Christians generally endeavour to recommend their religion to pagans in search of a creed. Out of a population of 146,000, there are about 80,000 Protestants to 60,000 Catholics, the remainder being Wesleyans and Presbyterians. Owing to some peculiar dispensation of Providence, no Baptists seem to have found their way here. I know of no other Christian community of 150,000 souls which does not contain a Baptist congregation.

The original settlers having been, in a large proportion, Irish who left at the time of the Commonwealth, have stamped the island with their own especial mark. Unlike their countrymen in the United States, who, in the course of two or three generations, lose their accent, religion, improvidence, and all other national traits, and get assimilated by the predominant population into Americans, the Irish here, having been long almost a majority of the entire population, perpetuate all their peculiar characteristics, and even to some extent impregnate the rest of the population with them. Thus the Newfoundland accent is a distinctly Irish one, though those who betray it may have no Irish blood in their veins, and never have been in Ireland in their lives. All along the coast the little huts erected near the fishing stages for the fishermen to live in, in summer time, have a strong family resemblance to those of the poorer peasantry in the "ould country;" and there is a sort of general air of slovenliness which the Celtic race seems to have a specialty for imparting to any community in which they preponderate. Nor have the Irish population, though settled here for so many years, lost those patriotic traditions which render them so interesting from a political point of view, and which have found their latest development in Fenianism. There is a curious blending of loyalty

with rebellion amongst them,-of subservience to the representative of the Crown, with a readiness, if occasion arose, to join any plot which they could invest with a distinctive national character. But the gradual tendency to attenuate the tie which binds the colonies to the mother country, is reducing the possibility of giving expression to this sentiment; and the habit of responsible government, which is in fact the Home Rule for which they clamour in Ireland, satisfies the aspirations of Newfoundland.

Here, as elsewhere, it is the peculiarity of Catholicism, that while its adherents seem poverty-stricken, the Church is rolling in wealth. The Roman Catholic cathedral is far the most imposing and costly structure in St. John's, and is the first object that strikes the eye on entering the harbour. Besides the cathedral and college, there are upwards of fifty churches and chapels, and no fewer than twelve convents, in the town; and one of my fellow-passengers was a pretty young Irish girl coming out here to enter a nunnery, though I failed to discover why she should prefer to become a nun in St John's, Newfoundland, to taking the veil in some more genial part of the world. The Protestants seem not to have been able to resist so strong a Catholic influence, and I was surprised to find that Friday was regarded with almost as much observance by the Episcopalians as by the Catholics, while the one cathedral vied with the other in the frequency of its services, and the multiplicity of its fast and feast days. The Sundays, on the other hand, are kept with the strictness rather of a Presbyterian than a Catholic town, and altogether there seemed a decided tendency on the part of the Christians of all the denom

inations to run into an amount of religious formalism sufficiently

marked to strike even a stranger. It must not be supposed, however, that while Newfoundland has this peculiar Irish colouring, the whole community consists only of fishermen, and the class from which they are drawn. The society of St John's is not only thoroughly British, but is as refined and agreeable as that of any other colony. If it is not large, the special commercial resources of the island render it unusually healthy. The Bar is well represented; and perhaps the absence of any hotel worthy the name is to be attributed to the hospitality of the inhabitants, which, so far as the stranger is concerned, renders such establishments unnecessary. The example set by the present governor, Colonel Hill, in this respect, is worthily followed by the leading members of the community; and in winter, the skat ing, the curling-rinks, and the assemblies, at which dancing takes place once a-week, and other amusements, serve to make the season which one would suppose to be the most dreaded, perhaps the most agreeable time of the year. The withdrawal of the troops has been rather a severe blow to the gaiety of St John's, and the deserted barracks are a melancholy souvenir of this social element. The protection of the colony has now been intrusted to a force ludicrously inadequate to meet danger either from within or without. It speaks well for a community numbering nearly 150,000 souls, of whom so large a proportion are Irish Catholics, that they require only sixty policemen to keep them in order; but it is a question whether such a temptation to disturb the peace ought to be put before any population, however well disposed. Only twelve years ago a Catholic and Protestant riot occurred on the occasion of the elections: the troops of the garrison were called

out, and fired on the mob, killing three and wounding twenty, before order was restored. Were such an episode to occur again, and to spread to the other communities in the island, it would be manifestly absurd to expect these sixty policemen to maintain order; while, as the forts which rendered the harbour of St John's unassailable from without have been dismantled, and the guns, which certainly were of a somewhat antique construction, have been carefully sent back to England, at considerable expense to the British taxpayer, there is nothing to prevent the town from falling an easy prey to a foreign enemy, and there is money enough in its banks to make it worth having. It was rather humiliating on the Queen's birthday to be indebted for a salute to an American gunboat which happened to be in harbour, waiting to convey away the wrecked crew of the Polaris.

It may be remembered that in our wars with the French about the middle of last century, they made a sudden raid upon St John's, which they took and held until it was recaptured by a British force of 800 men, which landed under Colonel Amherst in a bay about seven miles distant, while the French fleet in the harbour escaped our cruisers at its mouth, under cover of a fog. The episode is interesting from the fact that Captain Cook took part in the exploit, not long before he started on his voyage round the world. Considering the present condition of France, we have not much reason to fear a repetition of this event, but we have never ceased having differences of opinion in regard to her rights on the shores of the island and its fisheries. It may not be generally known-in fact, one might ask the British public, in the words of the Attorney-General, whether it would not be surprised to

learn, "that about 12,000 British subjects are at this moment living on territory which, being neither British nor French, cannot be protected nor legislated for by either power. More than half the shores of the island, from Cape Ray, its southwest extremity, to Cape St John's on the north-eastern coast, are in this anomalous condition. In the numerous bays and coves by which the seaboard of the island is liberally indented, are haunts of British fishermen, in little groups varying from single families to collections of thirty and forty and even as many as three hundred in one spot. These people marry and are given in marriage, propagate and die, quarrel and make it up again, thieve and make restitution, burn or wreck, or thrive by honest industry, according to the dictates of their own free fancy, and unmolested by any one. They are under the jurisdiction of no magistrate, amenable to no laws, and dependent for their spiritual and secular instruction on the chances which may send them itinerant clergy or schoolmasters. The French deny on principle that these squatters have any right to be there at all, but they permit it on sufferance, because their fishermen derive more benefit than injury from the protection which these inhabited spots afford a coast upon which they maintain that they have the exclusive right of fishing, though they are expressly prohibited from settling in fixed establishments. It is from our fishermen that the cod-fishers of the little French islands of St Pierre and Miquelon purchase all the herring for bait, which are caught in the winter through holes in the ice. If this supply were stopped, as the French have no herring in their own waters, their fishery would be paralysed, and it is therefore for their interest to keep on good terms with our fishermen. There is a

more potent reason, however, even than that, for keeping up amicable relations. By the terms of the treaty of 1713 and subsequent treaties, French fishermen have the right of erecting stages for drying fish, and rooms for salting them, &c.; but these they are compelled to abandon during the winter, while our fishermen, who have squatted upon what is called the French shore, remain. So long as a good understanding subsists between them, arrangements are naturally made between those who leave and those who stay, to insure the safety of the property left; but in case of a conflict arising, it is probable that the English fishermen would take advantage of the absence of the French owners during the winter when no man-of-war could approach to wreak their vengeance by destroying their enemies' property. The danger of this does not arise from the fishermen of the two countries, so much as from the constant tendency of the French naval officers on the coast to push matters to extremity in support of their claim that they have by treaty an exclusive right to the fishery, while we maintain that they have only a concurrent right with our fishermen, who, however, are bound "not to interrupt by competition" the operations of the French fishermen. The point has arisen last summer, and if not speedily settled may lead to serious consequences. A young French officer has made a raid upon English nets, taking up some in creeks where English fishermen had exercised the right for the last thirty years without any French fishermen attempting even to share it. It seemed hard to these men that their nets should be confiscated because the French claimed the right, which they had never exercised, of fishing on that particular ground. Hitherto, in such cases, the matter in dispute

was amicably settled between the English and French officers commanding the men-of-war who are here during the fishing season for

the purpose. Unfortunately, new instructions seem to have been issued on the subject by the Republic, and if they are persisted in, serious collisions are certain to occur between the English and French fishermen on these shores. If this leads to a settlement of the utterly anomalous condition of affairs there now, and to some definition of the rights of the British subjects who occupy them, it will not be a thing to be regretted. In the mean time, an unaccountable indifference reigns in the Colonial Office on the subject. No Englishman knows where he may and where he may not settle, without the liability of being turned out by the French. There is no limit defined in the salmon rivers beyond which the French may or may not penetrate into the interior of the island; nor anything to prevent them from barring the mouth of these rivers so as to impede the salmon from running up. The Surveyor-General's Office in St John's is afraid to allot land to settlers, because no one knows where the French limits are, or what their rights are. At this moment some of the finest tracts of forest in the country are being despoiled of timber by a company who have erected their saw - mills, and are felling the trees on land to which they have no shadow of right, and for which they have never paid a cent-because the Government is unable to give them a title. Considering the general lawlessness which prevails, it is a wonder that the people behave as well as they do. In St George's Bay, for instance, there is a resident community of upwards of 2500 people, who are subject to no jurisdiction of any kind, and are amen

able to no laws, excepting what the commanders of the men-of-war who visit them occasionally may think fit to enforce. As a matter of course, these districts are not represented in the colonial legislature, they cannot yet be formed into electoral divisions, no Custom Houses can be established, wharves ordocks constructed, or fine harbours made available as ports, or mines or quarries worked, though it is well known that the whole of the French shore has given undoubted evidence of being highly metalliferous, while coal, gypsum, and marble of the finest quality, cannot be mined or quarried, though they are situated close to the water's edge, for fear of interfering with the possibility of some Frenchman, who is not allowed to live there, wanting to dry his fish on that part of the rock in the summer, where the ore is most conveniently situated. As for a railway terminating on the French shore, that of course is out of the question. The posi tion of affairs, as it at present stands, presents a most ingenious contrivance for paralysing all colonial and private enterprise, and the sooner it is forced upon the attention of the public by the international difficulties which must arise out of it, the better.

So long as Newfoundland was a sort of terra incognita, with quick steam communication to England only twice a-year, and almost inaccessible, especially during during the winter months, from the other colonies, such a state of matters might exist without being forced upon public attention; and indeed the population on the French shore was too sparse to invest the question with its present importance. But everything is tending to change the position which this spot occupies in regard to the rest of the world. The island, tired of its seclusion, has recently voted £27,000 a-year