having again reached his home, the place in which he was born and where he hopes to raise his own little family in the coming season. A very handsome bird is our whitethroat, quite the beau of the sparrow tribe. In it he has only two rivals, the fox sparrow and the white crowned; neither of them, however, quite equal to him in appearance. The fox spar row, though, is far his superior as a musician, while the white-crown has no very great pretensions in that direction. The great majority of the whitethroats go north of us to breed, but a few pairs stop at suitable places all the way from our southern border. I have every year found two or three pairs nestling close to the city of Toronto. During the warm weather they rarely sing except in early morning and during the night, so that as they are usually concealed in the rank underbrush, they easily escape notice. The nest is rather a coarse affair of weeds and grass placed low down in the bushes, and the eggs, four or five in number, are greenish, spotted and blotched with brown. In September the white-throats, young and old, arrive from the north, and occasionally make an effort to sing; but the song lacks the spirit and tone of spring, and is not often repeated. As October draws to a close the birds vanish away to the Southern States, where they remain for the winter. C. W. Nash. CANADIAN HYMN. STRONG daughter of heroic birth, whose throbbing veins combine The Lilies and the mighty Cross in pure and royal line, For thee thy true sons ever hold their hearts and lives in hand Above us floats the olden Cross, our fathers' and our own, Haut Canada! Bas Canada! Canadians all are we, Land of the Maple Tree. Fair are thy spreading lakes and plains, thy purple mountains high, Land of the Maple Tree. Charles Campbell. THE CANADIAN PEOPLE. A Criticism of Some of their Social Peculiarities. HERE is no doubt that the Cana THERE dian people believe themselves quite the equal of those of the United States and of Great Britain, and more than the equal of those of any other country on the face of the globe, and justly so. Some of the best blood of the British race flows in our veins; and our system of government, our social organization and our social habits are of a standard which is scarcely equalled in any country in the world. But the Canadian people are peculiar, and it is to some of these peculiarities I wish to draw attention, for as Principal Grant has well said, "The destiny of a country depends not on its material resources; it depends on the charter of its people." The Canadian people are religious. and generous. They contribute liber TIES. ally to the building of RELIGIOUS churches. In Quebec, the PECULIARI- churches usually cost as much as all the other buildings in the town or village combined. In the other provinces, the people are not quite so extravagant but the churches are numerous and creditable. In every part of Canada the preachers are well paid and highly respected. The people give generously to foreign missions, thousands of dollars being sent each year to Africa, India and China. Yet on the street corners of any Canadian city you may see a blind man begging, a one-legged, patient individual with his crutch and tin cup, or a wrinkled old woman turning a wheezy hand-organ. The business streets are regularly patrolled by ragged, worn-out females, soliciting coppers or selling bone collarbuttons. Ian Maclaren tells the story of a woman who went to the meeting of a "society to help the poor," in London, to seek a position. She was asked her name, address, age, number of children and various other particulars. She was then asked to pay a shilling for registration, and a situation would be hunted up for her. Poor woman, she had no shilling and could not secure help. We have the same spirit in Canada. We build large buildings to accommodate unfortunates and name these edifices after the men who donate the most money. But we initiate no system which will seek out the dying and the unfortunate, no system which will permanently rescue the fallen, no plan whereby the aged and the needy will be able to live without begging. A man will subscribe-with a flourish a thousand dollars to foreign missions, and on the same day he will dismiss a man ten years in his employ, who has been earning but twelve dollars a week, without a thought as to how this man is to support his wife and five children. Truly we are a peculiar people. THE SPOILS SYSTEM. Canadians claim to follow the rule, "the greatest good for the greatest number," and much of our legislation embodies. that principle. We have excellent educational systems in the various provinces ; not as well administered as they should be, but still doing a great deal for the common people. We have a splendid criminal code for the punishment of all crimes, except political crimes; we have good laws regulating commerce, and honourable judges to administer these laws. Nevertheless ninety per cent. of the discussions in parliament pertain to subjects other than these. It is the good of the party which is considered, not the good of the country. During its eighteen years in power, the Conservative Party filled all senatorial, civil service and judicial vacancies with men to whom the party was " under obligation," men of its own political stripe; and its whole aim during that period was to so arrange and compromise everything that it might retain power. The Liberal Party has had control just three years, but it has clearly shown that it is determined to give Conservatives a dose of their own medicine. Unnecessary bonuses, suspicious deals, surrenders to selfish capitalists, appointment of self-seeking politicians to important administrative positions, a ceaseless pandering to the desires of districts where the party wishes to strengthen its hold-these are the marks which show the Liberal party to be as careless of the general good as were its predecessors. Mark you, I do not mean that the Liberal Government has done no commendable actions. There are a few moves here and there which reflect credit upon them; but the balance is on the side of "power-seeking," not "general good." LACK OF ZENSHIP. But another peculiarity of the CanaIdian people is that while essentially moral, they are encouraging political immoralIDEAL CITI- ity. A citizen very seldom thinks of doing an evening's work on the voters' list, of assisting to organize the vote of his division, or of doing a day's scrutineering on behalf of a prospective alderman or a member of Parliament without pay from the candidate. The word citizen conveys no responsibilities to the mind of the ordinary voter. He sees no duty which he owes to the state. He owes his party a vote whenever called upon; and the party owes him a day's pay when he earns it, and a small job now and again if he has "influence," or makes an occasional contribution for the good of the cause. The average earnest and thoughtful citizen rests at home in the bosom of his family, while his unthinking, less moral brother does the political work necessary in Canada to the making and unmaking of governments. We are all Canadians, but we often pay more attention to down-trodden Cuba or benighted China than we do to the country which gives us a name and a home. Because our duty to the state rests lightly upon us, our larger municipalities are in the hands of men of broad easy morals; are politics are controlled by small-minded self-seeking men who do not hesitate to bribe constituencies or to barter franchises. In neither provincial nor federal politics, does the average voter rise above party considerations when, with uncovered head, he approaches the ballot-box. SENSE. FINER MORAL well-dressed lady and her daughter came aboard. The lady took out two yellow tickets and held them in her hand. The conductor passed her and repassed her. She didn't offer the tickets, and he didn't ask for them. As she got up to go out she smiled significantly at her daughter, replaced the two tickets in her purse, and gathering her magnificent skirt in one hand and her gold-handled umbrella in the other, rustled her silks through the aisle and down the steps. If, in a store, a woman gets five cents more change than she should, why, it is a small thing, and she smiles complacently. If the clerk cuts her off half a yard more than he should, why that is her luck. No large drygoods store in Canada can get along without private detectives—and the persons they watch are not the needy. She In her dealing with the prospective husbands of her daughters, a Canadian mother, especially a city mother, does not always insist on morality. desires wealth and social position. The young man's moral nature may be utterly depraved, and his offspring sure to be tainted with moral weaknessesbut the mother accepts him if he has an income. She seldom considers possibilities, but always present conditions. Truly our mothers are lovable and worthy of all honour and admirationbut they are fond of the rustle of silks. They spend two thousand a year with scarcely a thought of their sisters who have but two hundred. To make their husbands M.P.'s they would sacrifice much; to bear the title " Lady" they would almost sacrifice honour itself. PRINCES MISERS. Walking along street with a young clergyman the other day, I was startled by the remark: "Our ministers do not need to OF COMPRO- Compromise so much! They think they do, but they don't." That word compromise! Would that it were banished from the religious world, from our political life and from even our business life! There is too much compromise altogether. It has its basis in politeness, but the necessity does not justify one half of what exists. We compromise with evils and immoralities until they eat us up. And the princes of compromisers are the sleek, self-admiring, oratorical ministers of the gospel. These epithets exclude a number of my best friends, men who in a small but honest way are pursuing the prize of a high calling. The compromisers are the men who do not preach morals, but whose complex morality is printed on pages of eloquence and bound in pliable smiles, and whose sermons are literary essays fit to adorn the pages of some nobleman's latest magazine. less he can get it under cover of the law. For example, he may form a mining company and sell his "promoter's" stock at ten, fifteen or twenty cents on the dollar. That is called "able financing," and the more worthless the claim, the more able the financing and the more praise the man receives. The trusting but ill-informed public is never praised—not even pitied. Or he may desire to build a railway. The cost will be $8,000 per mile, and it may be bonded for, say, $4,000; leaving a net investment of $4,000 per mile of road. He goes to the Dominion Government and gets a grant through the influence of paid lobbyists. He then visits the Provincial Government with the seal of federal approval. He gets another grant. Then he repairs to the municipalities. Altogether he gets $12,000 a mile. As the net investment is $4,000, the profit is $8,000. On a hundred miles there will be enough to give him a fair claim on the title of "millionaire." It is by just such means as these that most of the rich men of Canada have been made. ent. There are those who have made their money by hard work and persistent saving, but they are not quite so numerous, and they are never so prominIt is a common Occurrence to hear men remark over their pipes and whiskey-men of the world who know -that to get rich to-day, a man must have neither heart nor conscience. I have heard half-a-dozen wealthy men give utterance to such sentiments. "Tis true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true." thing which would give one young man a broader view of citizenship is a reward sufficient for any would-be teacher. To make a dozen young men THINK would be glory and honour. For, after all, it is the young men in whom lies the hope of Canada's future greatness. There is always hope because there are always young men. Many of these will follow precedent, but a few will not. If the few are too few, our politics and our social life will become no better; but they will not degenerate greatly. The young man who studies nothing but John Bunyan and the Bible may go to Heaven, but he certainly will not make the world much better for his having sojourned here. This is a day when citizens are required-citizens with a broad, understanding knowledge of what Canada was, is, and might be; citizens who will inquire as to what Canada requires of her sons; citizens who will study the history, the institutions, the literature, the political conditions of their native land. The man who exclusively pursues his own ends, his own purposes, and the almighty dollar is not a citizen. A citizen is a man of a higher, a nobler, a more unselfish type. To the citizen our poet Kernigan cries : "Shall the mothers that love us, bow the head, And blush for degenerate sons? Are the patriot fires gone out and dead? Tho' faint souls fear the keen, confronting sun, And fain would bid the morn of splendour wait; Tho' dreamers, rapt in starry visions, cry, 'Lo, yon thy future, yon thy faith, thy fame!' And stretch vain hands to stars; thy fame is nigh, Here in Canadian hearth and home, and name." We may have telephones and electric railways, Pacific cables, fast Atlantic steamboats, miles of canals, hundreds of cabinet ministers, scores of companions, knights and baronets; but if we have not a patriotic citizenship we shall not last. Commerce alone never made a nation great. It is becoming clearer that if Great Britain is to maintain her supremacy THE DIM FUTURE. among the nations she will have to be regenerated from the fresher blood of the colonies. If this is the destiny of Canada's greater sons, we should be prepared for it. If we are to become a part of the greater Anglo-Saxon unity, the northmen will be needed to reorganize and purify the body politic of the south. If this is the destiny of Canada's greater sons, we should be prepared for it. If we are to build up on the northern half of this continent a new Britain, with the maple leaf flag proudly floating above it, we must breed and bring forth citizens whose excellence cannot be measured in dollars. If this is the destiny of Canada's sons, let them anoint themselves with wisdom. Norman Patterson. 000 |