272 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April of the British legislature, Canadian profits were appropriated to the pur- poses of the United Kingdom. The limit of injustice was reached in Nova Scotia when it appeared that the deputy post-master was forwarding surplus revenue to England at the same time that the colonial assembly was voting yearly sums to make good the supposed postal deficiency. Fortunately for British interests that deputy was a brother of the great Joseph Howe, so that the storm of indignation was less than would other- wise have been the case. To add fuel to colonial dissatisfaction, it was proved that Stayner, the Canadian deputy postmaster-general, received in perquisites from newspapers, in the three years ending with 1834, annual sums amounting, on the average, to £3,185 currency. These emoluments were described by a committee of the Upper Canadian assembly as nearly equal to the salary of the governor-general and three times more than that of the puisne judges. In this state of things, it was obviously wise for the central government to relinquish, as was done in 1847, the control of the post office to the several colonies. But the period of friction was by no means ended. A proposal in 1855 by the British government to set on foot a lower and more uniform imperial service, on condition that the colonies joined in its maintenance, was unpopular in Canada ; while the attitude of the home authorities, in throwing difficulties in the way of the Allan line that sought to set on foot an oceanic service independent of the United States, well illustrates the temper of the time. Attention has been fixed upon the political aspect of Mr. Smith's volume ; but, incidentally, much may be learnt from it with regard to the social conditions and habits of British North America. In short, though not always easy reading, it is a thoroughly sound and scholarly piece of work. H. E. Egerton. La Noblesse de France et I 'Opinion Publique au XV III e Siecle. Par Henri Carre. (Paris : Champion, 1920.) Although M. Carre has not brought to light many facts regarding the French noblesse which are absolutely new to students of French history, he has written a learned and useful book, which embodies a great quantity of material, and is judicial in its conclusions. The first part is a descrip- tion of the noblesse as a class. It was numerous, but the number of the nobles on the eve of the Revolution has never been accurately determined. M. Carre thinks Taine's estimate of 140,000 men, women, and children too low, and inclines to fix the total at about 400,000. It is well known that there were different ways of obtaining nobility. Nobility might be a matter of descent, or of express royal grant, or the consequence of hold- ing certain offices, and was sometimes merely usurpe'd. The noblesse of different categories regarded each other with jealousy and ill will. In particular, the greater nobles, the court noblesse, were the object of anti- pathy to the lesser nobles, the noblesse of the provinces. On the other hand, as the power of wealth increased and the strength of prejudice dwindled, the greater nobles intermarried more and more with rich
