OUR HOME LETTER.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3474, 12 February 1880, Page 2

OUR HOME LETTER.

(jfBOJJ OPE OWN COBBB8PONDBNT.)

London, December, 1879.

"Peace on eartli, goodwill towards men," is what we are hearing this Christinas Day trotu pulpits innumerable. Id the newspapers we read of the storming ot'Niorosi's stronghold, and the capture of Secocoeni's fortress in South Africa, of the defeat and route of the Afghans at Cabul, in Asia.-of iresh battles and bloodshed in South America, where Chili is " peppering" the United Republics of Peru and Bolivia, and the latest reports from that quarter lead to the belief that peace will soon be re-established because the two Powers named dread their own people more than they do their declared enemy. General Roberts in. Afghanistan haa again proved himself a most capable and energetic leader. What a scare we English people had tc be sure; according to some of our newspaper generala the English army was .doomed if it did not retreat immediately, and the prognostics* i

lions of evil were very numerous, and owing to the absurd restrictions of the Indian Government, that newspaper correspondents should not be allowed witli the army, even the most6anguine thought that things might be worse than the Government would like the people of England to know. However, our Indian Empire is not yet doomed, and after this great uprising of the rebels (some people would positively call them patriots, and say they were fighting for the own king and country), and the thoroughness with which it has been put down, we will hope that something like peace may come in that quarter. In South Africa all opposition is gone, unless the Boers of the Transvaal lose their heads altogether and attempt a rising, but they are too wise for that surely. Well then Jet us hope that next Christmas the pulpit and the newspaper will both have ihe same words to utter, a~nd may they "be " Peace on earth, goodw will towards men."

Whe/i I was a little boy I wanted to make myself ill. with (lie good things of this life, I often got what I wanted by quoting " Christmas - comes but once a year, and when it comes it brings good - cheer," and of 1879 it should be " and fog," and such 1 a fog. Christinas ere wag bright, clear, , and moonlight, frosty and enjoyable, on : Christmas daj it was dulnesa, thickness, and darkness impenetrable. Torches, ' gas, lamplights, could only be seen when | you were close upon them. Had 70a aa invitation for a jolly party, say halt a mile off, it had better be given up, for once outside your house,, you were lost in pitchy, smoky darkness, and' if you did arrive safely at your destination in ahy^ thing under an hour you were fortunate \ «, and what was perhaps the most annoying \ about the fog was its impudence, we'll call it. Surely it might have' stayed in the streets! JSot a bit of it, it came into the house by the keyholes, and by every possible little cranny that it could get through. Oh the big blazing fires.tbat were made that day to keep up the idea of a day of enjoyment. .Now in Paris it was guile different, you must know that in that capital of pleasure there Ims been the severest cold experienced that the oldest inhabitant can remember, and the snow, tne light, feathery, downy snow lias completely beaten the utmost endeavors of the Parisian authorities: to net rid of it. They worked hard—thou. sands of tons were carted;away,.and still it care and conquered, and.Paris on Christmas Day, 1879, presented a picture more like unto St. Petersburg!! than itself. Thousands of people were on the Hirer Seine, which was completely frozen over (in fact, two or three explosions of dynamite have been failures in setting it free), and skating and sliding was the order of the day. Sleighs were common in the streets in place of carriages. Now, that may appear rather a proper sort of Christmas Day, but when we hear of provisions double the ordinary price, fresh vegetables and fish scarcely obtainable for money, water pipes frozen, gas pipes frozen, the supply of oil and candles getting short, and the railways unable to continue their traffic and so to replenish these articles, it becomes anything but proper, and a very serious matter. As one correspondent puts it, " It is really somewhat like being besieged again, but on a smaller scale." Now, Paris has no Poor Law Board, and attfiraiDus^xowiona are being~mada "by private charity to supply the, want; but 1 strive as they may the poor must suffer severely. Writing about distress, I mustn't forget that even part of Great. Britain, Ireland to wit, is also in a bad way. Bad season after bad season has left the poor in the West and South-west in a most pitiable plight, and although "a letter of the Duchess of Alarlborough's (the Duke is Lord Lieutenant) has produced a great impression by its facts and the good taste of its. appeal, yet it is considered almost certain that Government must do some* thing, and the' "probabilities certainly poiut;that,way. -*Fearful floods in Hun« gary and Spain feav^el^ied hundreds to die of fauniae.»W^tv«tipn notwithstand. ing the most strenuous exertions, and the N cruelty of man has caused frightful suffering in Albania, Montenegro ani different parts of Turkey. Truly we in Europe appear to be in a perilous state. And now a shipwreck. The steamer Borussia from Liverpool to New Orleans with about 200 souls on board, met<wtftfci Buch severe weather that she was tottffrj disabled, and had to be abandoned, Ifteea ; of the crew have been picked' rip'fcr'^we ' lots of ten antf fire; the fate «f ffe#foft?is unknown, but there is vary tittle nope ifi. deed that any of the others on hoard hare been saved. The steamer UapU t ML,«iip* posed to have foundered so^ wwrlUiof left. But eventhis disaster is* eclipsed by what is, without doubt, the meat fearful ' railway accident that ever happene3r"TTn another issne of this paper, you would, no doubt, get fuller particulars than can be eompresied . into a letter, but I must allude to a subjeot of such saddening interest. The Tay railway bridge was commenced in June, 1871, and opened for traffic in May, 1878. ".It is the longest bridge of its kind in the world, the exact length being 10;612 feet or about two miles. It has 85 spans of vatying width, the 11 widest being 245 feet each, and in the centre it is about 130 feet above high water mark. There is: only a single line of ruils, and the narrowness of the structure and the immense, spahsliu the, centre ih».^ridgr*B fahtan<£alrjr — appearance, but it was considered to be perfectly safe. Its cost was £350,000. On the night of Sunday, December 28th, a passenger train passed on to the bridge,., a train of four third class carriages, one - first class, one second class, guards, break and engine. Every carriage was well filled, and at the time I write it is . computed that there were about 100 A people in the train. Now whether" the f wiud blew the bridge down before the tram got on it, or whfttlwr the train and tuo wind together caused the bridge to fall is not yet known, perhaps never wiU be, but this is certain, the train with all those 100 living souls was plunged into the furious and racing waters of the Tay, and not one escaped. The.storm was so fierce that the falling of the train and the 13 massive girders, the scream of the locomotive and the shrieks of the passengers were heard but by God alone. Thereis now a gap of about half a mile, shewing where the forces of nature hate completely and ruinously overthrown the patient art and energy of man. The ftprth British Hail way Company had a great interest in the bridge, and the fall in the pace of their shares has been rery sertfe^^.*. „.>