CONTENTS. PAGE THE HEIR OF NESTLEBY. A MYSTERIOUS TALE OF NEW YEAR'S EVE EVENING IN THE TOWER OF LONDON. BY NICHOLAS MICHELL ABOUT MATTER-OF-FACT PEOPLE. READINGS OF CHARACTER. BY FRANCIS THE KNIGHT of SchönfeldT. A TALE OF THE TIMES OF LUTHER FOXHOLME HALL; OR, HOLIDAYS at an OLD COUNTRY HOUSE THE WEAVER of Bethnal-GREEN. BY NICHOLAS MICHELL THE VOICES Of the Dead, AND SONGS OF OTHER YEARS. A CUE FROM THE Confederation of British North America has been of late a favou rite project with many, and may, indeed, be said to have received alike imperial and parliamentary support, as well as that of the local government of Canada. The colonisation of Vancouver-the gold-fields of British Columbia-the discovery that the long valleys of the two Saskatchewans, or Arrow rivers, presented the only fertile belt across the American prairies-the long and persistently neglected Rupert's Land, or Red River Settlement-the exposed frontiers of Canada-the progress of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and of the seaboard generally-the union with Great Britain by line of telegraph-and, above all, the increased sense, with the diffusion of information, of, to say the least, the impropriety of large tracts of country remaining mere hunting-grounds to a fur company, and that when the much more extensive possessions of the East India Company had reverted to the Queen, all pointed to the advantages of a common confederacy, and to the future existence of road, railway, or steam communication by what has been established as the most easy, the most fertile, and the most promising line in all North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We have before discussed the question in this sense, but it appears that the most serious obstacles have arisen to thwart so great a scheme in the provinces themselves, some of which are well deserving of the most serious consideration in connexion with the welfare of our colonies generally, as also with the future of the mother country; others are of a character the fallacy of which admits of a satisfactory demonstration. We take the construction of an intercolonial railway between Halifax and Quebec as the first step towards cementing Canada and the seaboard, as also the only means of rescuing that most important colony from the state of isolation in which it is placed by snow and ice during nearly onehalf of the year from the maritime provinces and the mother country. Commissioners from British North America came to England to solicit from the imperial government a guarantee for a loan, to be expended on the construction of such a railway, and it is alleged that this has been conceded by the Colonial Office on the security of the revenues of the confederated British colonies in North America. Of the sum thus to be raised, 3,000,000l. are, it is said, to be applied to the construction of the new railway, and the remaining 1,000,000l. are to be devoted to Jan.-VOL. CXXXIX. NO. DLIII. B guarantee the purchase, by the confederate government, of the territorial rights of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is difficult to conceive an arrangement that can be more promising to the future prospects and welfare of British North America; yet it has met with the same opposition that every other step projected for the benefit of any class of the community or for the welfare of the world at large-from the introduction of machinery to steam communication, and even the electric telegraph-have met with at the hands of some interested or retrogressive individuals. "It is proposed," say these impracticable personages, "to construct a railway, three hundred and sixty miles in length, across a barren, inhospitable, and pathless wilderness from the St. Lawrence River to Truro, in Nova Scotia, a town which is sixty miles distant from Halifax, and with which it is already connected by railroad." A further argument, it would be thought, for prolonging the sixty miles accomplished to Quebec, across what is most unfairly described as a barren, inhospitable, and pathless wilderness. Even were it so, the sooner it is rescued from such a condition by facilities of transport the better for the respective colonies, whether confederated or not. "The promoters of this scheme," we are further informed, "pretend that such a railroad will successfully compete with the lines already in existence which connect Portland, in Maine, with Montreal and Quebec;" that is to say, with American lines. "If any man will place a map before him, he will see at a glance the fallacy of this argument. The distance from Montreal or Quebec is less than three hundred miles. The distance from Quebec to Halifax is five hundred and forty miles, and from Montreal to Halifax it is, of course, much more.' This calculation omits the important fact that goods and passengers would go to Halifax as the port to Europe, and that as Halifax is more than three hundred miles nearer to Europe than Portland, goods and passengers going to the latter port are virtually conveyed that distance out of their way. Take these three hundred miles, then, from the Halifax railway, as compared with the Portland railway, and the former represents the figure of two hundred and forty miles against the three hundred miles of the Portland railway, or with the distance from Portland to Halifax against a total of upwards of six hundred miles. "Owing to the limited traffic between the two great Canadian cities and Portland," we are further told, "two days are assigned for the performance of a journey of less than three hundred miles during nine months in the year." The limited character of the traffic is not to be wondered at when we consider that Portland is nearly six hundred miles removed from the mouth of the river of St. Lawrence-that is taking half way between Newfoundland and Breton Island, and which is the summer line of traffic. "For the remaining three months, express trains, adapted to what is called the pleasure travel of the summer season, are specially put on. But if the trains from Portland to Quebec habitually take two days in performing the journey, what ground have we for believing the statement advanced by the advocates of the new railway, that the journey from Quebec to Halifax would be performed in eighteen hours? The impediments offered by snow will be much greater in Nova Scotia than along the more internal route. Analogy justifies the expectation, which is confirmed by experience of the frequent delays upon the |