* TERRIFIC GALE

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 269, 18 May 1860, Page 3

* TERRIFIC GALE

A most violent hurricane raged in the metropolis and the surrounding districts on the 28th of February. The damage done ■on land and water was immense. As to navigation on the river, that was all but impossible. The roads and streets in various parts were encumbered with pieces of chimney pots, bucks, tiles, and general fragments, creating the utmost alarm to the foot passengers, as well as to the inmates of the houses from wbich they had been hurled, especially as in many instances heavy and lofty stacks of chimneys had been dashed through roofs, and thence to the rooms beneath. Two dock laborers were literally blown into a canal near Deptford. Some of the hospitals were crowded with cases of fractures, &c, received in the course of the day.

The gale appears to have visited with more or less violence almost every part of the country. From Derby, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Leicester, Norwich, Shields, Newcastle, Gasteshead, Southampton, &c, we have accounts of perils and disasters caused, by it, now of marvellous escapes, now of serious and even fatal injuries. The fine spire of the parish church of Derby, after being seen for a few moments to rock to and fro, fell with a tremendous crash on the high pitched roof of the church, penetrating, as may be imagined, right through, and alighting on the floor of the nave beneath. Portions of the Trinity church at Nottingham were also thrown down; while many houses in the same town were nearly stripped of their roofs. At Leicester a man was killed by a wall being blown over him. The roof and a part of the walls of the Wesleyan school at Stockport yielded to the violence of the storm, while upwards of 400 children were assembled in it; one child was killed, and many were severely hurt by blows from the falling stones and timber. At Norwich the side of a house is described as having been positively " blown out,'' one of the spirelets of one of their principal churches was thrown down, a great chimney shaft in a manufactory met with the same fate, as also did many smaller ones, while slates and tiles innumerable were torn from the roofs, and in the neighborhood a number of large trees were uprooted. Telegraph posts were knocked down on various lines, and telegraphic communication interrupted, mails delayed, &c. The effects of the gale in Paris and many other places on the continent were not less destructive.

Naval Squadron oi? the Australian Station.-—Lord A. Churchill (March 15) asked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether her Majesty's ship Fawn, which had recently sailed for Australia, had been sent there .as an augmentation to the squadron at present on that station, or for the purpose of relieving another vessel ordered home; whether the attention ofthe Government had been called to the fact that France had, within the last year, reorganised her military and naval establishments in New Caledonia, and had now made it her principal station in those seas; and whether it was intended to place our naval commanding officers upon a more equal footing with the French, by creating the Australian station into an Admiral's command ? Lord C Paget said he had to

"state' that the Fawn had been gent to relieve I the vessel ordered home, and not sent there as an augmentation to the forces of that •colony. As to the French Government having increased their establishment at New Caledonia, he could inform the noble lord that it was a mistake1 to suppose that they had an establishment upon that station. They had an Admiral in the Pacific, and a Governor at |New Caledonia under his command. We had a Commodore upon the Australian station, and there was no intention to put an Admiral there. (Hear.)

Two.New Zealanders, says a Vienna letter, have recently arrived in this city and have been presented to their Majesties. Toetoe, the elder of the two, delivered a speech in his own tongue, and handed a German translation of it to their Majesties who manifested the greatest interest in the circumstances of the natives of the Antipodes, and the Empress addressed Toetoe who had some knowledge of English, in that language. M. Zimmerl, of the State printing-office, acted as interpreter. The Vienna Gazette gives the following literary translation of the speech delivered on the occasion :—" We greet thee, we greet thee, Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria. Great has been our desire to see thee, and that is the reason of our journey to this country. We desired to see thee, Emperor of Austria; we desired also to see the country of the foreigner. The commander of the ship of war, the Novara said to the Governor of New Zealand that he would allow us to sail with him in order that thou mightest see New Zealanders. The Governor and all the chiefs of the Maoris assented to the wish of the commodore. That is the reason of our journey to this country. All the chiefs of the Maoris said to us, ' Go, that you may see the foreigners." We greet thee king of kings, lord of lords, thou who high above ali others rulest, we praise thee and thy name overmore. A strong sceptre is the sceptre of thy kingdom. We greet thee, we greet thee, Frauds' Joseph' Emperor of Austria; we greet thee, we greet thse Empress of Austria. We shall inform all people of thy splendour when we shall have returned to New Zealand. These are our words to thee. —William Toetoe, Samuel Rarehau.

The Volunteers had a grand clay on the 7th March. The Queen held a Court on that day in St. James's-palace, exclusively for the reception of officers of Volunteer Corps, who mustered about 2500. Several hundreds were unable, from various causes, to attend. From the number who appeared and from other sources it is calculated that the volunteer force in the kingdom amounts to about 80,000. The mode in which the officers were presented at the levee was this. In preconcerted order, each group passed through ihe Throne-room, headed by its senior officer, who handed to the Lord Chamberlain a list of the officers in in his regiment, company, or sub-division. The Lord Chamberlain, standing on the right of the Queen, read aloud the names of each group as they were presented by the lord-lieutenant of their county, or in his absence ;by the Under-Secretary of State for the War Department. The officers then drew up in a line before the Queen, bowed, and retired. Following the lev6e, a dinner was. provided at St. James'shall, under the auspices of the committees of the National Rifle Association and the Volunteer Service Club. Covers were laid for 680 persons. The Duke of Cambridge presided; and made an excellent speech on the duties and uses of Volunteers. In the evening the Volunteers gave a grand ball in [the new Floral Arcade, Covent-garden, at which between 4000 and 5000 ladies and gentlemen were present. A furnace exploded the other day at Dundy van Ironworks, near Airdie. Three men and a lad who were working in front of it were overwhelmed in an instant by a mass of scoria and ashes. The scene which followed was heartrending in the extreme. Their clothes were consumed, and nearly every part of their bodies fearfully | scorched. The boy died within an hour, the men within a day, afterwards. An interesting discovery has been made jin Peebleshire. Gold has been found among the quartz detritus in Glengaberburn, a small mountain rivulet which falls into the Meggat, about a mile and a half from St. Mary's Loch. The Gold is in small nuggets, some of them resembling flattened split peas. The quantiy picked up is in weight equal to half a sovereign. Whether on minute investigation, the gold will be found to an extent worth working remains to be seen when the state of the season permits. y ■.. St. Georgb's-in-thb-East,—-Another crisis has taken place in the affairs of St. George's-in-the-East. At the Thames Police-court the other day a number of persons applied for summonses against the Rev. Bryan King, the Rev. T. Dove, and others, for assaulting them in the church on the previous afternoon. The applicants had seated themsolves in a pew, waiting for the evening service, when the rector required them to leave, and as they refused to do so, force was employed. The magistrate expressed some doubt as to whether he had the power to adjudicate in these cases, as a question of right on the part of the rector to exercise authority in the church was involved. He, however, granted summonses. The greates excitement prevails in the parish, and the disputes which have given such notoriety to the district appear to be no-nearer there termination than ever. [The summonses have been heard. Some of these were dismissed. In the other cases the Rev. Bryan King was fined 55., and Mr. Dove 40s.] We have to record the death of the famous M. Jullien, on the 14th of March, in the neighborhood of Paris. For some weeks past the exertion and anxiety conte-

quent on the getting up a new series of concerts, upon which he calculated, establishing in the French capital the high reputation he had gained in the course of 20 years in England, was too much for a temperament .at all times keenly sensitive and excitable, and loss of reason was the result. On the llth of March M. Jullien's first concert was to be given, and the greatest curiosity and interest prevailed tkroughout Paris. That first concert was never destined to take place. Two days previously M. Jullien was conveyed to a private lunatic asylum, having exhibited the-worst phases of madness, and his medical attendants entertained no hope whatever of a speedy cure.