"A singular custom, too, prevails. Parents, when old and tired of
labour, assign their property to their children, or to one of them, in
consideration of a string of conditions for their own maintenance and
comfort, each one of which is recited in the deed with minute
exactness. They stipulate usually for a house, so much meat, bread,
sugar, tea, &c.; a caleche and horse to take them to church on Sundays
and holidays; so much tobacco or snuff; so many gowns and bonnets, or
suits of clothes and hats; and so on. These gifts lead to frequent law-
suits; and one can quite understand how, in a country with large tracts
of its land held upon tenures of the most complex character, under a
system which has passed away even in the country from whence it came,
and where to this mass of difficulty is added the cause of dispute just
alluded to, the legal profession should flourish,--which I understand
it does.
"Many of the public buildings of Montreal are excellent. The Bon
Secours Market is a very fine building, and puts many of ours at home
to shame. The Jesuits' College is large and sombre; and some of the
convents and institutions are well worth a visit, both as buildings and
as institutions of the place.
"In the country little progress appears; but you see no misery, and
much comfort and joyfulness.
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