NEWS BY THE MAIL.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 28, 2 July 1874, Page 3

NEWS BY THE MAIL.

From files to hand by the Wellington yesterday we make the following extracts : FLOODS IN MASSACHUSETTS. The floods in Massachusetts, of which only brief mention was made in a recent telegram, have proved to be most serious. The most terrible disaster in the annals of the history of Massachusetts (says the " Alta" of May 27th), occurred in Hampshire County on Saturday! The Williamsburg reservoir, covering a tract of over one hundred acres, gave way early in the forenoon, precipitating the vast mass of water it contained three miles down a steep and narrow valley into the thriving manufacturing village of Williamsburg, and thence further down the valley, through the villages of Haydenville, Leeds, and Florence, into the Northampton Meadows, where the stream empties into the Connecticut river. The huge torrent, dashing into Williamsburg with resistless power, swept away in a moment the manufacturing establishments and numbers of dwellings, causing enormous destruction of property and terrible loss of human life. The lower villages suffered only less awfully. The reservoir which burst was a wall of masonry five feet at the thickest, backed and faced with fitty feet of earth. It was twentyfive feet in depth and four hundred and fifty feet long. Behind it was a lake of one hundred and four acres, holding three million

tons of water. On Friday night last it rained hard. At half-past seven on Saturday morniii.fr, Cheney, one of the dam watchers, was in Trout, of his dam when lie saw in the east branch a spurt of water, near the base. In a moment he turned to his barn, jumped on his mar;.', and ran her for dear life down the, road to Williamsburg, lie looked back once, and saw that out of an enormous breach in the earth and masonry a torrout of water had burst into the air. There was no dam. there was nothing to be seen but the front of a huge:, rolling wave? which was carrying on its very crest the great stone blocks of the wall, and dashing them down the steep incline of the valley. The speed of this torrent increased every moment, but Cheney was gone, riding recklessly over the stoney and muddy roads to give the warning where fifty homes were in the direct path of the flood. He went over the terrible two and a half miles at so rapid a pace that in ten minutes he was crying and yelling like a madman among the cottages of Williamsburg, " The dam ! The dam is burst; get up to the high ground, the water is coming." It had come. Ten minutes was full enough for that mountain of water going down a decline of one foot in six to reach the first victims. There they stood, pretty white cottages in rows and rectangles on the Hats. The gorge had been narrow above, and a thirty foot moving wall of water and limestone rock uudistinguishable were upon them, over them, and spread out upon the plain, roaring like the crash of near thunder and tumbling down the frightened valley at twenty miles an hour. Those who were safe before the news came escaped ; for the rest they took the chances of the flood. Some clung to their houses, but houses were mere toys of paper, swept like feathers here and there, piled one upon the other, upset, spun round, lifted bodily and broken in twain against the trees, lifted into the air and ground to splinters between the ilood, beaten and buffeted und tossed adrift, with all that was human in them, shaken into the terrible railway speed of the deluge of timbers, and quartz rocks, and water. Some fled, and were overwhelmed before the eyes of their friends; some went mad, and rode the deluge down the valley shrieking, Here and there one could be seen sitting upon the roof of his shaking house, aud clinging to it as the billows struck it. Of these last, one or two escaped by the sudden staying of the waves. It was all over in a short half hour, and the waste had gone down the valley not unheralded entirely. An hour from the alarm at Williamsburg the waters had done their work, and in half an hour more had lost their power ; 120 buildings are destroyed, hundreds of acres covered with stone and mud. No one has attempted to estimate the loss in money. As for human life, to-night 90 bodies in all have been found, and squads of men here and there through the valley are looking for the missing. Scarcely a trace has been left of the removed habitations, so completely had the torrent ploughed up the ground in all directions. Happily, says the " New York Tribune," the details of the terrific disaster in Hampshire County, Mass, which are made known to our readers this morning, do not confirm the wild rumours which at first arose, though the loss of life and destruction of property are both very great. One hundred and fortyfive persons are believed to have perished, and 10,000,0000 dollars of property to have been swept away, and from 300 to 400 families have been rendered homeless. To add to the general confusion and distress, thieves and rough characters from neighbouring cities, and even from New York and Boston, have poured in, eager for plunder. But the ruined communities are the first to take measures for their own succour. Temporary relief committees have been organised and have gone actively to work. The number of lives lost by the Mill Kivcr accident can now be fixed with practical certainty at 145, and the value of the properly destroyed at 1,000,000 dollars. Practically nothing will be saved from the vast quantities of valuable machinery, costly stores, and manufactured products. All day long this ghastly wound in one of the fairest valleys of Massachusetts, has been explored and probed by searchers looking for the bodierof the lost and loved. All day the exhumation and interment has been going on. The labors ot a large force will be required for weeks to search thoroughly the debris covering the meadows. So intimately, however, were the villagers known to each other that it will not be necessary to prosecute the search for bodies much longer, nearly all the missing being already accounted for. The supply of coffins was exhausted early in the day, and two bodies, which were found after there were no more to be had, were laid under a tattered coverlet in an open express waggon, and so driven through the streets of Williamsburg. Long lists of the dead are published in the New York journals. The more one sees of the scene, the more desolate it appears, says the writer. Nearly every tree in the course of the torrent is filled with shreds of clothing, which the cruel branches stripped from the helpless people whom the flood swept by, and the trees themselves are stripped by the torrent of their bark, and from trunk to twig are left as naked and white and scathed as the corpses of those they crushed and bruised. THE FLOGGING OF THE BRITISH CONSUL AT GUATEMALA. A long account appears in the " Panama Star and Herald " of the above transaction. Strong personal dislike is the only excuse alleged for the conduct of the Commandant in this brutal affair. Mr Magee, as H. B. M.'s Vice-Consul, invoked the protection of his flag, but without effect. Mr James, the Consular Agent of the United States, then prepared a protest in the name of his Government, and under the Consular seal, protesting against the proceeding, aud, at 4 o'clock, just as Magee was about to receive the lashes, he formally presented it; but the Commandant refused to receive it; and announced that he would not only flog Mr Magee, but would shoot him at 8 a.m. the following day, and that he would then serve the representatives of the United States and every foreigner in like manner. At this point the surgeon of the port begged that the Commandant would reconsider the matter, as 400 stripes was more than any mortal could bear, and would certainly kill Mr Magee. His reply, coupled with a vile epithet, was, "Let him die then," and ordered the soldiers to commence. Mr Magee was then partially stripped, and laid on the floor, three men being seated on his head and shoulders, and four men upon his feet, while two held each arm, and the flogging commenced. It was continued by four soldiers relieving each other at, every fifty lashes—the commandant keeping Jthe tally himself. By the time that 200 were

administered Mr Magcc became insensible. The order was then given to place him on a bed in an adjoining room, and let him revive, so that the other 200 might be administered iu the morning before shooting him. During the night he was visited repeatedly by the commandment, who placed the cold muzzle of his revolver, ready to discharge at his temples during each visit, accompanying the act with such remarks as' - Don't you think you have lived long enough .'" " Wouldn't you thank meto put you out of your misery ?" " 1 have ruined myself, and I'll put you under the sands before I am,' &c, Prior to administering the flogging, the Commandant, fearing that assistance might be brought from the capital through the friends of Mr Magec—seized upon the telegraph, confined the operator, and placed a guard over the office. During the night, aided by his soldiers, he broke info the business house of Mr Magee, and removed all the moneys from the safe and other valuables. It will be remembered that the Commandant was afterwards in his turn ordered to be first whipped and then shot. DR LIVINGSTONE. Mr Gordon Bennett, of the " New YorkHerald," has courteously sent to the papers the concluding portion of Dr Livingstone's letter. The following are extracts :—The whole of. my experience in Central Africa says that the negroes not yet spoiled by contract with the slave trade are distinguished for friendliness and good sound sense. Some can be guilty of great wickedness, and seem to think little about it ; others perform actions as unmistakeably good with no great self-complacency ; and, if one catalogued all the good deeds or all the bad ones he came across, he might think the men extremely good or excessively bad, instead of calling them, like ourselves, curious compounds of good and evil. On one point they arc remarkable, they are honest. Another widespread trait of character is a trusting disposition. The Central African tribes arc the antipodes to some of the North American Indians, and very unlike many of their own countrymen who have come into contact with Mahommedans and Portuguese and Dutch Christians. They at once perceive the superiority of the strangers in power of mischief and readily liston .to and ponder over friendly advice. It is a sad pity that our good " Bishop of Central Africa,' albeit ordained in Westminster Abbey, preferred the advice of a colonel in the army to remain at Zanzibar, rather than proceed into his diocese andjtake advantage of the friendliness of the still unspoiled interior tribes to spread our faith. The Catholic missionaries latoly sent from Rugland to Maryland to convert the negroes might have obtained the advice of half-a-dozen army colonels to remain at New York, or even at London. But their answer, if they have any Irish blood in them, might have been —" Take your advice and yourselves off to the battle of Dorking, we will fight our own fight." The venerable Archbishop of Baltimore told these brethren that they would get " chills and fever," but he did not add —" When you do get the ' shivers,' then take to your heels, my hearties." When any of the missionaries at Zanzibar get chills and fever they have a nice pleasure trip in a man-of-war to the Seychelles Islands. The good men deserve it, of course, and no one would grudge to save their precious lives. But human nature is frail. Zanzibar is much more unhealthy than the mainland ; and the Government, by placing men-of-war at the disposal of these brethren, though meaning to help them in their work, virtually aids them to keep out of it. Some eight years have roiled on, and good Christian people have contributed their money annually for Central Africa ; and the " Central African Diocese" is occupied only by the lord of all evil. It is with a sore heart I say it ; but recent events have shown that those who have so long been playing at being missionaries, and peeping across from tho sickly island to their diocese on the mainland with telescopes, might have been turned to far better account. After a hit at some missionaries who poach in one another's preserves, the Doctor proceeds:—A similar instance of manners occurred at Honolulu a few years ago. Mr Ellis, the venerable apostle of the Malagassie, was working at Honolulu towards the beginning of this century, when some American Presbyterian missionaries appeared searching for a sphere of labour. Mr Ellis at once gave up his dwelliug, church, school and printing press to them, and went to work elsewhere. The Americans have laboured most devotedly and successfully in Ovvhee, as Captain Cook called it, ever since, and by them education and Christianity were diffused over the whole Sandwich group. But it lately appeared that the converted islanders wanted an Episcopalian bishop, and a bishop they got who in sheer lack of good breeding went about Honolulu with a great paper cap on his head, ignoring his American brethren, whose success showed them to be of the true Apostolic stamp, and declaring that he —the novice—was the only bishop, the only true bishop, and no mistake. Of all moral men missionaries and missionary bishops ought manifestly to be true gentlemen, and it docs feel uncomfortably strange to see our dearly-beloved brethren entering into their neighbour's folds, built up by the toils of half a century, and being guilty of conduet through mere non-consideration that litis an affinity to sheep-stealing. This continent must be civilised from within outwards, and tho missionaries who will undertake the work must possess a good deal of Robinson Crusoe spirit. Men have felt perfectly willing to sacrifice everything, even their lives, for the sake of the Gospel before they left home ; but, as in one gallant officer's case, I witnessed, be tempted to despair on breaking the photograph of his' wife, or feel it to be an excruciating hardship to be without sugar for the tea. The boys who, on reading Mayne Reid's books, would like to be " castaways," have the ring of the true missionary metal. The only articles essentially necessary for a missionary of the Robinson Crusoe type that strikes me at present are a few light tools, a few books, clothes, soap, and shoes. The following finely written passage, which receives fresh interest from Dr Livingstone's death, closes the correspondence :—Having now been some six years out of the world, and most of my friends having apparently determined by their silence to impress me with the truth of the adage " out of sight out of mind," the dark suns of the slave trade had a most distressing and depressing iuflueuce. The power of the Prince of Darkness seemed enormous. It was only with a heavy heart I said, " Thy kingdom come." In one point of the view the evils that brood over this beautiful, country are insuperable. When J dropped among the Makalolo and others in

the central region I saw ;i fair prospect of regenerating Africa. More could have been done in the Makololo country than was done by •St Patrick in Ireland. But I did not know that I was surrounded by the Portugese slave trade—a blight like a curse from heaven that proved a barrier to all improvement. Now I am not so hopeful. I don't know how the wrong will become right, but the great and loving Father of all knows, and He will do according to His infinite wisdom. Commercial enterprise it seems, is daiiy bringing people geographically remote into close connection. The tendency of heathenism is towards isolation. When we got a iiuide to conduct us through the dense dark forests that often lie between districts he and others went on cheerily enough till within a few miles of the next human habitations, and nothing could induce them to go further, for fear, they said, of being killed and eaten. Kindly inviting us to lodge at their villages on our return they departed homewards. Arc there not vestiges of similar heathenism that linger in the passport system, in certain tariffs, and even in religious sectarian differences? Crotchety Christians seem not to know that the followers of Jesus, of whatever name, are incomparably superior in morality to Moslems, Buddhists, Brahmins, or any other pagans. Morbid zeal to appear impartial sometimes leads to the assertion that the morality of the Koran is nearly equal to that of the Gospel. It is conceded that at one time Musadad acted as a reformer in relation to idolatory, but his orders to murder Christians arc the " dead flies in the apothecaries' ointment;" and even the prophet was so ashamed of the immoral inj unction that he put the blame on the Angel Gabriel, and his followers continue to do the same. We arc enjoined to be humblo, and without doubt there is reason for a sober estimate of ourselves. Yet look at the Suez; Canal, the Pacific Railroad, the railways in India and Western Asia, the Mont Ccnis Tunnel, the proposed Euphrates Railway, and Canal of Panama ; telegraph lines everywhere, and steamships on every sea—all the work of Christians, and all combining to make the world one. The descendants of the Galileans are breaking down national prejudice faster than could St Francis Xavier or the most devoted professional missionaries. The influences brought to bear by one nation on another, though sometimes for evil,- are mainly for good. I look towards benevolent statesmen and the public press as more likely to stop this East Coast slave trade than any other agency. Statesmen have for many years appeared to me as missionaries of the first water. Formerly I took them to be what some still consider them, as anxious only for place and power—gentlemen, perhaps, but not over-scrupulous as to the means employed to gain their own selfish ends. I forbear mentioning the names of the living, but circumstances led to a more accurate knowledge of several the good Lord Palmcrston, for instance, who gave me a widely different impression. For fourteen years he labored unweariedly at what was really doing good on a large scale—the suppression of the slave trade on the West Coast of Africa. This climate deprived me completely of all taste for politics, so I think I can give an unbiassed opinion that the great English statesmen of my time at least have followed as their chief aim the doing good on a large scale. Their unwearied toil and apparently sincere desire to do only what was right inspired me with profound respect, and I shall revere Lords Palmcrston and Clarendon and President Lincoln for their goodness as long as I live. The work of the Joint High Commission shows that America has statesmen of the same noble character. Let our race continue to pursue the wise Christian course now so fairly begun, and let the low cunning, the smartness to hoodwink each other, in which old diplomatists gloried, go to the dogs. It is refreshing to hear of the Royal honors showered down on Mr Seward in recognition of his great work in connection with Mr Lincoln. Dare we call to remembrance that when English statesmen labored hard for the suppression of the slave trade on the West Coast of Africa, they were ofteu sorely thwarted by Southern proslavery men in possession of your Government. The Western slave trade is happily finished, and now that you have got rid of the iucuhus of slavery, it is confidently hoped that the present holders of office will aid in suppressing the infamous breaches of the common law of mankind that still annually darken this Eastern coast. If the Khedive, with his lieutenant, Baker, stops the Nile slave trade, he will have fairly earned the title of a benefactor of humanity. All I can add in my loneliness is, may heaven's rich blessing come down on every one—American, English, or Turk—who will help to heal the open sore of the world.