It Was Rioting In A Perfect
Orgie Of Destruction, Crushing Man's Handwork In Its Passage Like So Much
Frail Glass In The Grasp Of A Giant.
At 3.20 p.m., when the glad
announcement passed from mouth to mouth that the ice was moving, it began
its destructive work.
The scene was at Blais Booms and the immediate
neighborhood, where the Government steamers Napoleon III and Druid,
the Gulf Ports steamers Georgia, Miramichi and Hadji and a large
number of tug steamers and other craft belonging to the St. Lawrence Tow
Boat Company and other parties were in winter quarters and have been in
the habit of so doing for years on account of the superior facilities and
safety offered by the place. Nearly a hundred craft of all kinds,
steamers, ships, schooners, and barges, were here congregated, moored in
many instances together and extending over a line of nearly 300 yards. The
floating ice as it came down, struck the outside craft - a sailing vessel,
we believe - driving it against its neighbor, the Georgia, and then
hurrying both of them against the others, jamming them against each other
and against the wharves in inextricable confusion and causing a tremendous
amount of damage, if not irreparable loss. Some were stove in, filled with
water and sunk, only leaving their bows or masts above water to mark where
they had gone down, while others disappeared from view altogether.
Fortunately no lives were lost. The loss and damage to property cannot
fall far short, we believe, of a million of dollars.
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