A Real American “Spakes English”: Ethnicity, Religion, and Respectability in John Talbot Smith’s “How the McGuinness Saved His Pride” (1891)

Abstract

The French-Canadian of any rank in life feels that God can confer no greater honor than to make one of his boys a priest, one of his girls a nun. This is a curious view.... The life of the ordinary priest or nun in Canada is not financially a happy one.... It seems to make little difference to the Canadian, as long as his son is the priest. Therefore Protestant missions have found it difficult to bribe this people. Honor seems to mean more to them than soup,1 and they are evidently determined to continue in their priest-ridden condition. We apologize for them to our separated brethren.2