consequence of the establishment of new
institutions at home or abroad.

There is one element in this proposal which
should always be kept in sight. The project
is pre-eminently an economical project, and there
would be no need to dip at all deeply into the
national pocket. The space required for the
exhibition of a collection of photographs would not
be large. No new buildings would be needed,
as there are plenty of existing institutions of
which such an establishment might form a part.
The chief outlay would be in the purchase of
portraits already in existence, and the taking of new
portraits. As to the staff of employed persons,
it should be of the smallest. One practical man,
thoroughly well acquainted with the
technicalities of the art, would be required to keep
the portraits, and to take new impressions, as
new impressions might be required. A
photographic establishment for the taking of portraits
would not be desirable. Men of genius, and
persons of rare gifts or accomplishments, are
ordinarily difficult customers to deal with, and
are especially hard to get hold of when they are
wanted to sit for their portraits. They must be
caught when they can be caught, and, if possible,
when they are in pliant humour. They would
never come in cold blood to a central establishment
to be "taken" for the collection, nor,
even if they were persuaded to do so, would
a favourable likeness be likely to be got of them
under such circumstances. Besides which, there
would be great danger of monotony in the treatment
of the subjects. The better plan would
be to seek far and wide for the most successful
photographs of such persons as should be
thought worthy of being represented in the
collection, and to buy up such portraits wherever
they might appear. As to voluntary contributions,
it would be necessary to exercise the
greatest circumspection in admitting any such.

One word more concerning the practical
advantages which might accrue to ourselves
from the adoption of such a scheme, and enough
will, for the present, have been said about
it. There are plenty of living people who, by
reason of their habitually leading a retired life,
or from other causes, have had no opportunities
of seeing some of the most distinguished men
of their own day, but as to whose outward
appearance they may yet feel a considerable amount
of laudable curiosity. If the scheme under
discussion were carried out, such people would
have abundant opportunities of gratifying their
curiosity, as, even if the main collection in the
metropolis were inaccessible to them, copies of
the portraits would be found in the public
institutions of provincial towns, and so brought
within easy reach of them. Men who had not
seen the originals of these portraits would
examine them with curiosity, and men who had
seen the originals would find pleasure in
comparing the portraits with the images preserved
in their own memories; while not a few would
feel a wholesome interest in showing the
portraits of the great men of their own day to
their children.

But even if this were not so—if this thing
brought no gratification to us individually
—would it not be worth doing for the good of
generations to come? That wretched saying,
"après nous le déluge," is a terribly popular
one. It is one of the sayings from which no
good has ever come. The old beehive motto,
"Sic vos non vobis," is equally hackneyed, but
very much less frequently acted upon. It is
peculiarly applicable in this case.

       WITH JEAN BAPTISTE.

NOT long ago, when sojourning in Montreal,
and admiring, as every stranger fresh from the
United States does, the beauty of its situation, the
massiveness of its grey stone buildings, and its
peculiarly French character, I expressed a wish
to know something more of the life and character
of the habitans, or descendants of the original
French settlers, of the days before Wolfe and
Montcalm, than could be obtained in the great
towns and cities. The person to whom I
addressed myself was a noted French Canadian, a
member of the legislature and the government;
and, though once in his hot youth, when William
the Fourth was king, a rebel against British
authority, one who, like many others of his countrymen,
had ripened and mellowed into a satisfied.,
loyal, and honoured servant of the crown.
"If you desire," he replied, "to see Jean
Baptiste at home" (Jean Baptiste means a French
Canadian, as John Bull means an Englishman),
"you should visit some of the long villages
in the neighbourhood of Quebec; or, better
still, you should take the steamer for 'Three
Rivers,' and thence proceed inland and explore
the villages that lie between the St.
Lawrence and the St. Maurice. The habitans are
not modern Frenchmen, but Frenchmen of the
ancien régime, such as the French of the old
country were in the days of Louis Quinze,
before the deluge of the great revolution had
swept away the old ideas, the old prejudices,
the old manners, and the old courtesies. There
is no people like us left in the world; so
simple-hearted, so little idolatrous of money, so
unenterprising, so contented with mere life for its
own sake, so honest, so devout, so obedient;
and, I may add, so lazy and stagnant.

Similar information was given me by a stately
French Canadienne, a lady of the very old
regime, with manners that would have graced
the court of the Grand Monarque. She had
great contempt for modern ideas, and expressed
her firm belief that gentlemen were fast becoming
extinct. As for the habitans, she declared,
they had become vulgarised and contaminated
by their association with newly arrived
immigrants; and, worst of all, with the
"Bostonais," as she called the United States-men, a
people without manners or education, and who,
when they looked at anybody, said with
their eyes, if not with their tongues, "Who
cares for you? Am I not as good as you, and
a great deal better?" "Forty years ago," she