Editorially speaking...
In place of an editorial this week, a postscript to the story of the tragic Jamiesons whose curse also claimed the lives of numerous others, among them passengers of the various riverboats the brothers commanded.
Perhaps the most colourful of these was Count Paul de Garro who, with his black retriever, boarded the S.S. Cariboo in Victoria’s Inner Harbour, only to be among those killed when the paddlewheeler exploded off Shoal Point, minutes after leaving her dock.
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Once, he’d known known fame and fortune. But the fiery Frenchman with the sad face who waited on tables in a Victoria restaurant knew only sorrow and tragedy in his last years. Count Paul de Garro, he proudly announced himself to patrons; to address him as “garcon” was a deadly insult.
Few liked the haughty waiter who treated customers with disdain, and it was common sport among young men about town to torment de Garro until he los this temper. Journalist D.W. Higgins liked him, however, “with all his brusqueness...although a sight of his long, melancholy face often threw me into a fit of the blues.”
De Garro landed in Victoria in 1856 and published its first newspaper, the ill-fated Catholic weekly La Courier de la Caledonie. The Courier foundered almost immediately and, by 1860, de Garro was waiting on tables. One slack evening, the sad little waiter told Higgins of his past.
His family, he said, had been among the most prominent of France but with the regime of Napoleon III their vast estates had been seized and the young count had journeyed to Paris to study medicine.
There, he met the beautiful Estelle. “I loved her when I first saw her and she loved me... We were so happy we could have died for each other,” he sighed.
Then had come the brief Paris uprising against Napoleon’s proclamation as emperor. There had been a brief fight, a charge of sword-wielding cavalry, and the breastworks were overrun. Just before he was struck down, de Garro saw Estelle fall.
With 100s of others he was exiled and made his way to California. “From there I came her,” he said, his voice rising. “I live with only one purpose—to return to France one day and strike down Louis Napoleon. When Estelle shall have been avenged I will be happy.”
Shortly after his conversation with Higgins, de Garro decided to try his luck in the Cariboo goldfields. Higgins saw him and his sole companion, a large black retriever, aboard the steamer Cariboo on the eve of her sailing on her second voyage to the Fraser River.
Minutes after leaving the dock, her boiler exploded. Among the dead was Count Paul de Garro. His dog survived and when would-be rescuers attempted to recover de Garro’s body from the Cariboo’s smouldering hulk, it stood guard over its deceased master and finally had to be forcibly removed.
For days after being taken ashore, the dog roamed the docks in search of de Garro. Years later, pioneers spoke of the eerie howling of a large black dog that was spotted from time to time as it prowled the muddy, gas-lit streets of the Victoria waterfront.
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