The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-02-26 00:00:00

tructir

FEARFII

TORNADO AT B:

:LTDA.

A des.,--cive tornado is reported by b_.ai Bermuda
papers to' have passed over that part of the Island
known as Tucker's Town on the 21st of December. In
its course it lifted a wooden house with its inmates—
Mr. Daniel Smith (pilot), his wife, and four children—
bodily some ten feet from its foundation, and after
splintering it into pieces threw the Mris into the
water about 100 yards off. Mrs. Smith was found on
the opposite shore, across the bay, some 300 or 4t.,0
yards, soon after the catastrophe, clinging to a plank
of"the'house. Her body was fearfully lacerated. She
Jxpired in about six hours, having given birth in the
mealitime tri a child stillborn. The bodies of the
four children were recovered next morning; three
not far from the_shore near
_their late homei_
dir—otrei•-idir---the opposite —AZT Where—its
renfoytutiatili (Mother r *as, found. / Their clothes
*ere' staindol Witlrblood; .glV)3g the impression that the
hree found together were crushed, to death before_
:sing town into the water. Smith, prior to the
eventlitas sitting by an open window—his wife had
just put three of the children to bed, and the oldest
was getting ready for bed—and hearing the singular
noise made by the storm, called to his wife to know if
she heard it, and asked what it was, whets the house
was lifted bodily from its foundation and carried off.
Here his consciousness left him, and he recoil ects nothing
further until he recovered his senses some little time
after, when he found himself forced in between oleander
trees, some twenty feet from his late residence, doubtless
thrown there through the window as the house was
turned over by the wind. He was aroused to
consciousness by the &creams of his youngest child,
but everything was so enveloped in the darkness of
the night that it was impossible "for him to tell
directly where he was. When he recovered his self-
possession he extricated himself from the bushes and
started in search of help. Smith likens the noise made
by the approaching storm to the roaring of a cataract
whilst a hundred pieces of heavy ordnance were
being discharged simultaneously. There were some
twenty or more whale and sail boats moored in the
bay—ten were utterly destroyed, three of them
belonging to Smith. Some others were very much
injured. One, a very large sail boat which was
hauled up and turned partly over, to have her keel
put in order, was lifted bodily, turned over and over,
and thrown away from liois spot keel up. It would
seem that the whirlwind, with a fearful rushing noise,
struck the shore, from seaward, about 30 yards south-
wnst of the residence of Mrs. A. S. Trott, on the
south side of Hamilton parish, and passing south of
the house (its breadth being here about 30 feet) wrench-
ing stout limbs from trees in its way, and in some
spots where, no wind in a straight course, if ever so
violent, would do harm, this whirlwind caused much
havoc. It passed along and up a high projecting cliff,
where rooks shelved out, and broke pieces of the rock
off about 10 inches thick at the base, and weighing be-
tween 50 and 601 b. each, forced them up the precipice
and lodged them on the flat above, 10 feet away. It
wrenched a piece of cedar bough some eight inches
long from a tree and drove it into the skull of a cow,
whence it was taken, the cow apparently not
seriously injured. Just above the hill overlooking
Smith's house it seized a wooden house of about
20 by 15 feet, and completely demolished it. The
remains present such an appearance, as it lies, as one
can imagine a toy-house with all its furniture would
have after been trod under foot. After leaving this
house, and before descending the hill, the wind tore
up part of the roof of a stone house. On its course
from the south shore to Tucker's Town the storm
passed through a garden of cabbages, in which it made
a road, the sides of which, some 40 feet apart, are
clearly defined, while in its centre not a vestige of
vegetation is to be seen, still the cabbages on either
side are as fresh and green as on the morning prior to
the storm.

r-orth,
I

[From Punch.]
HYMN TO VICTORIA.
(After BEN iONSON.)
Queen or Empress, Lady fair,

Sovran of the swelling deep,
Who, in distant Orient air, -
Dost the sway of nations keep?
Must we, changing style with scene,
Hail an Empress in our Queen?

Where the tiger haunts the glade,
Where the mystic Ganges flows,
Where we English, unafraid,
Govern friends who once were foe;
There thy power is felt, unseen,
There men bow to England's Queen.
Lay the imperial style apart.; ,
Leave it to the lords of legions :
Queen in every English heart,
Be thou Queen in Eastern regions.
Keep thy style and state serene—
Who so great as India's Queen?

-1; I