The Gale at the Thames.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1563, 31 March 1874, Page 166

The Gale at the Thames.

The Thames correspondent of the New Zealand Herald supplies the following interesting account of the gale which visited the Thames district ou Saturday the 14th inst;—“ We have been visited today with a N.W. gale the like of which has never been experienced on the Thames. About noon to-day the wind got up, and no sooner had the steamer Golden Crown made a start than it blew a hurricane, and Captain Farquhar denied it expedient to return. He made for the Tararu wharf no less than three times, but such was the fury of the winds and waves that he could not get alongside, consequently he stood out, and for the last six or seven hours he has.been working up and down the Gulf* At the present hour, 8 p.iu., her lights are visible ahead of the goods wharf. Two gentlemen went along Tararu wharf to render assistance, or give a hand with the ropes, and for their generosity they narrowly escaped with their lives. The two gentlemen are Captain Goldsmith, the mining-inspector, and Mr Millet, of Tararut an old seaman, and on working their passage back they had reached within 200 feet or so of the shore end, when the extraordinary fury of the wind and waves carried away a large portion of the wharf, and cut off the communication with the shore. Their position was dangerous, as no boat was at hand, —neither could one have lived in such a surf, therefore no alternative remained but to wait until the tide ran out. For four long hours they paced the wharf, the sea at times washing ten to twelve feet over them, —lost to view many times ; but at last the tide had sufficiently ebbed that they droped into the surf, and escaped to terra firma , very little the worse for their adventure, beyond a sound drenching and a little alarm. At 5 p.m. the wind rose to a frightful extent, clearing the streets of every moveable thing, while the crash of fencing could be heard on every side, and the damage must be very great. One large store, of two stories in height in Shortland, belonging to Messrs French and Co., has the whole of the front literally thrown down from floor to roof, including a massive verandah, so that the whole of the inner portion is exposed to the full fury of the gale. These are the only incidents which have come under ray notice, but there must be a large amount of damage in the outskirts. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and although the effects of to-day’s wind must seriously injure a great many storekeepers, yet the Shortland Saw-mill Company are about the only people who will benefit by the weather, as early this morning the Kauwaeranga river rose rapidly for an hour or two, and brought bovvn to the booms about 300 logs. There are hundreds of logs within a few miles of the booms, and a very little water would bring them down. • A Practical Joke. Everybody remembers that capital story of the immortal Pickwick, who in anti* quarian researches grovelled in the mud to decipher an inscription on a stone before a cottage door, and who purchased and bore away the bulky treasure j it being afterwards found that the hieroglyphics only said, “ Bill Stumps his X mark.’* A somewhat similar practical juke was attempted the other day upon an enthusiastic band of archaeologists who explored the quaint old town of Banbury in search of antique lore* The following was sent to the secretary as an inscription copied from the corner-stone of an old fabric that had recently been pulled down ! aiCOGEH SEEVE EI!EH WCISUME VAHL LAH SEES SE OTKEH NOS LLEBDNAS EEGNI Eli EH NOS GNIEES ROHYEK GANGED IE YD ALE NIEAE ESOTS SOHCY EUB NABOT ES EOHK CO CAED IB After the learned heads of the savans had been puzzled for awhile, one of their number hit upon the expedient of reading the strange jargon backwards, when it was foun 1 to be no more than an ingenious transposition of a well-known nursery rhyme. A Rum-loving Monarch. A correspondent at Cape Coast Castla, writing on the 15th December says;— “ King Bley still holds his position within his stockade, but it is rather short of provisions, His Majesty has a most valuable acquisition in the shape of a secretary who can actually read and write. The letters of this official to the different commanding officers of the British ineu-of-war are worthy of study I attach a specimen or two ‘ Dear and honorable Commander, Your shell go to good point to-morrowfi.e. yesterday),'and kill much enemy. I send you G fowl for officer to eat, and hope yourhealht is good, god bless your Majesty, my dear umble commander your servant King

Bley. Please send me peice pork and bottle of rum, particular rum as my tooth ache very bad. Your umble servant King Bley.' Upon receiving the rum alone his Majesty writes :—' Dear and umble commander your Majesty—l am sorry you no send me the pork as my toothache riiuch worse this day. You think pork bad for tooth ache, please send me more bottle rum. Your servant King Bley.' " A Liberal Profession. Parents in search of a profession for their sons might do worse, indeed could hardly do hotter, than make Russian monks of them, for, to judge by the accounts given of these holy men by a correspondent of the Tablet, writing from Novgorod, there are few positions more enviable. There are, it seems in Bussia> 9000 monks and nuns, who are waited on by 16,000 lay brothers, or sisters, as the case may be—who are really servants, although they wear the monastic habit instead of livery. All the property of the monasteries was confiscated in 1764 by the Empress Catherine, who at the same time assigned to the establishments in compensation a money indemnity which amounts at the present day to about 400,000 roubles per annum. She, however, took the precaution to make a regulation that no monastery should acquire any landed property without permission by a royal -rescript. The monks have been none the worse for this act of spoliation. The piety of the Eussian people has made them ample amends. The annual offering to monasteries to which pilgrimages are made and which nearly all contain relics or miraculous images, amount to no less than 10,000,000 roubles (£1,583,633 6s 3d), and for the last hundred years the legacies in money alone have constituted a capital producing eight millions of rentes annually. The result is that each individual monk has an annual income of £154 7s 6d at his disposal, and one-third of the revenue of a monastery belongs to the superior, so that the poorest of the archimandrites have from 200 to 10,000 roubles (£1,583 6s 8d) per annum. There are others who ha/e as much as 30,000 roubles (£4,750), equal to an ambassador's salary. The monks, moreover, engage in trade, knd money at cent, per cent., and indulge in speculation. Very few of them are engaged in studious pursuits, a love of money rather than learning being their ruling passion. The Palmer River Diggings. The New Zealand Herald says:—The accounts of the privations which the miners have had to endure at the Palmer River are very harrowing. It was one of those rushes which caused greater excitement and raised larger expectations among diggers in distant colonies than among those nearer at home, by whom it was early discovered to have been a storekeeper's diggings. During the heavy floods which semi-tropical countries are subjected to, the sufferings of the mining population were intense. We are told by telegram that horses and dogs had to be eaten, while private advices lately to hand speak of numbers of men who died from exhaustion or diseases arising from exposure and deficient diet. We are now told that there are good gold prospects, and that a new tract has been discovered. We shall not be surprised to learn of a second rush, past experience showing that the privations endured by men following one rush rather increase than decrease their desire .to follow a.second or a third.