QUEBEC CAUSE CELEBRE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 150, 22 December 1922, Page 18

QUEBEC CAUSE CELEBRE

PUBLISHER CITED TO THE BAR:. Great interest is displayed throughout the Province of Quebec\in the unusual course adopted by the Quebec Legislature in citing to the Bar of Parliament Mr. Johns Roberts, of Montreal, in connection with the recent attacks on members of the Quebec Legislature in the weekly paper called "The Axe." Roberts was once secretary of the province ; of Quebec Temperance Society, from which he retired after considerable publicity in connection with charges that I various Montrealers in public positions ■ 'were making large sums by grafting, houses of ill-fame, and gambling houses (writes a 'Canadian correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph"). When he triedi a temperance crusade in Australia he was refused admittance to that Commonwealth. Recently he returned to Montreal and started a paper called "The Axe, ' which attained notoriety by^the publication of scandalous matters which other newspapers ignored. Last week Roberts published a sensational issue of

"The Axe," with a Belies of articles purporting to expose the scandalousefforts of Government quarters. to hide the real facts connected with the murder of a girl named Blanche Garneau, of Quebec, a working girl who was criminally assaulted and murdered in Quebec Citsy park over a year ago, and around whose murder ever since many rumours have been current, including gossip that the girl was killed by two young men highly connected- in provincial Government circles, and that, as a result special efforts were made to prevent exposure.

The Premier, Mr. Taschereau, moving the Legislature proceedings, said that the article, published in "The Axe" practically alleged that the murder was committed by two deputies, who were not arrested because they wei'e members of the Legislature. The article in question was formally read by the Speaker of the Legislature, following which the members unanimously adopted the Premier's resolution of the. dignity, of the Quebec Parliament, and instructed the Serjeant-' at-Anns to proceed to Montreal and ar-: rest Roberts, and bring him before the bar of the Legislature. This step, which Roberts has apparently bsen challenging the Legislature to tako, was expected. Should Roberts continue- .the demands for an investigation of the charges made in his papor, a Legislative. Committee will be appointed to make an inquiry, following! the lines adopted in several similar incidents in the past half-century. The whole procedure- ■ is unprecedented, involving a Legislative . inquiry into charges and insinuations, against not only deputies, but against the relatives of •■those prominent in Government circles whose names have frequently been connected with t]ie Blanclje Garneau murder, which bids fair to become a cause celebre throughout the Dominion.