with some thoroughly unsuitable person."

Possibly Miss Theodora, with Ernest ever in mind, was unusually sensitive in detecting undue emphasis in Mrs. Digby's pronunciation of "any" when she said that Kate had not the "slightest interest in any young man." Or perhaps Mrs. Digby, too, had Ernest in mind when she made this sweeping statement.

Two people could hardly be more unlike than Kate and her mother. Mrs. Digby was of dark complexion, of commanding figure, though not over tall, and she lived for society. Kate was blond, with a half-timid, though straightforward air, and she was as anxious to keep far from the whirl of things as her mother was to be active in her little set. Mrs. Digby had worn heavy mourning for her husband the exact length of time demanded by strict propriety. But just as soon as she could, she had laid aside her veil and indeed crape in every form, and gave outer shape to her grief by clothing herself in becoming black relieved by abundant trimmings of dull jet.

"I could wish Mrs. Digby no worse punishment," said one of her intimate enemies, "than to be condemned to attend a round of dinners in a high-necked dress." From which it might truly be inferred that Mrs. Digby herself was thought to have no mean opinion of Mrs. Digby arrayed in conventional dinner attire. Yet her most becoming decolleté gown Mrs. Digby could have given up almost more readily than the dinners which she had to sacrifice in her year of mourning. She had been fond of her hushand, no one could deny that. But, after all, she missed him less than the outside world thought she missed him. He and she had led decidedly separate lives for many years before his death, and indeed in the early years the stress of feeling had been more on his side than on hers. She was not long, therefore, in returning to a round of gayety, somewhat subdued, to be sure, but still "something to take me away from myself and my grief," she occasionally said half-apologetically to those who, like Miss Theodora, she knew must be surprised at her return to the world. On this particular occasion, after

making her request for Miss Theodora's influence with Kate, she continued:

"If it were not for Ralph I do not know what I should do. He goes everywhere with me, and is perfectly devoted to society. Now in his case I almost hope he won't marry. I should hate to give him up to any one else. But he is so fastidious that I know it will be some time before he settles upon any one, although I must say that he is a great favorite."

This was the early autumn after Ralph's graduation. He had gone through Harvard very creditably, and had even had honorable mention in history and modern languages. Mrs. Digby, however, with all her pride in her son, felt that the large income which he drew went for other than legitimate college expenses. As a woman of the world she said that Ralph could not be so very unlike the men who were his associates, and she knew that certain rumors about them and their doings could not be wholly false. Nevertheless, she seldom reproved her son, and she even took pride in his selfpossessed and ultra worldly manner. Surely that kind of thing was infinitely better form than Kate's self-consciousness and Puritanical frankness.

Mrs. Digby graced a victoria even more truly than she graced a decolleté gown. Indeed, to the many who, never having had the good fortune to see her in a drawing-room, knew her only by name and sight as she rolled through the streets, she and the victoria seemed inseparable, a kind of modernized centaur. It was impossible for such people to think of her in any other attitude than that of haughty semi-erectness on the ample cushions of her carriage.

On this particular day, as Mrs. Digby drove down Beacon Street and thence by the river over the Milldam, she met many friends and bowed to them.

"Who in the world has Mrs. Digby got with her to-day?" some of them would ask their companions, in the easy colloquialism of every-day life.

"I haven't the faintest idea, but she's a rather out-of-date-looking old person," was the usual reply, although occasionally some one would identify Miss Theo

dora, usually adding: "I knew her when she was a girl, but she's certainly very much changed. Well, that's what comes of living out of the world."

These drives with Mrs. Digby always made Miss Theodora feel her own loneliness. In this city — this Boston - which had always been her own home and the home of her family, she had few friends. She could hardly have known fewer people if living in a foreign city. It was therefore with a start of relief that she heard Mrs. Digby exclaim :

"Why, there's Ernest, isn't it?" Miss Theodora glanced ahead. Nearsighted though she was, she had no trouble in recognizing her nephew's broad shoulders and swinging gait. But the young man was not alone. He was walking rather slowly and bending toward a girl in a close-fitting tailor-made suit. It was the end of October, too early for furs, yet the girl was anticipating the winter fashions. One end of a long fuzzy boa flaunted itself over her shoulder, stirred, like the heavy ostrich plumes in her hat, by the afternoon breeze.

"It isn't Kate, is it?" said Miss Theodora dubiously as the carriage drew near the pair.

"No, indeed, not Kate," quickly answered Mrs. Digby.

"I wonder who it can be," continued Miss Theodora, for she could not help observing Ernest's tender air toward the girl.

"Oh, I'm sure I can't say, Theodora. It's certainly no one I know; but Kate

or perhaps it was Ralph has been saying something about a flirtation of Ernest's with some girl he met somewhere last year." Then seeing that Miss Theodora looked downcast: "Oh, it isn't likely it's anything serious, Theodora; it's only what you must expect at his age; and of course his interests are all so different now from what you had expected that it isn't surprising to find him flirting or falling in love with girls whom you and I know nothing about."

By this time the carriage had passed the two young people, and Ernest was so absorbed in his companion that he did not even see it rolling by.

O other migratory movement in the history of the world is at all comparable to that mighty tide of immigration which, since 1880, has added an annual average of more than five hundred thousand aliens to the population of the United States, and which, since the foundation of the government, has brought to our shores a total of nearly nineteen million souls. Not only have the arrivals during recent years been enormous in the aggregate, but the rate has steadily increased from one decade to another, until it has become a serious question whether the immigration is to be assimilated by the nation, or the nation is to be alienized by the immigration.*

Coincident with and largely consequent upon this great increase in the volume of immigration, there has been a rapid exhaustion of the public domain, until the time is now close at hand when all the lands suitable for settlement and cultivation will have passed from public to private ownership.

Still more portentous than the increase in volume has been the change in the character of the immigration, a much larger percentage than formerly belonging to the ignorant, pauper and criminal classes.

*The arrivals of immigrants since 1860 by decennial periods have been as follows:

Facts of such vital importance to the welfare of the nation have naturally attracted wide-spread attention, and few subjects have been more earnestly discussed in recent years than the immigration question in all its bearings. Almost without exception those who have studied the question have recognized the necessity of legislation which will bring about, at least for a time, a general restriction of immigration and secure for all time the total exclusion of the undesirable classes of immigrants. While the legislative results thus far achieved seem scarcely commensurate with the urgency of the situation, thanks to the extended discussion of the topic the general public has been thoroughly informed as to the existence and the merits of the immigration question.

If, on the other hand, there has been any discussion of emigration, or even an intimation that there is any emigration to discuss, it has escaped the notice of the writer. Statements have been made in the daily press, indeed, that there have been times within the past two years when the "gates of Castle Garden have swung outward," the number of departing steerage passengers being greater than the number arriving. But no official record is kept either of the numbers or the destinations of departing passengers, to say nothing of their intentions as to returning.

It seems hardly probable that many of those who have returned to their old homes intend to resume their former allegiance to the various governments of the Old World, involving the liability to military service and the certainty of assuming a share of the heavy burdens imposed by the enormous armaments of Europe. If it were possible to investigate the matter, it would be found that all but a very few of these returning

Europeans intend to retain their American citizenship, however prolonged their absence. The writer knows of a large number of miners in the Lake Superior region, thrown out of employment by the business depression, who crossed the Atlantic for the avowed reason that it would be cheaper to visit friends and relatives in the old country for six months or a year than to support themselves in idleness here.

Viewing the matter in the light of all obtainable information, I was led irresistibly to the conclusion that the alleged emigration to Europe was either non-existent, or at least not proven. It was with surprise, therefore, which was almost a shock, that I learned on undoubted authority that American citizens by the thousand are leaving the United States for another land, going not as sojourners, but to make new homes, and taking with them for that purpose not only their families, but household goods, live stock and farm machinery by the trainload. When I found further that they were moving neither to the East, the West nor the South, but to the North; that most of them are taking up land under a homestead law which involves the exchange of a republic for a monarchy, the surrender of citizenship in the United States to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, I said to myself, "Here is, indeed, an emigration question, and one that is worthy of serious study."

Little reflection was needed to make it evident that the subject could not be satisfactorily studied at long range, so I decided to follow these American emigrants to their Canadian homes in order that I might learn from their own lips the conditions out of which they have come, and see with my own eyes the conditions into which they have gone, and thus be enabled to reach intelligent conclusions concerning the two great questions to which all others connected with the inquiry are subsidiary. These

are :

First. Are the causes underlying this movement local and temporary, or widespread and permanent, or, in other words, is emigration from the United

States likely to decrease and disappear, or to continue and increase in volume?

Second. If the stream of American emigration is to be perennial, is it likely to continue to flow in the same direction; that is to say, is there an area of unoccupied land in the Canadian Northwest sufficient to accommodate a great volume of immigration, wherein the soil, climate and other conditions are such as to provide support and promise prosperity for a large population?

Accordingly a number of weeks were devoted to a journey through Manitoba, Assiniboia, Alberta and a portion of British Columbia, during which, in addition to the necessary travel by rail, many hundreds of miles were traversed by wagon in order to meet and talk with the settlers, some of whom live fifty miles or more from the nearest station. The facts and conclusions of this article are presented, therefore, as a result of this personal investigation, supplemented by correspondence and a study of the records and reports of the various departments of the Dominion govern

ment.

It is of interest to note in passing that the present emigration from the United States to Canada, while the underlying causes make it by far the most important, is not by any means the first movement of the kind which has taken place. Soon after the final and formal acknowledgment of the independence of the United States by the signing of the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, those who had remained faithful to the British cause began to move in large numbers across the newly established boundary line into Canada and Nova Scotia. These earliest of emigrants from the United States were of course regarded by their neighbors as traitors to the American cause, and were led to seek new homes no less by the wish to escape from the unpleasant situation in which they found themselves on that account, than by the desire to live under British rule. This movement continued for several years, and while it is not possible to arrive at any exact figures, it is probable that the total number of those who left the young Republic was not less than 40,000. These United

Empire Loyalists, as they were called, were well treated by the British government, and large grants of land were made to them in various parts of the country. Some ten thousand of them settled along the banks of the St. Lawrence and the shores of Lake Ontario on lands so allotted.

There seems to have been a gradual interchange of population -- a sort of human endosmosis and exosmosis -constantly going on between Canada and the United States, the census reports showing that there is not a state or territory in the Union without citizens of Canadian birth, nor a single electoral district from Halifax to vancouver without residents American-born. The movement from the lesser to the larger population seems to have been much greater than that in the opposite direction, the census of 1890 showing no less than 980,938 persons in the United States who were born in Canada and Newfoundland, while the Canadian census, taken in 1891, reports 80,915 American-born residents of the Dominion, besides a much larger number of American descent. Of the latter class, 11,627 had American-born fathers, and 111,165 had American-born mothers; but the published reports do not show what proportion of these were the children of parents both of whom were born in the United States. The following table, compiled from the Canadian census reports, shows the number of persons of American birth and the number of children of American-born parents residing in the various provinces and provisional districts of the Dominion in 1891:

American emigration to the Canadian Northwest as distinguished from the older portions of the Dominion, began in the earlier years of the last decade, nearly coincident, oddly enough, with the sudden increase in immigration which has been noted above. Only the most fragmentary indications exist, however, as to its volume during these earlier years, such for instance as the fact that one thousand eight hundred and ninetyeight settlers from the United States made use of the privileges of the Immigration Hall in Winnipeg in 1885. As the only available records are for the period since the last Canadian census was taken (which was on April 5, 1891), and the results of previous emigration, whatever they may be, are included in the census statistics, attention will necessarily be confined to that portion of the movement which has taken place since that date.. Even in 1891 no official record was kept, but the Commissioner of Dominion Lands estimates the number of American settlers during that year at four hundred, which would represent some twelve hundred souls. In 1892 no less than five hundred and thirteen homestead entries were made by settlers from the United States, representing fifteen hundred and fifty-two persons. During the same year the Canadian Pacific Railroad Company sold five hundred and fortyeight quarter-sections or eighty-seven thousand six hundred and eighty acres of land to four hundred and fifty separate American purchasers coming from twelve different states. It is impossible to determine what increase of population is indicated by these latter figures, as some purchases were made by homesteaders who desired additional land, and some by persons who bought as an investment without intention of settlement. In the following year the number of American settlers increased to such an extent that more detailed records were begun and have since been kept, as appears from the following table, which shows the number of homestead entries made by settlers from the United States during the calendar years 1893 and 1894, the states from which they came and the number of souls in their families: