The Indianapolis journal., 1892-10-12
FRENCH CANADIANS WR0TH
Consul Nicholas Smith, Who Married
Horace Greeley's Daughter, Mobbed.
His Residence at Three Rivers Attacked by
2,O00 People Who Thought They Had Been
Slandered in an Official Report.

MONTREAL, Que, Oct. lin his report
on the sanitary condition of Three Rivers.
which appears in the abstract of sanitary
reports, the official organ of the United
States Marine Hospital Service. Consul
Smith says:
The town Is built on a sandy peninsula of
slight elevation and there are few sewers
cutters and no paved streets, 1t Is almost wholly
dependent on the immediate thirst OF the soil for
cottages of not more than three rooms each,
without yards, and banked up to the windOws'
siils with sand. Seven persons and pig. which
family. The simple truth is that in spite
OF surroundings. which, but for the high
latitude OF the town and the busy industry
of that enterprising scavenger the horse-fiy,
pestlence might come at any tlme Nothing
Is being done to stay the coming of the cholera
The Greeks thought amounting with Oil o
prOphylactic, but as defense against both dis
ease and cold the French Canadian pins his faith
70 a crustaceOus fntegument Indeed. / have
sometimes thought that they, like Hind0O fakirs,
believed in the holiness of dirt. If emaciation
and pallor can be accepted as the evidence of in
nutrition, large proportion or the people 80
hungry every night In the year.
Ii seemed next to impossible for the author
tiles TO realize that IL the city was to be pro-
tected from the plague it was they and not the
clergy who were to be the means of saving it.
The long habit OF attributing pestience to divine
wrath, and looking TO the church for deliver
ance, appeared to hold them in its fatal SPELL
But the bishop. who practically rules the com
munity, lntnated TO them that eternal vigilance
Is the price of safety in time as well as eternity
and, in emergencies. action is prayer. When the
board of health did set TO work Ii simply tore up
streets that had been receiving the slops OF the
town for two hundred years, so that If, by any
chance, the citizens escaped cholera in october,
they might die of typhoid in November
The board of health on receiving this re-
port at once took action and passed q series
of resolutions DENYING the charges and
protesting against it's insulting style.
Copies OF these resolutions were sent TO the
United States cOusul-general at Montreal
and to the Dominion Secretary of State.
The city Council met Saturday afternoon
and passed similar resolutions. The citi.
zens generally are highly Incensed at the
consul.
Early Saturday morning q number Of
stones were thrown at the oonsuis resi-
dence and some of the windows broken.
The police were summoned, and further
violence was averted. The row broke ont
again late Saturday night, while the con-
sui was In bed. The mob numbered 1000.
As soon as the first attack was made Con-
sui Smith strongly barricaded every en-
trance and succeeded In Keeping the mob
ont. but q shower of stones smashed every
window in his residence The entire police
was sent to the rescue and dispersed the
mob. which gathered again on the public
square and burned Colonel Smith in eff gy
In tho early morning, again another attack
was made on the house, but a strong cor
don of police surrounded It, and their in-
tended victim escaped. The French Cana
dian press all over the province has taken
the matter up, and Consul Smiths recall is
pereInptorily demanded. Consul Nicholas
Smith is married TO o daughter of Horace
Greeley. He was appointed to the consul
ate at Three Rivers In 1859.