The phonograph didn't drive MacDonald mad - blazes had already done it!

Here's a story about William MacDonald, cigarette king of Montreal. He lived next door to McGill Principal William Peterson at the Prince of Wales Terrace at Peel and Sherbrooke - which was demolished in 1971 for that dreadful concrete Bronfman Building thing there now.
   According to Andrew Collard, Peterson had one of the first record players in the city and played it for some of his neighbours, including the cigarette magnate William MacDonald who was..ahem.. a lifelong bachelor.

Principal Peterson naturally thought Macdonald would be interested in hearing a gramophone, certainly an advance in scientific invention. Macdonald sat and listened for a few minutes. His reaction, when it came, was scarcely expected.
"I don't like it, Peterson!" he exclaimed. "I don't like it at all! It's uncanny!" Macdonald reached for his hat and at once left for his house next door.

   Collard dates this episode as 1895. But something else happened in 1895 that would have seriously bugged the cigarette king, explaining his weird behaviour. His cigarette factory on Ontario Street burned with plenty o' carnage. Deaths aplenty, young girls launching themselves out their windows to get out of the fire. So far only real report I have on it is the little article to the left, click away.