By The Same Census There
Were 87 Ships, With An Average Burthen Of 400 Tons Each, Built In The Year
In which it was taken, and the number has been on the increase since.
These colonial-built vessels are gradually
Acquiring a very high
reputation; some of our finest clippers, including one or two belonging to
the celebrated "White Star" line, are by the St. John builders. Perhaps,
with the single exception of Canada West, no colony offers such varied
inducements to emigrants.
I saw as much of St. John as possible, and on a fine day was favourably
impressed with it. It well deserves its cognomen, "The City of the Rock,"
being situated on a high, bluff, rocky peninsula, backed on the land-side
by steep barren hills. The harbour is well sheltered and capacious, and
the suspension-bridge above the falls very picturesque. The streets are
steep, wide, and well paved, and the stores are more pretentious than
those of Halifax. There is also a very handsome square, with a more
respectable fountain in it than those which excite the ridicule of
foreigners in front of our National Gallery. It is a place where a large
amount of business is done, and the shipyards alone give employment to
several thousand persons.
Yet the lower parts of the town are dirty in the extreme. I visited some
of the streets near the water before the cholera had quite disappeared
from them, nor did I wonder that the pestilence should linger in places so
appropriate to itself; for the roadways were strewn to a depth of several
inches with sawdust, emitting a foul decomposing smell, and in which lean
pigs were routing and fighting.
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