he was dismissed as deputy postmaster general "by a freak of ministers," in 1774. But in the next year, July 26, 1775, he was elected postmaster general of the United Colonies by the unanimous voice of the continental congress.

An advance of fifteen years brings us to 1790, the official documents of which exhibit through some meagre details the extent of post office operations of the first year of the present government of the United States. The whole mail service was comprised in twelve contracts, and consisted of a line of posts from Wiscasset to Savannah, with branches to Providence and Newport, to Norwich and New London, to Middletown, to Pittsburgh, to Dover and Easton, to Aunapolis, and to Norfolk and Richmond-upon no portion of which was the mail sent oftener than tri-weekly, and on much of it but once in two weeks. Between Philadelphia and Pittsburg a "complete tour" was performed once in twenty days. The annual cost of the whole service was twenty-two thousand, seven hundred and two dollars seven cents. The number of post offices was seventy-five, and the length of post routes was eighteen hundred and seventy-five miles.

If with this service of the first year we compare that of the fifty-eighth year of the government, we shall find the growth of this institution in the United States in the number of its offices, the length of its routes, and the frequency of its mails, unequalled in rapidity and extent by any other nation since the beginning of time.

We have sixteen thousand, one hundred and fifty-nine post offices, whilst those of France in 1847 were three thousand, five hundred and eighty-two, and of Great Britain, including three thousand receiving houses, four thousand, seven hundred and eighty-five. We have one hundred and sixty-three thousand, two hundred and eight miles of rail roads, and forty-one million, twelve thousand, five hundred and seventy-nine miles of annual transportation of the mail inland. What extent of the transportation is in France and Great Britain, there are no statistics at hand to show-much less than ours, undoubtedly.

But the circulation in the French mails was about one hundred and fifteen millions of letters in 1847, and in the British about three hundred millions, while ours was less than sixty millions; whereas our population is about forty-three per cent. less than that of France and twenty-six less than that of Great Britain. This shows that we make a greater provision of mails per capita, but that they are less used by the public in proportion to population than in England or France. The greater equality of our service in favour of the dispersed and remote population, and the greater absorption in the French and English mails of the city and town letters going from street to street with little comparative loss of accommodation, on our part are more than sufficient to account for the small difference in favour of France, whose Paris letters alone number millions annually. Not so with Great Britain.

For the differences in her favour we must look to other causes—and we find them in the higher rates of our postage and the defective machinery of our system; both of which interpose checks to a universal resort to the mails. A change in the mode of business at the offices, that will give more regularity to the mails, more certainty to the accounts, and more exactness to all the details of the service, and the liberalizing of the system by reducing the charge of transport, will produce inevitably a larger use of the post office by the people, and result in a vast improvement to all the business and social interests of the country.

PROGRESS OF CANADA.

(From the first report of the Board of Registration and Statistics.)

LANDS.

The total number of surveyed acres in Lower Canada, according to Bouchette's last survey, was 18,871,040; but the return of lands disposed of is made with reference to a previous survey of 17,685,942, and is dated in 1845. Of this quantity of land 2,377,733 acres have been set apart for clergy reserves. The Jesuits' estates now employed in promoting education in the united province, and other lands disposed of for charitable purposes, amount to 3,424,213 acres; and the grants en seigneurie, and free and common soccage to 11,343,629 acres. The surveyed lands, therefore, four years ago, stood thus:

From Canada West, the return is as follows for 1848:

17,685,942

3,424,213

11,343,629

-14,767,842

- 3,928,100

Acres. 15,902,006

2,142,145

12,242,145

-14,384,983

1,597,123

If we take the entire province, therefore, and add the difference between the survey of 1845, and the later one of Bouchette, amounting to 1,185,098 acres, we have 6,710,322 acres for the quantity of unsurveyed land still in the hands of the government, less the sales in Canada East since 1845, which probably amount to 500,000 acres =6,210,322 acres. During the present session, the provincial parliament has set apart a specific quantity. of 100,000 acres for the endowment of common schools, with the farther provision that the money received for all future sales of crown lands shall be applied to the same purpose, until a school fund of £1,000,000 shall have been formed.

Between the years 1836 and 1847, both inclusive, 933,229 acres of land were disposed of by the crown, in Canada East, by sale or gift, and 2,145,502 acres in Canada West. These figures, however, furnish little indication of the actual amount of settlement in either section, as they include large grants or sales to individuals far beyond the capacity of the grantees to occupy or cultivate, and, on the other hand, do not include the sales of wild land made by individuals to settlers. The average price of public lands in Canada West, is given for several years, down to 1840, in which year the prices are reported at 11s. 2d. per acre for crown lands; 12s. 8d. for clergy reserves, and 12s. 6d. for school lands-the two latter classes being often found in detached lots in settled parts of the country. The price has not varied very considerably since that period. There are still vast wildernesses unsurveyed.

POPULATION.

The population of Canada East is estimated according to the mean of three calculations by Colonel Tache, Mr. Couchon, and Mr. Crofton, founded on previous census. The result shows a population of 768,334 in Canada East, in 1848. The census of Canada West, for the same year, gives 723,292 souls ;

so that the population of the province is about 1,491,626 souls. The ratio of increase has been very different at different periods, owing to the fluctuations of the volume of the stream of emigration. The following figures will give some idea of the progress of population respectively, in the two sections:

At this rate the population of Eastern Canada will require about thirty years to double itself.

So that in Western Canada the population doubled itself in about eleven years.

The report gives the following comparative statement of the progress of population for ten years, in the two sections of the province, in Great Britain, and in the United States. Increase-in Great Britain from 1831 to 1841, 1.11 per cent.; in United States from 1830 to 1840, 3.26 per cent.; in Canada East from 1834 to 1844, 3.18 per cent.; in Canada West from 1832 to 1842, 8.61 per cent. But this comparison is liable to the same observation, which we have previously made.

The per centage of persons, who are deaf and dumb, blind, and idiotic or lunatic, is we believe higher in Canada than in any part of the world-a fact, for which we have never heard any plausible reason assigned. From the report we glean the following figures: Of deaf and dumb in Canada East, 1 in every 1011-in Canada West, 1 in every 1699, of blind in Canada East, 1 in 1328-Canada West, 1 in 1621, and of lunatics and idiots there are in Canada East, 1 in every 1515-Canada West, 1 in every 968.

The proportion of all classes afflicted by any of these calamities, throughout Canada is 1 in every 370-in the United States 1 in every 533.

The number of paupers in Canada East, is set down at 1 in every 399 of the population. In Canada West the paupers are but 1 in every 1469. It must be observed, however, that these consist principally of the aged and infirm; and except the monastic establishments of Canada East, there is no provision for the poor in Canada. As an encouragement to spinsters who may incline to try their fortune in Canada, we may mention that the proportion of the sexes throughout the country is about 88 females to 100 males, so that bating fresh importations, twelve gentlemen out of every hundred, must be constrained to the desolate state of bachelorship. The statistics of schools and school attendance for Canada East-unfortunately there are none for Canada West-are perhaps the most pleasing part of the report. The common schools, which in 1842 numbered only 927, had increased in 1848, to 2,464; and the attendance of children under fourteen years of age; from 13 per cent. of the entire number in 1842 to 24.27 per cent. in 1848. Or taking the children between the ages of five and fifteen, the proportion of those who attended school increased from 22 per cent. in 1842, to over 42 per cent. in 1848. If this exhibits a favourable degree of advance in intellectual culture, we have other items, which afford encouraging proof of increasing material prosperity. Thus the male farm servants who, in 1841, were but 3184, had increased in 1848 to 7514-far more than double. This, says the compiler of the report, affords direct evidence of the increasing prosperity of the agricultural body of

Western Canada. It moreover furnishes an excellent demonstration of the inexhaustible field for successful emigration, which farm labourers may find in this country. It may safely be affirmed that every steady man of the large number, who have thus been added to the population of the farm servants, has a fair prospect of employing labourers on his own farm in the course of a moderate number of years. The increased number of females employed as domestic servants may also be looked on as a further indication of the same character. In 1842, the number of persons thus employed was one seventh of all the unmarried females between the ages of fourteen and forty-five. In 1848 this proportion had increased to one sixth.

This enormous deficiency of nearly a sixth of the whole population is partly accounted for in the remarks accompanying the census-25,000 not being returned at all in the religious head, and 30,000 being classed under the head of "no creed or denomination." In 1842, the deficiency amounted to 80,000.

AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER PROPERTY.

The information on this subject is principally to be found in the enumeration prepared for the purpose of local taxation in Canada West. We find in these returns an account of the cultivated lands, grist mills, live stock, carriages, and other kinds of property assessed to the district councils. The steady increase for 23 years without any considerable falling off is highly instructive. We give the value of assessed property for every year from 1825 to 1848, both inclusive: £2,256,874; £2,409,064; £2,442,847; £2,579,083; £2,735,783; £2,929,269; £3,143,484; £3,415,822; £3,796,040; £3,918,712; £3,880,994; £4,605, 103; £4,431,098; £4,282,544; £5,345,372; £5,607,426; £6,269,398; £6,913,341; £7,155,324; £7,556,514; £7,778,917; £8,236,677; £8,567,001.

In the same time the number of grist mills had increased from 232 to 527, and of saw mills from 394 to 1,489; the number of acres under cultivation from 535,212, to 2,673,820; of houses from 8,876 to 42,957; and of horses, oxen, milch cows and young cattle together, from 121,206 to 481,417.

According to the enumeration already given from the assessment rolls of the district councils, the Western Canadians possess one head of cattle and horses together, to every one and four-tenths of the population; but this census taken for the purpose of taxation excludes all animals which are not taxed. The census returns of the commissioners, which include the exempted classes,

makes the number of neat cattle and horses 717,234 instead of 481,417. As no one has any interest in exaggerating the return to the commissioners, while there is a manifest profit in diminishing the number of animals assessed for taxation, it is probable that the larger return-besides the exempted classes -may include many animals not enumerated by the district councils, and

that it is the most correct.

The pleasure carriages in Upper Canada-in which none are included that are ever used for agricultural purposes-were 587 in 1825, and 4,685 in 1847. The population had increased three-fold: the pleasure carriages eight-fold— a proof of augmented wealth and comfort.

An account of the crop in Canada West for 1847:

The value of this crop is estimated at £2,676,285 currency.

We have taken these calculations from Upper Canada because the census of the eastern part of the province is not very reliable, and is doubtless considerably under the truth. We find, however, the whole produce of Canada East in bushels, for the year 1844, set down in the census of that period as 21,325,596-30 bushels per unit of population. This is about one-fourth less per head than the produce of Canada West for 1842. This, we believe, is a much smaller difference between the produce of the two sections of the province than is generally supposed to exist. If it be remembered that the eastern part of Canada comprises a large population who inhabit the bleak shores of the St. Lawrence below Quebec, the far greater portion of the lum bering population, and the two largest cities, it will be evident that when opinions are compared with figures, the inferiority of the really good portions of Lower Canada is by no means borne out. But to arrive at a just appreciation of the truth, we must also remember the calamitous visitation of the wheat fly, which for several years before and after the date of our statement (1844) so cruelly disappointed the hopes of the Lower Canadian farmer. Here are the statistics of this article of produce, for three different periods. For 1831, by Bouchette's estimate, 3,404,756 bushels of wheat; for 1831, by census, 3,404,756 bushels; for 1844, by census, 942,835. The introduction of new seed, especially of Black Sea wheat, however, has, it is hoped, remedied this evil: it is at any rate well known that the wheat crops in Canada East, for the last three years, have been very much larger, than for several years before.

The manufacture of maple sugar in 1848, in Canada West, according to the census of that year, was 3,764,243 lbs., to which Mr. Crofton thinks 10 per cent. should be added for omissions. This brings the crop up to 4,160,667 lbs., or nearly 6 lbs. to each individual-and we have specimens on our desk, which no one could distinguish from the best "lump." Of wool there were 2,339,756 lbs. produced in 1848, which is an increase of more than fifty per cent. in six years. Of tobacco, 1,865 lbs.; of flax 41,599 lbs.; of beef and pork 99,251 barrels.

MANUFACTURES.

We come now to manufactures: premising that when we speak of united Canada we take the imperfect census of Eastern Canada as representing the statistics of that part of the province. In the united province, then, there are