Connecticut western news., 1884-02-13
AT THE ICE CARNIVAL.
A FEW NOTES DROPPED BY 4 VIsI-
 TOR ON THE ROUTE.
What the Reporter Saw and How 1t Struck
 Him-Fun in the Ice and snow.

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 | What the Reporter Saw and How 1t strucl Him-Fun in the Ice and snow. The way 10 Montreal from New Yorl or Boston is an unbroken path of snoy and ice, yet when the visitor reaches thu Canadian metropolis it seems to him a' though if all the snow he had passed had been gathered up and flung into tht streets there would not be more there than there is. Where it has not beer shoveled off the sidewalks it reaches tc the bottoms of the old-fashioned pro. jecting stone windows. It may not be until next April that the curbs and flag. ging will be visible. Where 1t has been shoveled to one side 1t rises higher than ones head.
 There was a murderer on the train bound for Plattsburg jail. He was ex. pected, and the whole village turned out to see him. Picking out a Brooklyn contractor, who had to be steadied by a friend, the crowd followed him until he escaped into barroom.
 One hundred and twenty men and wo- men sat down at the first tables at Plattsburg, and were served with beef steak that Newark doctor said made him understand for the first time why meals are technically spoken of as board.
 The Canadian Custom House officer at Rouse's Point found that every man and woman had the biggest-sized valises and yet carried nothing but single change of linen. He said the United States in- spector would have busy time looking the bags over when they came back again full. But the man to be pitied was the inspector on the Central Vermont, who would catch the Boston folks re- turning home. It seems that 0 special bag, double the largest regular size, is made in Boston on purpose for journeys to Canada.
 When the stream of passengers is- sued from the depot in Montreal the temperature was an inch below zero. There seemed to be about one fur-clad sleigh driver to each visitor. Strange looking policemen, in blue coats and su- gar-loaf fur caps, kept the drivers from tearing the strangers to pieces. They were not like New York policemen. Their clubs were kept in their belts, and they spoke in low and respectful tones.
 John Keith, of New York, who had been hustled along like pillow in a boarding school bedroom because he did not stand in line in the Grand Central Depot, asked one of these fur-capped peelers how he could. get to certain street. ',Take the sleigh I show you to-" said the policeman, ''and don't let the driver swindle you. Give him half Q dollar" Keith was amazed, and went about all day shouting the praises of the police until Montreal man told him he was imposed upon, and that the law only allowed the driver to charge quarter.
 The day proved abominable. It either rained, hailed, or showed. steadily until night. The New York girls stayed in- doors, and pounded "We Never Speak as We Pass Bly," "Gobble, Gobble, " and "I Can't Swim, but You Ought to See Jim," out of the private pianos. The Canadian girls care no more for weather than as if they were ducks. They have no feathers to spoil, and they don't wear good clothes out of doors. They were met with everywhere dragging tobog- gans, swinging skates on their arms, scudding along in sleighs, cheering the brawny Scots at the curling match, stalk ing up the mountain side like so many Swiss, filling the air with their laughter, decking every scene with the gay colors of their wraps and muflers, and blush ing rose red with excessive vitflity. The young men were not behindhand.
 There was @ hockey game, snow-shoe racing, and the grand annual drive of the contractors. These contractors are the masons, builders, plumbers, carpen- ters and what not. They cut each others throats in business 364 days in the year, and on one day they all drive out to some country hotel to bury bus mess under beefsteak and drown hard feelings in hot Scotch. They made a big show in their sleighs, but sleighs are so common here they don't count. Any New York office boy who happened to be here could climb into one, have a man heap blankets and furs on him, see his driver climb up four feet above him with a fur coat, and fur hat on, with a fur robe on his lap, bear skin hang ing from his seat, and four feet of buf- falo fur flying from the tail of the sleigh, and ride anywhere in the city for the price of'a seat in Bowery theatre.
 The ice palace is bigger and ten times more beautiful than the one of last year. In the day time it looked like a castle whose battlements, turrets, arches, and piers were hewn from crystal. Ice SC perfectly clear is seldom seen in New York. It Is like plate glass, HOW that the glare of dozen carbon points shine through its side. It is like palace il dream of fairyland. It is as big as tho new Barge Office, off the Battery, ant its translucent walls have creamy tone like alabaster.- York Sun. 
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