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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5586, 22 February 1879, Page 3

The Dunedin Morning Herald of the Ist instant says :—Between 95 and 100 trains went ont and in from the Dunedin Central Station yesterday. These trains had each to be handled separately, and worked in so cramped a space that if the leading sets of points were fouled there would be no northern outlet until the block was cleared. Work is canned on now at considerable disadvantage ; and with 7dO miles of railway linked to Dunedin, there is now only about the same amount of station siding accommodation as there was when there were only eight miles of road open. One of the trains which arrived yesterday afternoon had io waggons, and was so long that an engine had to be sent down to Findlay’s siding, on the north side of Stuart-street, so as ts enable the train to be shunted into the various sidings where it was to be dealt with. An exchange says:—“A plague is always haunting the hovels of Asia and the extreme of south-eastern Europe, but it does not often advance so far to the north-west as Poland. It was feared bv medical men that the gathering together of troops from many races and parts of the East would spread cholera and plague, but although there was much sickness, there was no terrible visitation of that kind. The plague has now been brought by some means or other into Poland, probably by the Tartar regiments, and the danger is felt to be so great that the German Government is employing 60,000 soldiers to form a cordon, and thus prevent the spread of infection. When we remember the terrible decimations of the English population in the 11th century, and again during the great plague of London in 1685, the thought of the ravages in the vast and crowned population of London and the great cities is almost too appalling for the mind to dwell on. The better houses and better food supplies of the towns lessen the danger, but do not remove it, and Western Europe will watch with extreme anxiety to see whether the pest is stopped on the frontiers of Germany.”