Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 5

THE EDITOR m CANADA.
While in the district of Glengarry I paid a "visit to Cormvall, fourteen
miles distant, a village of between 3000 and 4000 inhabitants, and the
Capital of the three counties of Glengarry, Dundas, and Stormont, It is
situated at the mouth of the Cornwall Canal — just where it enters the St
'Lawrence, and contains several large mills and factories, including one of
the largest wooUen factories in Canada, and extensive cotton mills. There
ire also two newspapers representing the two political parties ; one, the
■Rejyorter, on the Conservative side, edited by an exceedingly genial and
30urteous Highlander named Macfarlane, while the Freeholder, on the
Liberal side, is OAvned and conducted by H. Sansfield Macdonald, son of
;he late Premier of Canada, and one of the firm of Macdonald & Mac-
■ennan, barristers, the other member being a brother of A. B. Maclennan,
rjlen-Gordon, Glengarry, originally from Kintail. Macdonald I found at
first somewhat distant and reserved, looking at me exactly as if he thought
I was going to ask him to lend me a tliousand dollars ; but having told him
:hat I wanted a little printing done, for which I suggested payment in
idvance, he became quite pleasant, referred me to his foreman in the
orinting-office, and was condescending enough to inform me that he took very
ittle interest in the paper, and that he only kept it on for his own amuse-
ment, as lie was perfectly independent of anything it might bring him in
;he way of income. I naturally envied his position, and congratulated
him mentally on his good fortune in having had a father who was able to
■'.eave him in such happy affluence. I paid his foreman 1 Os Gd for a small
printing job that I could have got at home, at most, for 4s ; but my
jditorial confrere, originally so unbending, having discovered who I was,
became in a very few minutes most agreeably gracious ; and in his paper
aext morning he gave me a most flattering paragraph, so that the printing
was cheap after all. Mr Macfarlane, on the other hand, at first refused to
take anything for an advertisement which I requested him to insert ; but
baving declined such favours from one whom I never had seen before, he
finally accepted a dollar for space which in the regular way would have cost
me three times that amount. I was informed that there were some real good
Celts in Cornwall, and I had introductions to the Eev. Dr Macnish, and
to Sheriff Macintyre, to the former from the Eev. Donald Masson, M. A.,
M.D., Edinburgh, and to the latter from another mutual friend j but I missed
them both. I intended to have gone back, but the place had such a de-
pressing influence upon me that, though I passed it twice a few day; after,
I could not muster courage enough to pay a second visit to the only part of
the whole Dominion where I thought the place and people — so far as I
had seen them, except Mr Macfarlane — eiiualiy flat. For this I am
most likely to blame, unless it be to some extent attributable to the fact
that a brutal murderei, who had killed his father and an innocent little
sister, was lodged in prison in the town, where he was executed a few
days after; and this naturally, perhaps, induced a gloomy mental atmos-