The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-12-23 00:00:00

BRAVERY OF A BLIJECOAT BOY.

In London, on Tuesday, the Royal Humane So-
ciety's 81,-clal, whith has mealy been awarded to
Archibald Douglas Maclean, was publicly presented
to him in the Great 111.11 of Christ's Hospital, New-
gate-street, in the presence of the whole kchool,
at versa of the governors, and friends of the recipient.
The circumstances under which the medal W 043
_awarded
were as follows :

On August 2, between five and six o'clock in the
afternoon, Hereward 13rackenbury, with some other
children of Colonel Brackenbury, and young Maclean,
a student of Christ's Ho2pital, were in a punt on the
lake of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Here-
ward Brackenbury was leaning over the side of the
boat, dragging a string with a piece of wood attached
to it through the water, when his brother, who was
rowing, "caught a crab," fell back, and, knocking
against him, pushed him into the water. Young Mac-
lean was the first of the party to perceive the accident,
the boy who caused it being prostrated on his back by
the force of his false stroke, and immediately plunged in
to the rescue with all his heavy clothing on, including
his shoes, dived for him as he was sinking, and was
immediately clutched by the neck, and had great
difficulty in freeing himself and rising to the surface;
but after a desperate struggle he succeeded in reaching
the boat and placing young Brackenbury safely on
board. The danger incurred was very great, as the
accident occurred in a depth of water from 121 t. to
15ft., with a large quantity of thick weeds between
the two islands, not far from the spot where a few
, years since Msj r Taylor and hi .3 daughter were
' drowned.

A curious effect of bad trade (the Sheineld Telegraph
sayr) has passed unnoticed by the newspapers. In country
districts, where colliers are the customers, the publicans
complain that their occupation is practically gone. The
best proof of it is the fact that they have voluntarily adopted
an early closing movement. In many parts the public-house
doors are closed at nine o'clock, and in others at halt-past •
nine. The landlords say that 'there are no late customerS,
now • and the police state that in the colliery villages the
"early to bed" rule is wonderfully general.

THE TERRIBLE ,CYCLONE. IN INDIA,

A Minute by Sir R. Temple, dated the 21st November, has
been publtshed respecting the eff es of the late oyclene and
storm-wave in Eistern Bengal. The Minute say 6.

Proceeding to Noakally on nay ordinary tour, I heard
that a disaster had happened in the highly-cultivated
and thickly-inhabited is/ands at the mouth of the
Megna, viz., Oundeep, Hattie, Shahbuzpore, and on
both coasts of the great river. I cut short my visit to
l'oakally, and hastened to the points where it was
probable the worst distress must have been. I visited
the islands named and the westein coast of the river
district of Backergunge. In all the localities visited I
took the number in each of the villages and had the
presise mortality in each house ascertained in my pre-
sence oft the spot, to prevent the possibility of decep-
tion. From atithentid data thus obtained I was able to
check the locel estimates and measure the actual mis•
chief done. ..Mesc-rs. Reynolds, Beverley. Dr. Weir, and
the local ofncials accompanied me. The estimate of
the probable number of lives lost, nearly all by drown-
ing, has been prepared by Mr. Beverley and myself
on our own data, compared with local eeports, oral and
written; an based on returns of the last census. We
-apprehend that it an area of 3,000 einem miles about
1,162,000 persons had been oneidenly thrown more or
less in danger, of whom 215,000 must hsere perished;
this is only an estimate; the exact number is not known
yet, and perbape never will be. The storm-wave rose to
a height of 10 or 20 feet. The Noakally people think it
sine from the sea up the Megan with salt water, and
then that the cyclone turned it round and rolled the fresh
water of the rives down; the refluence caused the pil'e
up of fresh and salt water which rushed over to see-
rounding districts; drowned bodies were carried greet
distances; corpses began to puttofy before the waters
retired. The Mohammedan population ha-7e no crema-
tion, and the masses of corruption of human and animal
bodies were frequent, presenting a sickening spectacle;
many corpses were Bet% rt sea, the bodies of living
and dead were borne across the snn of the sea from
Sundeep to Chittagong, the former clinging to the
roofs of their own houses. The force of the inunda-
tion appears to have lasted from midnight to two
o'clock in the mornitg By daybreak there was much
subsidence of the flood and Le, noon the survivors
came down from the trees and regained Serra firma,
and must have been foodless and shelterless all that
day and the next; they then got out the stores of
buried grain and dried it; cocoanuts also afforded
them sustenance. There was much trouble about
drinking water at first, tel., the tanks must have
speedily recovered from brackiehnese as the water
was generally good when we tasted it, thongh in
many cases rendsred bad by having putrid corpees
in the tanks. No estimate can be formed of the
number of cattle lost; the loss is bad for the people,
but fortunately there is no immediate demand
for ploughing their fields. At the time of my visit
there was no severe epidemic save round Noakally; I
have since heard that cholera has broken out on the
Chittagong coast, and on the east side of the Megna.
The first day or two after the disaster there were some
attempts at plundering and lawlessness, but they were
promptly stippreesed. Most of the local native officials
were drowned. When the atom burst, the abundance
of the rice crop ripening was the well known Deltaic
rice crop, which is far beyond the demands of the legal
consumption and which affords quantities in thousands
of tons for exportation ; of this a great part is lost, but
if even one-third be saved it will afford sufficient for
local consumption. The boats great and small which
constitute the only means of carriage in these tracts all
were lost. The Noakally authorities were thus bereft
of resources for moving across the floods, and
this was a very hard case on the Hattia island, where
I the people were three days succourless. In the
Backergunge district the boats were saved, but much
wealth was lost almost entirely, in the form of agricul-
tural crops or cattle. With the exception of Dow-
lutkhan, a trading town, which was clean destroyed,
8,000 inhabitants, a quarter of the number, perished. On
approaching it we steamed for two miles thiough the
creek; the banks were strewn with human bodies. The
local authorities instantly did all that they possibly
could, and since the first hours of inevitable destruction
no life has been lost from preventible causes. The relief
centres are dotted over the tracts of country, but are not
much required. I hope there will be no appreciable Ives
to the revenue. Ido not anticipate it. Sickne.s and
pestilence, things uppermost in our fears, are prepared
for, and medical aid goes at once. I have arranged to
take a new census somewhere in December.

Gmmenting on this Minute the Bombay Gagette says:—
The late Cyclone in Eastern Bengal, in conjunction
with the destructive storm which it caused, will be
remembered as one of the most terrible events ia the
history of the prevent generation, if not the most
terrible event of the kind that has over happened
in the history of mankind; the Deluge itself, now that
the probable.geographical I;mtts of that great disaiter
had been estimated, could hardly, in the early history
of mankind when it occurred, have produced a more
who'esale destruction of human and animal life than did
the storm wave which swept over alarge portion of the
coast of Eastern Bengal on the night of the Slat October
and Ist November. The Lieutenant-Governor of
Bengal, Sir R. Temp7e, has just returned from visit-
ingthe localities and taking accounts of the extent of
the mischief caused, and he has published a minute
summarising its contents, and from this we learn that
upwards of 215,009 persons perished in the short time
that the storm wave of relentless waters swept over a
large tract of thickly.inhabited country and cleared the
land of man, beast, and vegetation. The number of
cattle lost at the same time must have been as great as
that of human beings, so that the grand total of this
sudden destruction of life is perhaps not fewer than
half a million; a diEaster of this sort can have very
few, if any, precedents with which to draw com-
parisons. Next week we shall be able to give in full
Sir R. Temple's minute on this calamity. The Queen
sent a few days ago a telegram to the Government of
India expressive of her deep concern at the appalling
loss of life caused by this storm wave.

JOTTINGS ABOUT HYDROPHOBIA.
The Daily Telegraph. remarks :—" At Glasgow a
terrible panic has lately arisen, due to a widespread
popular belief that hydrophobia had broken
out there in something like an epidemic, or,
perhaps we should say, epizootic form. Straight-
way the police proceeded to slay all dogs they
found in the streets unmuzzled andwithout responsible
guardians. It would appear, however, that the alarm
has been somewhat exaggerated. Dr. G. H. B. Mac.
leod, the Professor of Carper in the University of
Glasgow, has done good service by exposing this fact.
In a popular lecture he delivered the other night at
Crosshill he toek °eversion to say that a great deal of
the hydrophobia about which they were mourning in
Glasgow was simply the creation of terror. In fact
it would seem that, just as by homcepathic doses
of drugs one can sometimes cure diseases by
acting on theth throegh the imagination, so
a fearful malady may be generated by the operations
of overwrought fancy. In this way people, when they
read deectiptions of the horrors of hydro:phobia, which
is an extremely rate disettee, ireagine wheneeer a dog
scratches them that they are doomed to perish ffom
foaming madness. Now, as Dr. Macleod wisely sug-
gests, there is really little to fear from the bite of a
dog in most cases' for even he remarked, 'if a mad
dog blt him throekigh the elothes,',-he would not care,
because the animare teeth wohld be cleaned from
poison by rubbing through the cloth, and there would
be no fear of bad results.' If persons were bitten
by a dog iii wit§ foolish to destroy the animal
there and then, for more than once he held
known of cases where men recovered from
what was thou3ht to be hydrophobia merely by
being shown the dog that had bitten them all
sound and clothed in its right mind. Still more curious
stories did the learned Professor relate as to the patients
who had bean attaeked by the disease this autumn in
Glasgow. The first, he said, told him he had been per-
fectly well after he Was bitten until one day he took
up a paper and read a moving account of a man who
had died from hydrophobia. He was never of any
use from that moment,' Another had read about the
most strange symptseas of hydrophobia in the
quaintly sensational uesctiptlohs of the olden time,
and when he got bitten one day, it all came back to
his mind with terrible vividness. He at once deve.
loped the dreaded characteristics, the eimulated
bark, the horror for water and what not, though,
said Professor Macleod, there seemed as much
mental as bodily suffering.' In a word, it is the
opinion of this eminent surgeon that there is a large
lot of nonsense talked sheet hydrophobia,' though in
reetity the disease is no tare that there is no need to be
particularly afraid of it. Hundreds of person—he
might, whilst speaking of such a large city, have said
thousands '—must have been bitten by dogs in Glas-
gow within the last month, yet the doctors had only
been able to discover three cases of hydrophobia. The
practical inference derivable from Professor Macleod's
lecture is—why ehould the police make an indiscrimi-
nate slaughter of dogs because large numbers of
excitable bike fancy when they are bitten, that they
dying of hydrophobia,"