The Cordova daily times., 1923-04-06
ST. PIERRE NOW
 OFFICIAL HAVEN
 OF RUM FLEETS
Pride of French New World," Is Port of
 Bootleggers STATUS SLOWLY WAIVED
Miouelons Awarded to France, Was Deprived
 of Fishing Rights

ST. PIERRE, Miquelons, April 6. The Mukuelons, a minute island and group off the southern coast of Newfoundland, one-time proudest rossession of France in the New World, are again coming into their own. Headlines in the daily papers again mention the tiny group-put for a sadly different reason than was their cld-time fame.
 Practically every rum runner cap turad off the American coast today shows on it's clearance papers that St. Pierre, Miquelon, is it's "official destination and yet the world hardly knows of the existence of the little archipelago.
 Was Once Leading Port
 Forty years ago St. Pierre, capital of the islands, was the leading fish ing port of the world. Today it is a striving little parish clinging des- perately to the customs of old fTduCe. It lo ci Sl"y ''iA"SS' "A' a glorious past and no apparent fu- ture A quarter of the houses are vacant, and the quays, once thronged with vessels whose yardarms inter- locked, now have but sprinkling of ships, even at the height of the fishing season.
 L,,ff fnto toI nh the struggle between France and England for supremacy in the New World, the Miquelons are today pay ing the price for allegiance to the vanquished. The Miquleons, after Canada was ceded to victorious Brit ain, were returned to France as consolation prize" the little islands to serve as a base on this side of the Atlantic for the great fishing industry built up by the French.
 The Miquelon Archipelago con sists of Grand Miquelon, some 12 miles long by six wide;' Petite Mi quelon or Longlade, a trifle smaller, anu Sl. TleIIe, ouly oeFoH Hiiioo oJ two. In addition, there are num- her of tiny rocky islets of little inn portance. St. Pierre, though the smallest of the three major islands, has always been the center of pop ulation because of it's harbor. In its heyday the little town was GOV cred with handsome residences, and there was a social life that made St. Pierre miniature Paris.
 Fishing Trade Ruined
 But the Miquelons' prosperity and gayety were cut short by prosalc "factor-bait" Affairs of Empire in 1904 moved statesmen in Paris to sell the French treaty right to catch small fish on the Newfoundland coast for some millions of francs and territory in Africa. The Newfound- land fishermen, long jealous of their French rivals, seized their chance and jammed through the Bait act" which prohibited the sale of bait to alien vessels, and thus did the Mi quelons wane.
 The picture today is sad one. The population has dropped from 6000 to less than 3,000 and the thousands of fishermen who thronged the streets of St. Pierre in the fish ing season are missing. And yet de- spite misfortune the tiny village struggles valiantly on, clinging to the remnants of the past.
 A visitor stepping ashore at St. Pierre enters France as truly as though he were disembarking at Calais or Bordeaux. The language of the populace is surprisingly pure and free from patois. Wooden houses, with characteristic French windows and roofs, line the streets. Natives chatter back and forth in wooden-soled shoes. Huckster chill Giren, quaintly dressed, peddle strings of cod tongues from little wagons drawn by patient dogs. On every hand are shrines testifying to the religious nature of the Miquelaise.
 And this is the picture of the Miquelons, one time most famous fishing center of the world-today the official destination" of rum runners.