EUROPE SHIVERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 591, 18 February 1929, Page 8

EUROPE SHIVERS

IJUROPE, scourged by the blast of the bitterest winter known for over half a century, will not be prepared to share the joy that must now have come to Abbe Moreux, a famous French meteorologist who last year phophesied that the Thames would be frozen in 1929, and that Western Europe would experience conditions akin to those of the ice age. Neither is it probable that European people will feel that the temporary reprieve given to Yugoslavian murderers, whose hangman has been delayed by snowdrifts, is sufficient compensation for the agony that has resulted from the ghastly conditions now prevailing. Mankind is dependent upon the kindliness of the weather for sustenance, and proper appreciation of this truth is shown by the way in which the behaviour of the elements, more frequently than not, provides the theme for casual conversation. Climate determines the nature of peoples in the different countries, and little by little, the bodies are built up in such a way that it is possible for them to endure the rigours of winter and the warmth of summer so long as the changes remain constant, allowing no appreciable variation from mean extremity in seasonal temperatures. The trouble begins when a winter grows excessively cold, or a summer excessively hot. Europe to-day is disorganised merely because the climate has taken a turn that it should not, by habit, be expected to take. The inhabitants of the various countries are able to resist a normal winter; but the arrival of an abnormal one upsets all calculations. Not only is the health of the people affected, but commerce is disorganised, and with the disorganisation of commerce, supplies of various kinds grow short. It is reported that there have been coal riots in Breslau, and if the rigorous conditions persist, it is almost certain that there will be difficulties with food distribution. Disorganisation of this kind is not likely to happen in England, but in some parts of Europe it will be almost certain if the awaited thaw and abatement do not come soon. Englishmen, it lias been said, are better able to endure extremes of cold than extremes of heat, and it is probably for this reason that a violent winter every few years is appreciated. How the English temperament responds to hardship is shown by the fact that, instead of complaining concerning the cold, people near Cambridge arranged a skating contest, the first in 17 years.

Records, more or less traditional, tell ns that Europe has been afflicted with bitter winters in the past, and chronicles show that the Black Sea was frozen in 401. Nearly 200 years later, the Dardanelles and the Black Sea were frozen, and in 1233, the cold in Flanders was so great that soldiers serving there had their wine issued in blocks which had to be cut with axes. In 1860 England was scourged by the bitterest winter for years. The temperature was 17 degrees below zero in London, and it is said that men feared to walk abroad because of the troubles occasioned by frozen moustaches. With the change of fashion there are no such perils to-day, but the capacity for shivering is the same, and England in 1929 shivers as it did in 1860,