344 ' PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

are extremely ingenious, building theirrown houses, are carpenters and joinerbs, make their own shoes, ploughs, harrows, carts, sledges, cabrioles, &c. The women spin, knit, and weave linens, cottons, and woollen cloth for domestic use.

The Irish emigrants soon better their condition in this colony; but they are certainly a less steady class of settlers than any other. ‘

There are about 5000 Acadian French on the island, who are principally the descendants of the French who were settled in Nova Scotia before the conquest of Cape Breton ; they profess the Catholic religion. Their priests are educated in Canada ; and by their example, as well as precepts, teach morals and propriety to their flocks. These people are not in such easy circumstances as the other inhabitants of the island. Those who confine themselves to agri- culture are, it is true, more affluent, perhaps suffi- ciently so for people in their station, especially when we consider that few of them can either read or write. At the villages of Rustico, they follow so many dif- ferent pursuits, that they cannot possibly succeed. At one time they are employed building vessels, at another cutting timber in the woods, then for a few Weeks farming, then fishing, and too often idling their time at Charlotte Town. It follows, that they are poor, while the Acadians, in other parts of the island, although their mode of husbandry, from which the force of example will not induce them to depart, is

rude and tardy, acquire What renders their condition independent.