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eye of Dr. Schofield, who, it is needless to remark, was a physician of the highest character, and a gentleman with the most scrupulous regard for truth. We give the account in his own words : “Various are the ways by which drinking people are brought to their death. Some die lingering ; some commit suicide; some are executed; some die by violence ; some are drowned, some frozen, or burned up. This last instance being more than ordinary terrific, a few observations upon it may not be uninteresting. “It is well authenticated, that many habitual drinkers of ardent spirits are brought to their end by what is called ‘spontaneous combustion.’ By ‘spontaneous combustion,’ I mean, when a person takes on fire, as by an electric shock, and burns up without any external application. Trotter mentions several such instances. One happened under my . own observation. It was the case of a young man about twenty-five years old ; he had been an habitual drinker for many years, I saw him about nine o clock in the evening on which it happened; he was then, as usual, not drunk, but full of liquor. About eleven, the same evening, I was called to see him. I found him literally roasted, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He was discovered in a blacksmith’s shop, just across the way from where he had been. The owner of the shop, all of a sudden, discovered a bright light in his shop, as though the whole building was in a general flame. He ran with the greatest precipitancy, and, on flinging open the door, discovered the man standing erect in the midst of a widely extended, silver colored blaze, bearing, as he described it, exactly the appearance of the wick of a burning candle in The blacksmith seized him by the shoulder, and jerked him to the door, upon which the flame was instantly extinguished. There was no fire in the shop, neither was there any possibility of fire having been communicated to him from any external source. It was purely a case of A general sloughing soon came on, and his flesh was consumed or removed in the dressing, leaving the bones and a few of the larger blood vessels standing. The blood, nevertheless, rallied around the heart, and maintained the vital spark until the thirteenth day, when he died, not only the most noisome, ill-featured, and dreadful picture that was ever presented to human view, but his shrieks, his cries and lamentations, Were enough to rend the heart of adamant. He complained of no pain of body—his flesh was gone ; he said he was suffering the torments of hell; that he was just upon its threshold, and should soon the midst of its own flame. spontaneous ignition. enter its dismal caverns; and, in this frame of mind, gave up the ghost.” ; For many years the process of constructing roads was very laborious, the main roads being first marked by blazing trees; then the boughs were trimmed off, so that persons on horseback might ride through ; in time a winter road was made, and finally a wagon road built. The late Sheriff Sherwood says in his memoir: “I recollect when the King’s highway was established from the Provincial line to Kingston; the line was run by a surveyor named Ponair, with a surveyor under his direction by the name of Joseph Kilborne, The distance from the Provincial line to my father’s farm three miles, below Brockville, was ninety-five miles; and from Brockville to the fort, this side of Kingston, fifty miles. At the end of each mile was planted a red cedar post, marked on it the number of miles from the Province line. This line of road was made some years after the first settlement, but I have forgotten the year.”’ The oldest cemetery in Brockville was in the front yard of the premises at present occupied by KR. P, Cooke, Esq., at the east end of the town. In consequence of the wife of Col. Butler declaring that the place was haunted, the bodies were exhumed, and removed to another resting place. The following account, written in 1846, is preserved, of the arrival of Governor Simcoe in Upper Canada, in 1792. “But one house remains in Johnstown in its original proportions. It is built in the Dutch style, with sharp-pointed roof and curious gables. This house was framed of oak, and, considering that it had been drawn from lot to lot, until it had traveled almost the entire extent of the Johnstown Bay, within the last half century, it certainly is a remarkIt is now a hostelrie, with the sign, ‘Live, and let live—St. Johns Hall—Peace and plenty to all mankind. In this house, Governor Simcoe held his first levee, on his arrival in Upper Canada. When the Governor cast his eye over the curving bay, he beheld the sparkling river and the dilapidated old French fort, built during the French ascendancy. The house stood on a point of land formed by the bay and a small stream which passes from the north westward, called formerly by the French, ‘ Riviere de la Vielle Culotte, which, being translated, means, ‘ O/d Breeches River.’ ‘At the time the gentry of the Johnstown District collected, looking spruce, though weather-beaten, in their low-tasselled boots, their queer old broadskirted military coats, and looped chapeaux, with parture of the Governor, in a birch bark canoe, for jö ps ér" a
