And now, like all friendly critics, having bestowed my modicum of praise, I must proceed to find fault.  I cannot bring myself to administer my sugar-plum without adding to it some bitter morsel by way of antidote.  The building to the left of the quadrangle as it is entered is deficient in length, and on that account appears mean to the eye.  The two side buildings are brought up close to the street, so that each has a frontage immediately on the street.  Such being the case, they should be of equal length, or nearly so.  Had the center of one fronted the center of the other, a difference of length might have been allowed; but in this case the side front of the smaller one would not have reached the street.  As it is, the space between the main building and the smaller wing is disproportionably large, and the very distance at which it stands will, I fear, give to it that appearance of meanness of which I have spoken.  The clerk of the works, who explained to me with much courtesy the plan of the buildings, stated that the design of this wing was capable of elongation, and had been expressly prepared with that object.  If this be so, I trust that the defect will be remedied.

The great trade of Canada is lumbering; and lumbering consists in cutting down pine-trees up in the far distant forests, in hewing or sawing them into shape for market, and getting them down the rivers to Quebec, from whence they are exported to Europe, and chiefly to England.  Timber in Canada is called lumber; those engaged in the trade are called lumberers, and the business itself is called lumbering.  After a lapse of time it must no doubt become monotonous to those engaged in it, and the name is not engaging; but there is much about it that is very picturesque.  A saw-mill worked by water power is almost always a pretty object; and stacks of new-cut timber are pleasant to the smell, and group themselves not amiss on the water’s edge.  If I had the time, and were a year or two younger, I should love well to go up lumbering into the woods.  The men for this purpose are hired in the fall of the year, and are sent up hundreds of miles away to the pine forests in strong gangs.  Everything is there found for them.  They make log huts for their shelter, and food of the best and the strongest is taken up for their diet.  But no strong drink of any kind is allowed, nor is any within reach of the men.  There are no publics, no shebeen houses, no grog-shops.  Sobriety is an enforced virtue; and so much is this considered by the masters, and understood by the men, that very little contraband work is done in the way of taking up spirits to these settlements.  It may be said that the work up in the forests is done with the assistance of no stronger drink than tea; and it is very hard work.  There cannot be much work that is harder; and it is done amid the snows and forests of a Canadian winter.  A convict in Bermuda cannot get through his daily eight hours