ALL THROUGH A SEWING MACHINE.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XXII, Issue 6350, 25 June 1889, Page 4

ALL THROUGH A SEWING MACHINE.

A shout time ago a French naval oilicer named Denot was killed by natives in one of the Leeward Isles. Information which is now to hand shows, however, that the French themselves were the original aggressors, though they were tl:e victoms of a blunder and acted in the first instance —as they imagined—in self defence, It was all owing to a sewing machine. The story is so remarkable that it is worth relating. One evening, as the warship Decres was lying quietly at her moorings in the lluahine roadstead, the men on the look-out perceived a mysterious boat approaching with somo strange object on board which they took to be a cannon. There it was, looming out menacingly through the darkness, The boat was at once hailed, but no reply was forthcoming. Jumping to the conclusion that there was some foul plot on foot for sinking the good ship and her gallant crew under cover of the night, the men called out again, and once more receiving no answer, they peppered the unlucky boat and its passengers with their Hotchkiss guns until they utterly collapsed and were no moie seen. What was their horror on learning on the following morning that the boat had been filled with womon, who were peaceably transporting a large sewing-machine from one point to the other. Meanwhile, however, the story of this massacre had got abroad among the natives, who, not understanding the cause of this untoward event, fancied that the French had acted out of sheer brutality and wantonness. M. Denot, on going ashore, was killed in an ambuscade ; but M. Lacascade, the Governor of Tahiti, who happendo to be on board the Decres, as well as the commander of that ship, fully aware of the reasons which h 1 led to this attack, humanely forbore to push their advantage and use reprisals, contenting them" selves with insisting that the insurgents should lay dowu thtA' arms without more ado. They say that (lie New York Work building will he the highest in that city. (will contain a restaurant and readingcom