The Portland daily press., 1872-03-22

Boston to Windsor, n. S., summoned to the
death bed of her brother. She was delayed two
days in Bangor, four days at Danforth, and
subsequently two days at McAdam, where she
received news of her brothers death, and strug
gled back through the drifts to Boston. A
widow with several children, who had left
station on the Maine Central to go to one on the
New Brunswick and Canada line was in the
Danforth blockade, and was seen Wednesday at
McAdam, having been three weeks on the way.
A subscription was taken up for her.
Provisions appear to have been distributed
very literally, car loads in some cases, being
ers was the only sustenaDce of a train full of
people during whole day. The wires, too,
along the line have been so crowded with the
necessary railroad business, that private mes
sages could not be sent and business interests
have suffered tremendously. Many business
people who desired to reach Calais and Houl-
ton and st. Stephens were compelled, in sheer
self-protectiOn, to 60 on to st. John, after
the blockade on this side of McAdam hemmed
them in, and have been worrying there for
nearly week.
The st. John people have suffered serious
losses from the total interruption of business in
their own back country and in Maine. Not a
freight train has run through for fortnight
No sooner did an unfortunate freight attempt
to struggle through the drifts in the wake of
passenger, than the passenger sent back for its
engine, and left it drawn up on some switch
track. All things considered the eastern ex-
tension of the road has been kept in a rather
more satisfactorily condition than the western
during the blockade thus far. But imagine the
difficulties met between Fredericton Junction
and st. John-drifts on drifts, piled high in al
most immovable masses, ice-bound trails for
eighty miles, and gaps and cuts where the snow
had literally to be hoisted out as out of the well
The greatest difficulties were doubtless beyond
McAdam. Drifts solidly bound with sleet were
as nigh as tbs car-tops, and raked the cars with
their rugged edges, and trains passed over this
new and comparatively untried road too. 1t
was not and is not now safe to run more than
ten miles an hour iOn the New Brunswick and
Canada line there was drift in ledge so deep
that every particle of snow taken out had to be
passed up to the ledge's top from hand to hand
by three men stationed one above the other, and
this was not very effectual, the wind whisking
back the snow almost as fast as il could be
taken out McAdam seems to have been head
quarters for the delayed passengers. Accom-
modations were rather meagre there, as the fu-
ture city occupies place in the very breast of a
thowing wilderness. Log cabins and three
more imposing structures furnished shelter for
the three or four thousand people who have
been temporarily stopped there since the block
ade began, and the company has paid for their
food. Two hundred persons, besides the work.
ing gang, numbering as many more, have been
fed and housed at McAdam at one time. l.'
By the way of an episode, brutal fight oc-
CURED on Monday at McAdam junction. 1t
was savage riot and at one time nearly hun
dred men were engaged in it. The trouble or
iginated between a party of returning lumber
men and a number of inhabitants of the place,
all of whom had been indulging in liquors.
Weapons of different kinds were used, and but
few of those engaged escaped without injury.
Over twenty of the rioters are now in the hands
of the doctors, and the injuries sustained by
two of them are believed to be fatal. Blows
were received by several gentlemen of Calais
who were spectators. The fight continued over
an hour and finally ceased from the exhausta-
ton of the parties.
IT would be difficult for a fair critic to indi-
cate many points in which the GALAXY could be
improved The April number fully sustains
the high character it has honestly achived In
it Justin Mccarthy gives an interesting and ap-
preciative article about Charles Reade Albert
Rhodes contributes an article on the ''French at
Home" Gen. Custer contributes another chap
ter of "My Life on the Palms, very entertain
ing but indicating that his estimate of the
character and worth of 'Lo" is very low. The
article on Lincoln & johnson by Grandfather
Welles is worth the price of the number. Fa-
Their Welles is-in fair way to gain more re-
nown with his pen than he did at the head of
the Navy Department. Edward Crapsey con-
tinues his papers on '"The Neither Side of New
York" by an article ON Lottery Gamblers"
The Scientific Miscellany contains short trea-
tises on thirteen topics, most of which are of
pract cal character