The Ottawa Free Trader

(From the Quebec Gazette, Sept. 22d.)

Four lives lost by Suffocation at the bottom of a Well.--It has seldom fallen to our lot to record a more melancholy accident than that which occurred at the Canardiere yesterday, whereby, four fellow-creatures, in all the vigor of health and strength, were hurried into eternity.

From the information we have obtained, it appears that a laborer of the name of Delair, who resided in St. John's Suburbs, was employed by Captain Julien, R. N., to clean out and deepen a well that was on his premises. He had been engaged in this employment for some days, going down and returning out of the well, without experiencing any inconvenience, till the afternoon of yesterday, when, as he was descending, he was observed to lose hold of the rope and fall to the bottom. Mr. Julien's youngest son observing him thus to fall, immediately gave the alarm, and without a moment's delay or consideration, descended and met with the same fate. The alarm, was then given to the neighborhood that two men were lying at the bottom of the well, and among those that soon arrived on the spot were I. N. Jones, Esq., and one of his men named Shields. The latter, without the least hesitation, offered to go down to rescue his fellow-men; indeed such was his eagerness, that when one of the by-standers proposed to tie a rope round him, he could not be prevailed on to stop till this was done--fatal precipitancy! He had not descended five or six feet, when he was observed to quit the rope and fall. By this time the feelings of the by-standers were wrought up to the highest pitch; and had not Mr. Jones been forcibly held back by Mr. Julien's servant girl and one or two others, he no doubt would have shared the same fate as the three that had already suffered.

But for all this, another victim, named Matthew, with a fatality that seems most extraordinary, attempted the rescue: and like those who had made a similar attempt, he met with the same fate, and fell above the other three. By this time means were provided, without risking the lives of any more, to take the bodies of the four unfortunate men out of the well; But when they were brought up, life was extinct in the whole of them. Shields and Delair were both married men. The former had a wife and a large family to mourn his untimely loss. We have not heard whether the other has left any children or not.