NEW ORLEANS. - The New Orleans papers mention, that
a great riot, accompanied with bloodshed and murder,
took place on the 21st March, among the labourers on
the canal on the Matairie road. A gang of Corkonians,
as the New Orleans Advertiser calls them, headed by a
man named Allaher, attacked with guns, pistols, swords
and other weapons, a company of workmen, united
Irishmen, in their shantees [shanties?], engaged in
excavating the canal. Several of the assailed were
killed and some wounded. The cause of the riot, it is
said, was that Allaher had been underbid in the contract
for digging the canal. The Mayor of New Orleans, on the
23d, sent out Captain Bonseigneur with eighty men to the
scene of the disorder. He returned with twenty of the
rioters, who are secured in jail. Resistance was offered
by them, whereupon an engagement took place in which they
were compelled to surrender the prisoners at discretion.
None of the guards were wounded with the exception of
one man, who was but slightly injured.
Transcriber's Note Written by James Tuff:- Shanties - Plural
of the word shanty meaning a roughly built or ramshackle cabin;
a shack. [19th century (originally American, often used of
houses
of Irish immigrants): perhaps from Irish sean tig, "old
house": sean, old + tig, house, from Old Irish tech.]
