Life in the Clearings versus the Bush

in the Clearings versus the Bush,
by Susanna Moodie

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Title: Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
Author: Susanna Moodie

Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8132] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 17, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE IN
THE CLEARINGS VS. THE BUSH ***

Produced by Arthur Wendover and Andrew Sly.

Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
by Mrs. Moodie
Author of "Roughing it in the Bush," &c.
"I sketch from Nature, and the draught is true. Whate'er the picture,
whether grave or gay, Painful experience in a distant land Made it mine
own."
TO
JOHN WEDDERBURN DUNBAR MOODIE, ESQ.
SHERRIFF OF THE COUNTY OF HASTINGS,
UPPER CANADA,
THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED,
BY HIS ATTACHED FRIEND

AND WIFE,
SUSANNA MOODIE

Contents
Introduction I Belleville II Local Improvements--Sketches of Society
III Free Schools--Thoughts on Education IV Amusements V Trials of a
Travelling Musician VI The Singing Master VII Camp Meetings VIII
Wearing Mourning for the Dead IX Odd Characters X Grace Marks XI
Michael Macbride XII Jeanie Burns XIII Lost Children XIV Toronto
XV Lunatic Asylum XVI Provincial Agricultural Show XVII Niagara
XVIII Goat Island XIX Conclusion

INTRODUCTION
"Dear foster-mother, on whose ample breast The hungry still find food,
the weary rest; The child of want that treads thy happy shore, Shall feel
the grasp of poverty no more; His honest toil meet recompense can
claim, And Freedom bless him with a freeman's name!" S.M.
In our work of "Roughing it in the Bush," I endeavoured to draw a
picture of Canadian life, as I found it twenty years ago, in the
Backwoods. My motive in giving such a melancholy narrative to the
British public, was prompted by the hope of deterring well-educated
people, about to settle in this colony, from entering upon a life for
which they were totally unfitted by their previous pursuits and habits.
To persons unaccustomed to hard labour, and used to the comforts and
luxuries deemed indispensable to those moving in the middle classes at
home, a settlement in the bush can offer few advantages. It has proved
the ruin of hundreds and thousands who have ventured their all in this
hazardous experiment; nor can I recollect a single family of the higher
class, that have come under my own personal knowledge, that ever
realised an independence, or bettered their condition, by taking up wild

lands in remote localities; while volumes might be filled with failures,
even more disastrous than our own, to prove the truth of my former
statements.
But while I have endeavoured to point out the error of gentlemen
bringing delicate women and helpless children to toil in the woods, and
by so doing excluding them from all social intercourse with persons in
their own rank, and depriving the younger branches of the family of the
advantages of education, which, in the vicinity of towns and villages,
can be enjoyed by the children of the poorest emigrant, I have never
said anything against the REAL benefits to be derived from a judicious
choice of settlement in this great and rising country.
God forbid that any representations of mine should deter one of my
countrymen from making this noble and prosperous colony his future
home. But let him leave to the hardy labourer the place assigned to him
by Providence, nor undertake, upon limited means, the task of pioneer
in the great wilderness. Men of independent fortune can live anywhere.
If such prefer a life in the woods, to the woods let them go; but they
will soon find out that they could have employed the means in their
power in a far more profitable manner than in chopping down trees in
the bush.