Morning journal and courier., 1886-04-21
TIRE WATERS GOING DOWN
After Doing Damage of Several Mil
 lions at Montreal,

After Doing Damage of Several MiI- Hons at Montreal.
 MONTREAL, April 2O.-The water has kept going down all last night and to day. There is fall of at least two feet to-day. There has been little or no business transacted the past two days, citizens generally being absorbed in contemplating the calamity that has occurred to the city by the floods. Hun dreds of wholesale and retail houses were closed, being inaccessible except by boats In Grifintown, where the Irish population is chiefly centered, the number of families whose homes are flooded so that they have had to resort to the upper floors is 3, ,469 At an average of four to each family nearly fourteen thousand persons are cooped up, many of them being without food. In Point St. Charles and St. Gabriel there are about twenty thousand persons living on twenty four streets in similar suffering condition. They principally laborers and mechanics employed in manufacturing places, all of which are closed by the flood. It takes sev- eral hours to go round the inundated districts in boats In the city proper the principal business streets with five to ten feet of wa ter covering them are Commissioner and St. Paul where the wholesale trade centers, the loss being enormous; MeGill, also wholesale, has suffered severely, Notre Dame, Chabailez Square and Victoria Square, the boot and shoe factory district and Craig street where the English newspa- pers are published. The mercantile losses are large and numerous and the exact amount of damage will probably never be known. It is variously estimated, however, at from three to five millions.
 A few minutes before midday slight movement of ice visible from the tower of the City Hall and shortly after wards the entire field which for the last six days has remained steadfast in front of the city moved out The movement became general and as the huge fields of ice forced themselves into the channel opposite Tongue Isle passage was quickly opened which by one o'clock had almost cleared the river in front of the city. The water commenced receding with extraordinary rapidity and in less than an hour the register at the harbor commission CTS showed it had fallen eighteen inches below the revetment wall. Nuns Island once more commenced to reassert itself.
 The houses on ths lower Lachine road, St. Gabriel, on the south side were again free from water and the country beyond and in
 the rear of La Prairie was almost free from the long and devastating inundation.
 The shove which cleared the harbor appeared
 to block again just at the head of Bouchter- vile Island and for half an hour the water rose very rapidly in the vicinity of League Island. About o'clock the ice moved again and appeared to be clear as far as the other hand of Bouchterville in both channels. By midnight the city will in all probability be free from water in every local ity save the sewage and the water backed up into the cellars. The scene where but few hours ago water was five and six feet deep in houses and streets is one of desolation. The mud is everywhere so deep that walking or driving is impossible. Sidewalks torn up by the fury of the waves have disappeared down the river, over seven miles of side walks being carried away. Following is @ fair estimate of the damages: Wholesale dry goods, $s50, 900; retail dry goods, $75,- 900; wholesale grocers, ,S25O, GOO; retail @ s1G TSosss Th1ssns n1saa s15o hsts5e eo wholesale clothiers, $1OO 900; retail clothiers, $200,000; sugar refneries, $20O, 900; various factories, $150, 1000; furniture dealers, $25,- 900; provision dealers, $25, 900; millinery. wholesale. $25, ,000; boot and shoe manufac-
 turers, $25, ,000; warehouse goods in bond,
 $25, ,O0O; saloons and liquors, s20, 900; Grand
 Trunk workshops, $2O, 900; Grand Trunk
 Vermont track and cars, $5.0O0; total, | $1 ,745, 900. To this should be added at least | $100, ,000 damages confined to small stock. It will cost $20, GOO to repair the streets while l the Gas company and Electric Light company
 are losers to the amount of $10,000 each.
 The relief committee has been hard at work all day and has succeeded in alleviat- l ing all suffering by @ generous distribution | of food. The city council gave S20, 900 for this purpose last evening. The streets are ! now free from water.