'S EXCURSION TO THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA.

THE uses of this little volume consist in the faithful transcript of impressions which the Journal presents, and in the naked facts it contains. The facts, indeed, are not of a high statistical kind; they relate to the expenses of voyaging and travelling in an un- assuming way, to the sort of ship you should choose, to the part you should choose for your berth, and to the preference to be given to a vessel according to her cargo, where the passenger has a choice. As regards his faculties of observation, our "Citizen of Edinburgh" does not see much, and what he sees is of an ob- vious kind; neither does he draw any difference between single and general occurrences, or (as it appears to us) make sufficient allow- ance for mere casualties ; he has, moreover, an uncommonly keen eye for any thing dangerous or disagreeable, and seems scarcely to have prepared himself for the common inconveniences of travel- ling. Still the book is a book of truths : we have as good an idea of what the writer felt and saw, as if we had travelled with him.

The Citizen's route was limited: he merely travelled from New York as far as Buffalc by Toronto and Niagara, and then returned. Still his remarks are worth some attention, especially upon the effects of the climate, and the depressing influence which total change of scenes, objects, and manners, the absence of friends and comforts, the irksomeness of solitude, and the hardships of a back- wood settler, exercise upon the spirits and consequently upon the happiness of the emigrant. It is a great thing to start well, and the Citizen recommends the first week in April. If you set out earlier, he says you have the equi- noxial gales to encounter, or may perhaps be wrecked upon an ice- berg; if later, the emigrant will scarcely get settled before the winter

sets in. There is reasoning is this; but our author himself seems to have started full early, as the passage was rough enough at times. The following state of things can hardly be called start- ing well; and this was a mere trifle compared with the subse- quent disasters.

THE PLEASURES OP A STRF.RAGE PASSAGE.

April 10.-4 fresh breeze from the S. E. Running nine miles an hour. At 4 A.M. the tiller-rope broke; replaced it with another ; the passengers ift the steerage, all below, and sea-sick. The mess they are in beggars all descrip- tion. About one hundred and eighty men, women, and childreu all confined in a space not larger than a large drawing- room, with no air or light but what comes down the hatchway. I popped my head down for a minute or two, but the smell waa too powerful for my olfactory nerves—children crying, women screaming, and all timing about from side to side as the vessel pitched ; butter, biscuit, treacle, herrings, beef, and potatoes, all lying higgledy-piggledy, and rolling from sidle to side, altogether made up a scene of misery and confusion

such as I never saw before. • • *

18.—The ship has been rolling to day to such an extent that it is impossible to stand or sit. One woman was knocked over, and nearly got her arm broke. An elderly gentleman, in ascending the poop-ladder, fell, and the ladder falling upon him bruised his arm severely. This arose from the ladder not being lashed to the poop, which it ought to have been. In the forenoon we shipped a heavy sea, part of which poured down into the steerage, and made the poor wretches there believe that the ship was going down. Some were praying, others cursing, and all wishing themselves anywhere but in their present situa- tion. To add to the whole, the master bad ordered the after and main hatches to be battened down ; so that they were shut up in total darkness, where they were left in a state not to be envied. The clergyman is very unwell, and confined to bed ; he thinks if there is such a place as purgatory, it must be the passage from Liverpool to New York. As a close to the catastrophes of this eventful day, the heaving and straining of the ship brought premature labour on one of the 'females in the steerage. By the assistance of the doctor, she was safely delivered of an ocean child, before as large a company as ever was present at a ceremony of the kind.

So much for the comforts of a sea voyage. Let us see

HOW MATTERS STAND AT NEW YORK.

I have conversed with some gentlemen from Scotland. They speak in a desponding way, and are evidently unhappy. They say store or shopkeeping is quite overdone here ; many failures are taking place. It is next to an impos- sibility for a clerk of any kind from the Old Country to get into a situation with- out some extraordinary merits. Maid-servants are in demand, if they can produce good characters, and their appearance corroborates their character. Their wages may be from 15/. to 25/. a year, and they are more respected here than they are at home; but I men also in justice say that they are worked much harder. Tradesmen and labourers generally may expect to find work either in New York or neighbouring cities in ordinary times. Lately the pressure for money has been so great that work has been very scarce.

A tradesman lives better here than at home, and may hoard and lodge in New York for about 9s. sterling a week, in a style very different indeed from any thing he was accustomed to at home ;—fish, roast beef, and pudding for dinner every day. Still he is expected to work very hard, and that in a climate uncon- genial to his constitution, and in a land of strangers said ta be prejudiced against people from the mother country. My opinion is, if a man can do well, or even tolerably at home, let him remain where he is; but to those who are borne down by want—who can work, but who can get no employment—who see the work- house staring them in the face—who have a large family and no means to ktep them—to all such I would say, come over here, and you will neverregret it. I speak only of those inured to labour. As for the quill-driving tribe, to them I hold out no hopes. If a man is given to dtssipation, his friends should on no account send him here, expecting him to reform ; for they generally get ten times worse, and either die in an hospital or are found (if in winter) frozen to death in the streets.

A man is judged of greatly by his appearance. If he looks like one given to intemperance, nobody will trust him Or employ him ; arri if he has not funds to

carry him home again, he is worse off than he was before. • " * If I may be bold enough to give an opinion of the citizens of New York,

I would say that their grand characteristic is national vanity. They also seem to be deficient in feeling. They appear cold and heartless. Children do not seem to have much affection for their parents. They have little attachment to their native soil, and will more with uncon- cern from one part of the Union to another. They are an amazingly cool, calculating people, and have a great command over their passions, more so than any people I ever knew. They are civil and polite, but they seem to put little trust in what strangers tell them. It is easy to perceive from their eyes that they do not believe and have no confidence in what is told them. Next to their national vanity is their love of dress. Both ladies and gentlemen carry this to a great height. A tailor or a milliner, who is a first-rate hand, is sure to suc- ceed in New York, as they will give any money to have their clothes cut in the first style. But they neglect the more solid and useful branches ef education, and are wofully ignorant on many subjects. The great mass of the citizens of New York hardly ever read any thing but the newspapers. Even on Sundays they have religious newspapers. This is not complimentary to the first commercial city of the Union; but it should be remembered that our author, like many other travellers, saw little more of the people than what was to be seen in boarding-houses, hotels, public conveyances, and public walks. His account of the American manners is, however, favourable; • and he speaks very highly of the civility of their innkeepers. He also tells us that he found social life and the means of living much better in the States than in Canada. Here is his account of Toronto, the capital of Upper Canada.

Most of the houses are built of wood, but sonic of thern are of brick and stone. This place has the usual number of public buildings, which is quite unnecessary here to enumerate. I learned that store-keeping overdone. Goods are sold every night by auction; which hurts the store- keepers by interfering with their profits On the whole, it is as dull a bole as I have been in. has been quite

A number of half-pay officers, with their noses in red uniform, ma v he sem strutting about the town and lounging about the hotels. They are chi-ay from Ireland, and talk about their cousin Lord this and their uncle Lord that. There are another class of men who also frequent the wharfs, the hotels, and the coffee-houses, for their victims. This class prey upon the poor unhappy emigrants on their arrival. They are up to all sorts of tricks to defrinal the new-comer out of his dollars; and so sure as a settler has any transactions with them, so sure is be taken in. Perhaps the titles to the land tura out ha& or the land is useless, or they have no right to sell. Something is sure to et wrong. Al! emigrants ought to avoid them. Let them go to the Goveinmen agents and respousikle men for infornaation, and make their purchases.15 tla sod then they will be safe. One or two of these land sharks, who are mostly eld country men too idle and dissipated to work themselves, made an attempt upon me; but as soon as they found my object was merely information about the country, they went off, and troubled me no more. The appearance of many of the inhabitants of Toronto would lead me to think that it is rather a dissipated place. The town of Toronto contains about eight thousand inhabitants; composed of Scotch. English, and Irish, native-born Canadians, and a few French Canadians and Negroes. There is wanting that spirit of enterprise which you see in the States. I was struck with the change. They reckon the importation of em;grants, which takes place every spring, as their harvest ; and I guess they do with them as the Yankee young ladies do with their live geese—they pluck the feathers off them every spring. What they call out for at Toronto is for men of capital to come out to them. Now the question comes to be, is it advisable for men of capital, who can use comfortably at home, to go there? If you read the statements of those interested—if you trust to the letters sent home by residents iiere—yuu are too apt to be deceived. They have a direct interest in getting out wealthy settlers to the colony. They describe the country as inunensely fertile, the climate delightfully salubrious, bracing and invigorating the human frame, and stimulatiug to and sweetening labour with the prospect of prosperity to a wealthy settler, to which it would be difficult to assign bounds. Now, my conscientious opinion is that this statement is not con- sistent with facts; and I would advisemo one who has capital and can live at home ever to come here. I shall give my reasons as briefly as I can. In the first place, I consider the climate decidedly injurious to the constitutions of people from the Old Country : a residence of two years here sometimes makes a person look fifteen years older than he did before. Instances of this kind have come under my own observation ; and it is allowed to be an established fact, that the sudden changes of the climate, the extreme heat and cold, the liability to fever and ague, and the frequency of diseases of the lungs, are very trying to Europeans, and tend materially to shorten life. In the second place, a wealthy settler from Europe rarely over finds himself at home here. Ile deprives him- self of many of the comforts which added to his happiness there which he-can never find here; and too often the sweets of home are not known or little valued till they are sacrificed for ever. He who has seen the settlers in the woods, as I have done, and has questioned them about their feelings, will tell you that they are often discontented and unhappy, and nothing but necessity makes them stay. I do not doubt there are many exceptions ; but as a general rule 4611 hold good. The next and lust reason I will give is, that a large capital in- vested in farming in America does not pay a remunerating profit. It is allowed by all the farmers, both in the States and Canada, whom I spoke to on the sub- ject, that farms do not yield a fair profit for the amount of capital embarked. This is owing partly to the low value of produce, and partly to the high price of wages, and partly to the system of bartering they carry on, which makes it very difficult to realize the cash.