THE DEATH TOLL OF NIAGARA.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 342, 13 February 1889, Page 6

THE DEATH TOLL OF NIAGARA.

The other night a stranger arrived at a railway station near Niagara Falls, and, afte r seeing to his baggage, put the barrel of a revolvor well into his mouth and shot himself dead. Tho affair was wrapt in nnstery for some days, when, through the discovery of certain papers, it was found that the unknown had travelled toNiagaia from Toronto to commit suicide. Two days before he had brought a bride from Toionto, mariicd her at Niagaia, taken her back to Toronto, and returned to the Falls to put an end to his life, evidently drawn there by the terrible fascination which the cataract has upon the morbid and tho mentally distressed. The intending suicide who carries a pistol to Kiagnra i& like the man who takos cnals to Newcastle, but the whim will inteiest students of psychology. The man no doubt tl'ought that if the bullet 1 ailed him the Falls were at his disposal. Apropos of the strange fascination which Miagara has for the suicide, we print the following commnni cation which has been sent to us by a correspondent: — C-tn you amuse yourself at Niagara in November? O.io had wandered tluough the mazes of Goat Island unlil the spirit was weary and oppressed. No sun, no life. The gloom of November was upon everything. Thus contemplating, a muffled man approached. ' You are intcro?ted in suicides' said the old man, in a qua\eiing \oice ; ' then come {his way,' and I followed him to the centic of a wooden bridge, which links two of the Sisters together. He stopped short in the middle, a d bade me look down upon the fierce turmoil beneath. ' You see this newly- maae cut,' putting his forefinger on a blaze on tho hand rail. 'This is the spot from which the last suicide took his fatal leap. I know not what induced it. All we found was an oveicoat lying her >, and the man's last testament written in pencil on the rail. Cheerfully he left his hotel in the morning after breakfast, and the last that was seen of him was the blue vapour of his cigar as he leaned o<* er the bjidge and watched the foaming waters rushing below him, sparkling in the morning sun, and waiting till the bridge was empty. That night he obeyed not the call of supper, and then they began to wonder. Three days cam?, and three days passed. On the morning of the fourth day a leg was washed up on the shore of the whiilpool. Later, its companion was delivered from the troubled waters, Mhich at last gave up the trunk. The three were put together wifh reverent hands and sent to the dead man's home, which was known from the writing- on the bridge. You look for ifc in vain ; a friendly hand has washed it out, and this is all there is to tell the tale.' And then he asked if Mr Augustus Harris of Drury Lane Theatre, in London, had ever put Niagar i upon the stage, and when I told him, l Iso,' he marvelled greatly, for he had heard much of our lust for realism. The old man then led me off the bridge and took me to another spot, just over the Cave of the Winds, which, as I said, was locked up for winter. ' One bright summer morning,' he said, ' a newly wedded bride and her husband came to this spot together arm in arm. Ho was loving, she was receptive. Ttie gentleman returned alone with astiange stoiy. His wife thirsted for the cooling waters, and stooped to drink. She stoopGd too far and tumbled in. I should like to know,' mumbled this awful old man, ' whether she was pushed in. This is a fine place to get iid of a tcife.' Then I was taken to Luna Island, not far away, the scene of anothor ' horrible tragedy,' as your papeis have it. One bright autumn afternoon two men were se^n in one of those light machines called ' buggies ' crossing to Goat Island. They were brothers-in-law. Late in the evening, some straggler who happened to roam that way found the horse and buggy tethered to a tree. An alarm was called, and by the light of a lintern one of the men was discovered on tho adjacent island dead, Iving in a pool of his own blood, shot through the heart. Where was the other? Da\s afterwards he was found with the life crushed out of him on the rocks below the Falls. Which had killed the other? Was it the drowned man who had first slain his brother, and, overtaken by remorse, plunged into the waters? Had the man who was phot hurled his brother into the torient and then taken his own life ? ' God knows,' said the priestlike old man, with the sigh interrogative. 'It is one of our conundrums.' | A father brought his litfc'e daughter to see the brave sight. In his aims he lifted her up and danced her o\er the raging waters to delight her. In her excitement ?he slipped, and was engulphed. One biief gasp, and the father too went to his death. 'In winter,' continued the old man, 'Niagara is beautiful, for below the Falls the waters are frozen, and great snow mountains are raised up. One day last year, if I remember aright, a man bolder than the rest climbed up to the summit of one of these, missed his footing and fell, Heaven knows how many feet, down into the crevasse. For days the crowd came to gaze upon the horrible black spot which could just be discerned on the white shroud of snow. Then Mr Welch, who is the master of Nhgara, determined to bury the fearful object, which had become a source of danger to thousands of morbid sightseers. At rUk of life and limb, now despairing, then hopeful, for days they laboured, and at length tunnelled thiough the ice mountain, mid gave the frozen clay a resting place elsewhere.' And so the old man crooned on, bravely telling of many a mad adventure and hairbreadth escape — of reckless spirits who dared the fearful Genius of Niagara, teasing him as the foolish urchins did Elisha. The old Indian legend says that every year Niagara claims three victim*. In clays gone by, the stn\v goes, the Indian maidens were launched over the white waters in a canoe, and met their death in the foam below. Before Christmas they &ay that the Genius of Niagara will get his due. — f Pall Mall Budget.'