100 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

£2,000 towards the Patriotic Fund, in support of widows and orphans of soldiers and sailors, who fell during the Russian war ; with their generous sympathy, thus evinced by the people’s representatives, the Governor expressed great satisfaction.

In the month of March a serious disaster occurred to the ice boats while crossing from Cape Tormentine to Cape Traverse. The boats left Tormentine with their usual crew and three passengers, two of whom were Messers. Johnson and Haszard, medical students, returning from college, and a Mr. Wier, of Bangor, Maine. When within half a mile of the Island shore a severe snow storm was encountered, against which it was impossible to make any headway. After a con- sultation the boat was turned bottom up as a protection from the cold and fury of the storm. They drifted about for two days and nights, but on the morning of the third day, the storm having abated, they observed the Nova Scotia shore a few miles off, towards which they began to move the boat. But not having tasted food for three days, they had become weak and exhausted and were about giving up further efforts, when they resolved to kill a small dog which had accompanied them, and of necessity the passengers and crew drank the blood and ate the flesh. Being revived a little, they continued moving towards the shore, but on the evening of the fourth day poor young Haszard died. The survivors, after suffering the hardships and exposures of the Straits for the fourth night, landed with the body of poor Haszard and all the mails, at a point near Wallace, Nova Scotia, at a distance of two miles from the nearest dwelling, this in time they reached, where they were most hospitably received and kindly cared for. Being much frost-bitten they remained there until able to be removed to their own homes later in the spring.

About thirty military pensioners arrived in Charlottetown from Newfoundland in May, and were employed by the Gov- ernment as a local military force taking up their quarters in the deserted Barracks, under the command of Major of Militia, their uniform was of green cloth with black facings, while their arms consisted of short rifles and swords. This celebrated corps known as the “Ragged Regiment” served for a few months only, when they were disbanded.

An Act for the incorporation of Charlottetown having been passed by the Legislature during its last session, an election