Winchester Republican

Extraordinary Escape. Last Wednesday night a chief in the village of the Lake of the Two Mountains, (says the Montreal Herald of July 28,) when going to bed, incautiously stuck a lighted candle against the wainscot of a garret where he and his household, amounting to 18 persons, had retired to rest. After some time, the tallow by which the candle adhered, melting, it fell down, unfortunately into a basket where there was a bag containing about 84 pounds of gun powder. The consequence was an immediate explosion, which blew off the roof, rent away the sides, and, in a word reduced the house to splinters. By such an accident, one would expect, that many were killed and wounded; but it was quite the reverse; for not a single person, though all were blown out of an upper story to the distance of 30 yards, was injured materially. The chief whose name is Jacob Commandant, alighted on his feet in a canoe on the beach, through which his legs penetrated as far as the ankles and held him fast, as it were in the stocks. There he was found by some of the inhabitants, in inexpressible terror, imagining his situation to have proceeded from some malicious demon, whose exit and entrance had destroyed his house. A child was sleeping with its head near the basket, suffered no other hurt than having its hair singed; and to crown all, a leathern bag containing 3 pounds more of gunpowder and lying in the same basket was found near the house unexploded.