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 sister in one of these, that the view from the windows was very beautiful, she replied, with a suppressed sigh, that she had never seen it. There are some very fine public buildings and banks; but as I am not writing a guide-book, I will not dilate upon their merits.

We walked round Le Champ de Mars, formerly the great resort of the Montreal young ladies, and along the Rue Notre Dame, to the market-place, which is said to be the second finest in the world, and, with its handsome façade and bright tin dome, forms one of the most prominent objects from the water. As those disgusting disfigurements of our English streets, butchers' shops, are not to be seen in the Canadian towns, nor, I believe I may say, in those in the States, there is an enormous display of meat in the Montreal market, of an appearance by no means tempting. The scene outside was extremely picturesque; there were hundreds of carts with shaggy, patient little horses in rows, with very miscellaneous tents—cabbages and butter jostling pork and hides. You may see here hundreds of habitans, who look as if they ought to have lived a century ago—shaggy men in fur caps and loose blue frieze coats with hoods, and with bright sashes of coloured wool round their waists; women also, with hard features and bronzed complexions, in large straw hats, high white caps, and noisy sabots. On all sides a jargon of Irish, English, and French is to be heard, the latter generally the broadest patois.

We went into the Council Chamber, the richly cushioned seats of which looked more fitted for sleep than deliberation; and I caught a glimpse of the ex-mayor, whose timidity during a time of popular ferment occasioned a