ENGLISH & FOREIGN

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 13, Issue 662, 8 March 1869, Page 4

ENGLISH & FOREIGN

INTELLIGENCE. »

HEAVY STORM AND LOSS OF LIFE IN

ENGLAND. (Home News, 2nd January.)

DimiNG the past month several very severe storms have visited nearly all parts of. the country and done much damage, and in several places lives have been lost. For three weeks in sucession rain has fallen heavily, and many low-lying lands are flooded. Where the soil is absorbent it is saturated, where it is not it is deluged ; and the rains were still falling on Dec. 29 The winds were highest between the 24th and 28th of December. On the latter day a house was blown down at Lambeth, two were unroofed at Wandsworth, and one at Battersea. In the river much damage was done to shipping, and the mouths of the Thames and Medway were full of ships, which had run in for shelter. The great Bermuda floating dock again dragged her anchors for some distance, but she safely brought up. Ihe Indian relief screw troop-ship Seraphis, Captain J. C. Soady, which had sailed from Spithead early on Dec. 27th for Queenstown and Alexandria, was driven back from Channel to Spithead for shelter from the violence cf the gale. The sailing of the screw frigate Ariadne, Captain Colin A. Camphell, from Spithead for the Mediterranean, ■was also postponed for the same reason. At Sheffield, Dec. .27, the roof of the steel-melting house and coke-shed at the Cyclops Works (Messrs Charles Cammell & Co.), constructed of iron girders covered with shtes, and supported on massive iron pillars, was blown down,thegirders snapped asunder. Some workmen were just leaving j four had got out of the house, and two were going out, when they were crushed by the falling roof. One, Comer, was found with a mass of iron on his back and 12 cwt. of stone on his legs j the other, Leary, had had his skull fractured. At xxeT. Grimesthorpe a house fell down, and seven persons were precipitated, beds and all, into a yard about 12 feet below. Strange to say, no one was hurt. At Rochdale a shocking calamity occurred. In a new street off Scotland-road a row of houses has just been completed, and two of them are so constructed as to answer the purposes of a Sunday school, although at any time it could be altered into two houses. On Sunday, Dec. 27, the place was opened for service for the first time, and in the afternoon Mr John Ashworth, author of "Strange Tales," preached a sermon in it to about 400 persons. The service begun at half-past 2, and shortly afterwards one of the windows was blown out by a a gust of wind. Little notice was taken of this, and the service proceeded until 5 minutes to 4, when another violent blast lifted up the roof. The gable and the two side walls then fell inwards, after which the roof gave way and fell. A distressing scene ensued. Some hundreds oi the congregation managed to creep out from the rubbish, but a large number were under it, and they cried piteous'y for help Those who had escaped and the neighbors get to work, pulledaway the fallen timber and brioks, and gradually released them. The fire brigade and Captain Davies, with the police force, .soon came to .the spot and exerted themselves in removing the fallen building and liberating the injured persons Miss , Nuttall, Marys-gate, millner, for half an hour was imprisoned by a large beam on her feet, and she displayed great fortitude uutil released. From the time of the accident to the time when all was taken out about an hour and ahull elapsed. So far as could be ascertained at the time, no person was killad, but numerous persons were seriously injured. The same day the gale blew over Liverpool from the north-west, and was succeeded on December 28 by heavy rain. On Saturday the Royal Mail steamship China, outward bound, when near the north-west lightship, ran into No. 9 pi.ot-boar, which was damaged. Ihe boat returned to Liverpool with 14 of her crew missing ; but a telegram from Queenstown has been received stating that twelve of them gcrambled on board the China. Two pilots are therefore missing, and it is feared they are drowned, £hexe were

many minor casualties during the gale at several other ports. Owing to the boisterous weather in the English Channel the Trinity tender at Plymouth has not been able to communicate with the Eddystone Lighthouse for the past eight weeks. One of the lightkeepers has during the whole of that time been in waiting to go off to keeper whose turn it was to be ashore. Several attempts have been made by the tender to land him at the lighthouse but without success. The tender has been able to run within hailing distance of the rock, but the terrific sea running over it has rendered nearer approach impossible. The lightkeepers board themselves, but have in store at the lighthouse a supply of government provisions provided for such an emergency as has thus been created. COLLIERY EXPLOSIONS NEAR WIGAN. Another colliery explosion took place in the neighborhood of Wigan on December 21, at the Norley Colliery. About 9 o'clock a party of men descended the downcast shaft, conveying with them a pony, which it was intended should work in the tunnel Mr Joseph Peet, one of the managers of the colliery, left the cage at the five-feet mounting; and just as the other two men, who occupied the cage, and pony reached the tunnel, an explosion occurred, the ef fects of which quickly visible on the pit bank by a cloud of soot ascending the upcast, and the customary indications in the downcast. The ventilation was quickly restored, and Mr Thompson, the manager, and others descended the pit, but learned little of the effects of the accident. At a later time it was supposed that the gas was fired at the extremity of the workings, where a number of men were cutting across a step. Seven men were killed. The Wigan coal district has again been the scene of a terrible catastrophe, another ignition of firedamp (the third within a month), resulting in the death of 24 persons, having occurred on Wednesday, Dec. 30. The explosion happened at the Haydoek collieries of Messrs Kichard Evans & Co., which are situate in the township of Haydoek, three miles from St Helen's and seven from Wigan. The Queen pit is sunk to a depth of 280 yards, and at it are obtained two seams of coal — the Ravenhead main delf and the Wigan nine-foot. It was in the latter where the casualty occurred. About 40 men were employed in this mine, but the particular part in which the explosion happened had only been worked about two years, and only 25 men were engaged in it. All ch • ■tended to work in the morning. Shortly after noon the colliers engaged in some other portions of the pit noticed a derangement of the ventilation, and on examination being made it was found there had been a very serious explosion. An exploring party was organised. As soon as the current of air could be restored an examination of the district in which the gas had fired was commenced. Several persons who had been burnt were found alive and were removed to the surface. On Wednesday 17 bodies had been recovered, during the night 6 more were found, and another on Thursday morning—making 24 in all. One of the saddest cases is that of Henry Hindley, a school lad home for the holidays, who had gone down the pit with his father to watch him at work. Both father and son are dead. PUBLIC PROPERTY IN PRANCE. Public attention has recently been directed in Paris to a statement made by more than one of the papers, and not yet contradicted by a communique, or any other form of official denial. It seems that at a fire whioh recently took place in the apartments of Madame Troplong, the wife of the President of the Senate, two pictures were destroyed. These pictures it is affirmed, belonged not to her, nor her husband, but to the national collection in the Louvre, and had been lent to her by the director of that establishment. It is added that nearly 40 others from the oolleotion also adorn her walls, and that there are 30 more in a fashionable club called the Cercle Impe.iil. The Paris correspondent of the Daily News states that some years ago a certain Murillo was not to be found in the Louvre ; but that, owing to the persevering inquiries of an American who wished to inspect it, the work was traced to the nursery of the Prince Imperial, where it had been placed by order of the Empress. EXPLOSION IN A PIREWORK FACTORY. On the 31st December a serious explosion occurred at a firework manufactory, No. 4j9, Cambridge-road, carried on by Messrs Baker & Sous. The workmen were packing up a large case, when some burning wax ignited a blue light and then the i whole of the parcel, and before the mischief could be arrested the whole stock on the premises of fog-signals, rockets, and fireworks, blowing out the windows, and nearly shaking down the house. A fearful scene followed. A man who went into the house with a view of rescuing the in- t mates, found his retreat cut off by con tinuous and en masse discharges of rockets and fireworks, and afterwards appeared in a frantic state at the windows. The escape , arrived too late, and the poor fellow's body, shockingly burnt and mutilated, was found hanging between the rafters of the fir.it floor after the fire was extinguished . All the workmen escaped. Tne deceased was a commercial traveller, William Sandwick, and his remains were identified by his wife from a button she had sewn on his clothes the previous day, and some marks on the remnant of a pocket-handkerchief. His humane and gallant attempt to rescue his fellow-creatures leaves a large family ' unprovided for.