The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1888. WINDY WELLINGTON.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1745, 20 January 1888, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1888. WINDY WELLINGTON.

Although, to our own experience and knowledge, Ashburton can do a little m the way of " raising the wind " — in he literal and not figurative sense of course, the latter m these times is out of the question altogether — yet if the yarns ot old identities are to be taken toithout salt, there is a sad falling off m our climatic or meteorological capacities. For we have been told that m dat s gone by people had to anchor their houses down, and that "Colonial Palaces" drifted before the fierce noi'westers like feathers, and were strewn like sentry-boxes all along the VVakanui road ; that ploughed fields were stripped of their soil, many inches deep, and that, fences were easily ridden over by means of the earth banked up against them, and much more of the same sort. It blows now occasionally rather more than a trifle, but our proud pre-eminence m this way has gone, unregretted perhaps., but gone unmistakably. Yet the glory has i not wholly departed from Israel, it has only charged its location, and now rests with great splendour upon the regions round about the Empire City, or, to be more precise, a few milss north of it, the exact locality being Pigeon Bush, a charming little spot m the neighborhood of Featherston. There rude Boreas (is it Boreas by-the-bye ? well we don't know from what precise " airt the win' doth biaw") but anyhow, a wind of some kind and undoubiedly of unmistakable < rudeness, has !#MerUy been playing up the most extraordinary prapkg, selecting as its favorite shuttle- cocks such email deer as railway carriages and hurling them about like mere unconsid,ered trifles. When it comes to picking up trucks loaded down with the very respectable weight of 5 tons each, and, worse still, passenger traini with their living freight, and sending them bolui bolus off the rail?, things are .

getting to a pitch of liveliness that may | very fittingly be described as deadly. I We could understand a violent gust, j pouring down one of those funnel-like gorges on the Rimutaka, sending a railway train or anything else spinning down to the depths below, but though, this has been done,, its recurrence has been guarded against by a solid protecting fence of heavy timber oln both sides, but what is be done when on apiece of level line m tolerably, open country, it is necessary to guard -against a travelling train being literally blown away, we don't know. AH we do know is that when we next have to travel northwards from the Empire City, we shall go by steamer if we can, and if noi| then we shall try to pick out a calm day for our journey. By-the-bye it may be added that the windjne&s of Wellington is proverbial and with a cause, for though it has recently taken a fresh development, instances of its well-known characteristic are histori cal. For example, the " Evening Press " has just cited a case m point, which occurred so loqgago ago as lß43* when, are told, a ; flat-bottomed boat lying on the beach at Te Aro was lifted up bodily by a gust of wind and carried along m the air like a balloon for some distance, when it was dropped exactly .opposite the Ship Hotel, and fell upon a lady who was passing, with a fatal result. Things must have been bad enough then, aearly fifty years ago, but if they go on as they have been doing lately nobody will know when he may not have a big locomotive under full steam hurled through his dining-room window. We used to grumble at a few loads of shingle being pelted at us, but it is evident that We are well off as compared with the unfortunate folks who reside m the sylvan and otherwise pleasant regions of Feather ston. Let us be thankful for small mercies.