University of Virginia Library

4. IV.
IN CANADA.

I'm at present existin' under a monikal form of
Gov'ment. In other words I'm travelin' among the
crowned heds of Canady. They ai'n't pretty bad
people. On the cont'ry, they air exceedin' good
people.

Troo, they air deprived of many blessins. They
don't enjoy, for instans, the priceless boon of a war.
They haven't any American Egil to onchain, and
they hain't got a Fourth of July to their backs.

Altho' this is a monikal form of Gov'ment, I am
onable to perceeve much moniky. I tried to git a
piece in Toronto, but failed to succeed.

Mrs. Victoria, who is Queen of England, and has
all the luxuries of the markets, incloodin' game in
its season, don't bother herself much about Canady,
but lets her do 'bout as she's mighter. She, however,
gin'rally keeps her supplied with a lord, who's called
a Gov'ner Gin'ral. Sometimes the politicians of

Canady make it lively for this lord—for Canady has
politicians, and I expect they don't differ from our
politicians, some of em bein' gifted and talented
liars, no doubt.

The present Gov'ner Gin'ral of Canady is Lord
Monk. I saw him review some volunteers at Montreal.
He was accompanied by some other lords
and dukes and generals and those sort of things.
He rode a little bay horse, and his close wasn't any
better than mine. You'll always notiss, by the way,
that the higher up in the world a man is, the less
good harness he puts on. Hence Gin'ral Halleck
walks the streets in plain citizen's dress, while the
second lieutenant of a volunteer regiment piles all
the brass things he can find onto his back, and drags
a forty-pound sword after him.

Monk has been in the lord bisniss some time, and
I understand it pays, tho' I don't know what a lord's
wages is. The wages of sin is death and postage-stamps.
But this has nothing to do with Monk.

One of Lord Monk's daughters rode with him on
the field. She has golden hair, a kind good face
and wore a red hat. I should be very happy to have

her pay me and my family a visit at Baldinsville.
Come and bring your knittin', Miss Monk. Mrs.
Ward will do the fair thing by you. She makes
the best slap-jacks in America. As a slap-jackist,
she has no ekal. She wears the Belt.

What the review was all about, I don't know. I
haven't a gigantic intelleck, which can grasp great
questions at onct. I am not a Webster or a Seymour.
I am not a Washington or a Old Abe. Fur from it.
I am not as gifted a man as Henry Ward Beecher.
Even the congregation of Plymouth Meetin'-House
in Brooklyn will admit that. Yes, I should think
so. But while I don't have the slitest idee as to
what the review was fur, I will state that the sojers
looked pooty scrumptious in their red and green
close.

Come with me, jentle reader, to Quebeck. Quebeck
was surveyed and laid out by a gentleman
who had been afflicted with the delirium tremens
from childhood, and hence his idees of things was a
little irreg'ler. The streets don't lead anywheres
in partic'ler, but everywheres in gin'ral. The city
is bilt on a variety of perpendicler hills, each hill

bein' a trifle wuss nor t'other one. Quebeck is full
of stone walls, and arches, and citadels and things.
It is said no foe could ever git into Quebeck, and I
guess they couldn't. And I don't see what they'd
want to get in there for.

Quebeck has seen lively times in a warlike way.
The French and Britishers had a set-to there in 1759.
Jim Wolfe commanded the latters, and Jo. Montcalm
the formers. Both were hunky boys, and fit
nobly. But Wolfe was too many measles for Montcalm,
and the French was slew'd. Wolfe and
Montcalm was both killed. In arter years a common
monyment was erected by the gen'rous people
of Quebeck, aided by a bully Earl named George
Dalhouse, to these noble fellows. That was well
done.

Durin' the Revolutionary War B. Arnold made
his way, through dense woods and thick snows, from
Maine to Quebeck, which it was one of the hunkiest
things ever done in the military line. It would
have been better if B. Arnold's funeral had come
off immeditly on his arrival there.

One the Plains of Abraham there was onct some

tall fitin', and ever since then there has been a great
demand for the bones of the slew'd on that there
occasion. But the real ginooine bones was long ago
carried off, and now the boys make a hansum thing
by cartin' the bones of hosses and sheep out there,
and sellin' em to intelligent American towerists.
Takin' a perfessional view of this dodge, I must say
that it betrays genius of a lorfty character.

It reminded me of a inspired feet of my own. I
used to exhibit a wax figger of Henry Wilkins,
the Boy Murderer. Henry had, in a moment of
inadvertence, killed his Uncle Ephram and walked
off with the old man's money. Well, this stattoo
was lost somehow, and not sposin' it would make
any particler difference I substitooted the full-grown
stattoo of one of my distinguished piruts for the Boy
Murderer. One night I exhibited to a poor but
honest audience in the town of Stoneham, Maine.
“This, ladies and gentlemen,” said I, pointing my
umbrella (that weapon which is indispensable to
every troo American) to the stattoo, “this is a life-like
wax figger of the notorious Henry Wilkins,
who in the dead of night murdered his Uncle Ephram

in cold blood. A sad warning to all uncles havin'
murderers for nephews. When a mere child this
Henry Wilkins was compelled to go to the Sunday-school.
He carried no Sunday-school book. The
teacher told him to go home and bring one. He
went and returned with a comic song-book. A
depraved proceedin'.”

“But,” says a man in the audience, “when you
was here before your wax figger represented Henry
Wilkins as a boy. Now, Henry was hung, and
yet you show him to us now as a full-grown man!
How's that?”

“The figger has growd, sir—it has growd,” I said.

I was angry. If it had been in these times I think
I should have informed agin him as a traitor to his
flag, and had him put in Fort Lafayette.

I say adoo to Quebeck with regret. It is old
fogyish, but chock full of interest. Young gentlemen
of a romantic turn of mind, who air botherin'
their heads as to how they can spend their father's
money, had better see Quebeck.

Altogether I like Canady. Good people and lots
of pretty girls. I wouldn't mind comin' over here

to live in the capacity of a Duke, provided a vacancy
occurs, and provided further I could be allowed a
few star-spangled banners, a eagle, a boon of liberty,
etc.

Don't think I've skedaddled. Not at all. I'm
coming home in a week.

Let's have the Union restored as it was, if we can;
but if we can't, I'm in favor of the Union as it
wasn't. But the Union, anyhow.

Gentlemen of the editorial corpse, if you would
be happy be virtoous! I, who am the emblem of
virtoo, tell you so.