CHAPTER XIX.
MANNERS OF THE CANADIAN PRIESTS
THE priests who are natives of Canada, are generally very clownish in their manners, and often quite brutish in their vices. The nuns would sometimes laugh at seeing a Canadian priest from some country parish, coming in with a large piece of bread in his hand, eating it as he walked. A large proportion of the priests are foreigners; and a constant intercourse appears to be kept up with France, as we often heard of such and such a father just arrived from that country. These are decidedly the worst class. Most of the wickedness of which I have any knowledge, I consider as their work.
If I should repeat one half of the stories of wickedness I have heard from the mouths of some of the priests, I am afraid they would hardly be believed; and yet I feel bound, since I have undertaken to make disclosures, not to omit them altogether.
It is not uncommon for priests to recount anecdotes of what they have seen and done; and several stories which I have heard from some of them I will briefly repeat.
A country priest said one day that he knew a priest in a parish better off than those of the Seminary, for he had seven nuns all to himself.
A priest said to me one day that he had three daughters in Montreal, grown up. Their mother was a married woman. One of the daughters, he added, now occasionally confessed to him, ignorant, however, of any relationship.
