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way, having been charged nothing for our accommodation. That some profit arose from the horse provender is to be hoped. On the following day we reached Montreal, which, as I have said before, is the commercial capital of the two Provinces. This question of the capitals is at the present moment a subject of great interest in Canada; but, as I shall be driven to say something on the matter when I report myself as being at Ottawa, I will refrain now. There are two special public affairs at the present moment to interest a traveler in Canada. The first I have named, and the second is the Grand Trunk Railway. I have already stated what is the course of this line. It runs from the Western State of Michigan to Portland, on the Atlantic, in the State of Maine, sweeping the whole length of Canada in its route. It was originally made by three companies. The Atlantic and St. Lawrence constructed it from Portland to Island Pond, on the borders of the States. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic took it from the southeastern side of the river at Montreal to the same point, viz., Island Pond. And the Grand Trunk Company have made it from Detroit to Montreal, crossing the river there with a stupendous tubular bridge, and have also made the branch connecting the main line with Quebec and Riviere du Loup. This latter company is now incorporated with the St. Lawrence and Atlantic, but has only leased the portion of the line running through the States. This they have done, guaranteeing the shareholders an interest of six per cent. There never was a grander enterprise set on foot. I will not say there never was one more unfortunate, for is there not the Great Eastern, which, by the weight and constancy of its failures, demands for itself a proud pre-eminence of misfortune? But surely the Grand Trunk comes next to it. I presume it to be quite out of the question that the shareholders should get any interest whatever on their shares for years. The company, when I was at Montreal, had not paid the interest due to the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Company for the last year, and there was a doubt whether the lease would not be broken. No party that had advanced money to the undertaking was able to recover what had been advanced. I believe that one firm in London had lent nearly a million to the company, and is now willing to accept half the sum so lent in quittance of the whole debt. In 1860 the line could not carry the freight that offered, not having or being able to obtain the necessary rolling stock; and on all sides I heard men discussing whether the line would be kept open for traffic. The government of Canada advanced to the company three millions of money, with an understanding that neither interest nor principal should be demanded till all other debts were paid and all shareholders in receipt of six per cent. interest. But the three millions were clogged with conditions which, though they have been of service to the country, have been so expensive to the company that it is hardly more solvent with it than it would have been without it. As it is, the whole property seems to be involved in ruin; and yet the line is one of the grandest commercial conceptions that was ever carried out on the face of the globe, and in the process of a few years will do more to make bread cheap in England than any other single enterprise that exists. I do not know that blame is to be attached to any one. I at least attach no such blame. Probably it might be easy now to show that the road might have been made with sufficient accommodation for ordinary purposes without some of the more costly details. The great tubular bridge, on which was expended 1,300,000 pounds, might, I should think, have been dispensed with. The Detroit end of the line might have been left for later time. As it stands now, however, it is a wonderful operation carried to a successful issue as far as the public are concerned; and one can on]y grieve that it should be so absolute a failure to those who have placed their money in it. There are schemes which seem to be too big