House Attacked

Last week, less than a month after stormy Camillien Houde was elected mayor of Montreal, came a move to oust him from his $10,000-a-year job. One Leo Dore, identified only as a truck driver and obviously acting for someone else, filed a petition in superior court to have Mayor Houde's election annulled.

The chief charges: 1) Houde had bribed his way into office; 2) he had bet on the election; 3) he was ineligible because he had not been a resident of Montreal for the required three years before election day (Houde was in internment camp for four years, until last August, for urging Quebeckers not to register for national selective service). Justice Louis Cousineau ordered the Mayor to defend himself in court.

Whoever Mayor Houde's antagonists were, they would need plenty of proof to back their charges, plenty of energy to make them stick. Hardly anyone doubted that Houde, wily in the ways of politics, would be able to wriggle free. Montreal, long used to political free-for-alls, sat back to watch the fun.

The Mayor, unperturbed, went skating. On an open-air rink in eastern Montreal, cavorting youngsters saw his portly honor. He was swathed in sweaters and wore a ceinture flechee around his waist (see cut), and his outsize nose was empurpled with the cold as he skillfully performed the figures he had learned during idle hours in the New Brunswick internment camp.

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