A TERRIBLE EPISODE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2125, 20 February 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

A TERRIBLE EPISODE.

The year 1639 saw New France, under the rule of the ieckle«fc Marquis de Denonville, engaged in nn ludian war along her whole line of settlements. Iroqouis had received great provocation. The Govenor, by means of the Jesuit missionaries, whom he made his unconscious accomplices, had induced a, number of Iroquois chiefs to meet him in ptacef ul conference. These he had seized and sent to France, that their toil as galley dlaves might amuse the Royal vanity. The Iroquois had scorned to revenge this perfidy on the missionaries, who were sent in safety from their camp. But a retribution was at hand. Nearly two centuries ago, on the night of August 5, 1689, at the inhabitants of Lachine lay bleeping, amid a storm of hail upon the lake which effectually disguised the noise of their landing, a force of many hundred warriors, armed and besmeared with warpaint, made a decent upon Lachine. Throughout the nisrht they noiselessly aurrounded every building in the village. With dawn the fearful war-whoop awoke men, women, and children to their doom of torture and death. The village was fired ; bj itp light in the early morn the horror striken inhabitant* of Montreal could ace from their fortifications the nameless cruelties which preceded the massacre. It is said the' Iroquois {indulged so freely iv the fire-water of the Lachine merchants, that had the defenders of Villemarie been prompt to seize the favourable moment, the drunken wretches might have been slaughtered like swine. Paralysed by the horrors they had witnessed, the French let the occasion slip ; at nightfall the nav.iget withdrew to the mainland, not, however, without signifying by yells, repeated to the number of ninety, how manyr pbioners they carried away. From the ramparts of Villemarie, and amid the blackened ruins of Laohiuc, the garrison watched the firea on the opposite shore, kindled for what purposes of nameless cruelty they know too well. The fate of Lachine marks the lowest point in the fortunes of New France ; by what deeds of heroism they were retrieved, is not the least glorious page in Canadian history. — Picturesque Canada.

The necessity of maintaining as at present eighteen palaces when Queen Victoria, resides iv but one, and that only for three mouths iv the year, is likely to occupy the attention of the Parliament. Pench furnishes a humourous but very telling commentary on Mr Jesse Colliugs' proposal to seize the land and cut it up into three acre blocks to be divided among the people. Two yokels are depicted discussing what they should do under such circumstances. Says Dick : " I've chose my three acres — next to the Parson's. I mean to dig and grow 'tatera. Where 'aye you chose yours !" To which Harry replies : "I ain't choie no land. I shan't grow no 'tatera. I shall take your 'tatersj."