"Montreal, and Quebec also, abound in fine Catholic churches, and the
streets swarm with comfortable-looking priests, dressed in black
cassocks and bands, and wearing big-buckled shoes and broad-brimmed
hats.
"The difference in language, customs, and religion, divides the
population into two distinct sections, and is a bar to united effort
and to the improvement of the country; which nevertheless does improve
in spite of this difficulty, though not as rapidly as it might and
ought. I did not fully appreciate this until I visited the Superior Law
Court, then sitting in Montreal. This court is held, during the
erection of the new court-house, in the old, low-walled, high-roofed,
building in which the French Government conducted their public affairs
a hundred and fifty years ago. In this building, in 1839, the Privy
Council decided to place the country under martial law, and the
proclamation was issued from it.
"The judges sitting when I visited the court were Smith, Van Feloon,
and Mondelet, the latter a French Canadian. The first case argued was a
long-pending one between Sir John Stewart and an architect, who had
superintended the erection of some buildings on one of Sir John's
farms. The counsel were not over clever, but sufficiently verbose, and
full enough of 'instances,' both ancient and modern.
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