SEVERE WINTER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2166, 21 February 1891, Page 3

SEVERE WINTER.

The frost which set in some three I weeks since in the metropolis (says the Home News of January Ist) continued almost without.. intermission until yesterday (Thursday) the mean daily temperature in London having been below the freezing point for nineteen days. A;slow thaw set in yesterday, and this morning the city was enveloped in a thick fog. In the Outer Hebrides, thanks to tjbe Gulf Stream, the temperature for, nineteen days has been sixteen degrees above the average of London. At Wick the weather up to the laßt day or two, was so fine that roses and other flowers were blooming in the gardens ; but the cold has now reached these regions. Every piece of water has been covered with skaters and sliders. Farmers even, in spite of their slowness to any novelty, have recognised the use of the snow as .a roadbed. In the Biviera the thermometer on more than one occasion dropped as low as 6 degrees above the freezing point. At Tangier the heights around the bay have been whitened by B now. Vienna seldom has mild winters, though it is not often that 2 degrees belowi zero (Fahrenheit) without a ft tke of snow are recorded in the Kaiser- ■ stadfc. Among the vineyards of Ssutb '- Germany and in Hungary we hear of ' people being frozen to death, and in Greece the snow has been falling heavily around the olives and currant vines. 'At Trieste, the Vienna corespondent of the Standard informs us the " Bora " haß been blowing with terrific violence. Ropes have had to be stretched along the streets, and tlnugh the temperature was only 9 ' degrees below freezing on Tuesday all the ships in the harbor were covered 'with ice, and several slipped their anchors* ot even had their cables •broken.

Yesterday (Thursday) some improvement in the weather on the Continent was noted. In Paris a thaw set in, though it is not very rapid. The intense cold itl Vienna has almost vanished. Extremely severe weather,

- however, continues in Austrian Silesia, and very low readings of the thermometer are reported from other parts of Europe. A terrible snowstorm, said to be the most severe since the great blizzard, began at New York at three on Friday morning (December 26th), and in six hours blocked the street traffic; Telegrams from Canada state that a furious storm commenced there at sunrise, its centre being over the Lake i region. The coasting shipping suffered disastrously. All the the incom ing steamers report continued boisterous weather. Oyer a hundred vessels have been driven ashore along the coast of the maritime provinces of Newfoundland, or totally wrecked, and forty lives have been lost. A dozen vessels are missing, and it is believed they have foundered with all hands.

Some of the fatal effects of the severe cold are shown by the fact that last week the deaths in Halifax, Manchester,and Preston exceeded the very high rate of 40'0 per thousand. In Bolton, Bristol, Liverpool, Salford. Sunderland, and Wolverhampton the rate was more than 300 per thousand. In London there was a slight increase the figures?being 26-3 against 26.0 in the previous week. The average for the twerty-eight great towns was 27;8 per thousand. The lowest rates are for the seaport towns —Brighton 15 2. Hull 16.6 and Plymouth 21-8. The cause of the exceptionally high rates is found in the increase of deaths from i diseases of the respiratory organs. In London these deaths reached the unusual total of 806, or nearly three hundred more than the average for the week. The East London Coroner has held several inquests on the bodies of persons who, it is alleged, have died from destitution; the circumstaaces published being harrowing in the extreme. General Booth baa published a letter m which he points that the distress is the East end is rapidly getting beyond the resources of all existing agencies; and that we have a famine hanging over London as terrible as any we have had to deal with in Ireland or China. Not only are the chilhren perishing, but the long-continued frost has reduced hordes of out-door workers, who are in the mildest winter on the verge of pauperism, to sheer starvation. They have come to such a pass that they cannot eVen pay for the Salvation Army's farthing meals, General Booth says he will, at all events, feed the hungry, and he has already started the machinery for such an exceptional crisis.