"It Would Seem That The Author Was A Young Clerk Or Merchant Of
Quebec, As One Of The Critics Spitefully Tells Him Not To Desert His
Shop.
The ladies themselves do not escape, one writer suggesting that
they are coquettish enough already without making them more so.
The
Montreal correspondent is warned off as an intruder, and told that he
had better have saved his ninepence of postage money. Just imagine
this silly acrostic furnishing gossip for Quebec and matter for the
Gazette for two months!
"As another note of the state of society at that time may be mentioned
occasional advertisements for the sale of negro lads and wenches, or
of rewards for the recovery and restoration of missing ones. Slavery
was not abolished in Lower Canada till 1803. In Upper Canada, as a
separate province, it hardly ever existed. Did the manumitted blacks
remain in Canada after their liberation, or did they seek a more
congenial climate?
"For education there does not seem to have been any public provision,
but private schools for both sexes were numerous. These were probably
expensive, so that the poorer classes were virtually debarred from the
advantages of learning. The instruction of Catholic children was in
the hands of the clergy, and it may be that in some of the conventual
schools a certain number were admitted free of expense or at reduced
rates. It would appear that some of the young ladies were sent to
English boarding-schools, if we may judge by advertisements in which
the advantages of these institutions are set forth.
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