From Ottawa we went by rail to Prescott, which is surely one of the most wretched little places to be found in any country.  Immediately opposite to it, on the other side of the St. Lawrence, is the thriving town of Ogdensburg.  But Ogdensburg is in the United States.  Had we been able to learn at Ottawa any facts as to the hours of the river steamers and railways, we might have saved time and have avoided Prescott; but this was out of the question.  Had I asked the exact hour at which I might reach Calcutta by the quickest route, an accurate reply would not have been more out of the question.  I was much struck, at Prescott—­and, indeed, all through Canada, though more in the upper than in the lower province—­by the sturdy roughness, some would call it insolence, of those of the lower classes of the people with whom I was brought into contact.  If the words “lower classes” give offense to any reader, I beg to apologize—­to apologize, and to assert that I am one of the last of men to apply such a term in a sense of reproach to those who earn their bread by the labor of their hands.  But it is hard to find terms which will be understood; and that term, whether it give offense or no, will be understood.  Of course such a complaint as that I now make is very common as made against the States.  Men in the States, with horned hands and fustian coats, are very often most unnecessarily insolent in asserting their independence.  What I now mean to say is that precisely the same fault is to be found in Canada.  I know well what the men mean when they offend in this manner.  And when I think on the subject with deliberation at my own desk, I can not only excuse, but almost approve them.  But when one personally encounters this corduroy braggadocio; when the man to whose services one is entitled answers one with determined insolence; when one is bidden to follow “that young lady,” meaning the chambermaid, or desired, with a toss of the head, to wait for the “gentleman who is coming,” meaning the boots, the heart is sickened, and the English traveler pines for the civility—­for the servility, if my American friends choose to call it so—­of a well-ordered servant.  But the whole scene is easily construed, and turned into English.  A man is asked by a stranger some question about his employment, and he replies in a tone which seems to imply anger, insolence, and a dishonest intention to evade the service for which he is paid.  Or, if there be no question of service or payment, the man’s manner will be the same, and the stranger feels that he is slapped in the face and insulted.  The translation of it is this:  The man questioned, who is aware that as regards coat, hat, boots, and outward cleanliness he is below him by whom he is questioned, unconsciously feels himself called upon to assert his political equality.  It is his shibboleth that he is politically equal to the best, that he is independent, and that his labor, though it earn him but a dollar a day by porterage, places