The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-07-03 00:00:00

TEE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

with a sort of resolute fury, others sitting on beds or mat-
tresses gazing vaguely at the rubbish which represented
their homes, some of the more energetic families were pic-
nicking and cooking their mid-day meals in the desolate
gardens, the women bright, if not cheerful, the children
playing about as if nothing had happened. The despondent
were just the contrary, the women sitting with their faces
buried in their hands, and the boys and girls lying huddled
together among the broken beams and heaps of plaster.
The roadsides were lined with all kinds of articles, from
four-post bedsteads down to blankets and bonnets,
and in several places the small shopkeepers were
drying, or rather attempting to dry, their stock
in trade in the sun. Outside the barriers the
scene is the same, with the addition of large swamps, which
were once vineyards and cornfields, and of little piles of
gaily-painted boards, once forming portions of summer-
houses. The town wall itself, a solid line of concrete, has
In one place been thrown down quite flat, and a little
further on two great beams, at least 30f I. long, have
completely barred one of the gateways. Nothing, how-
ever, shows the force of the flood so much as the
ruins of the suspension bridge. Nearly half the bridge itself
has been firmly and securely laid by the water on the bank,
where, indeed, I at first mistook it for a landing-stage. Only
one bridge is now standing—namely, the old stone one of
St Pierre. Had it been carried away, the losses on the St.
Cyprien side would have been even more terrible than they
were. . . . .

Accounts from Toulouse contain fresh details of the
widespread ruin caused by the floods. It is stated
that Marshal MacMahon said that he had never
seen a battlefield which presented so horrible a sight
as that of the district which the Garonne has ravaged.
He was greatly pleased with the energetic and devoted
manner in which the soldiers had rendered assistance.
Fifteen of the men have received military medals, and
twelve of the officers have been decorated. The local
gentry and nobility, the clergy, and the general public
had also behaved admirably.

It is estimated that 100,000 persons are homeless in
the ravaged district, and will for months be totally
dependent on public charity. In London steps are
being taken to assist them. At the Mansion House,
on Tuesday, Mr. Alderman Finnis (as deputy for the
Lord Mayor) suggested that the citizens should for-
ward donations for the relief of the sufferers by the
inundation. The sum subscribed in France amounted,
up to Wednesday, to about £40,000.

Reparking on these destructive floods, which not nnfre-
quently occur in some parts of France, and the desirability
of adopting measures to prevent the destruction which they
have hitherto caused, the Daily News of Saturday, in a
leader, says :

Marshal MacMahon, accompanied by M. Buffet and
General de Cissey, has proceeded with promptitude to
visit the scenes of the inundations in the South of
France, which, especially those in the upper valley of
the Garonne, prove to have been of a magnitude for
which the earlier telegrams had not prepared the pub-
lic. Above Toulouse the torrent has gathered rapidity
and volume, and the swelling river has carried away
bridges and every kind of building by the waterside,
and completely covered the southern suburb of the
city. The cause of this disaster is the rain which fell
almost continuously in the south of France from
Sunday to Wednesday last. Toulouse, standing in
the midst of the great plain of Gascony and
Languedoc, is built on both sides of the Garonne,
which receives the drainage of a basin extending
to the Pyrenees, a perennial source of destructive tor-
rents. The waters had risen considerably on Tuesday,
but it was on Wednesday that the dangerous character
of the floods became apparent. In the morning of
that day the quarter of St. Cyprien, which lies on the
bend of the river, on its left bank, was submerged, and
as the river kept rising orders were given to stop all
traffic over the bridges. At six o'clock in the evening
the suspension bridge of St. Michael, the first which
is reached in descending the river, was carried away.
House after house fell before the flood, and it
was thought advisable to remove the patients as
quickly as possible from the Hael Dieu. The
military of all arms were called out, and all the
general officers of the garrison were to be seen direct-
ing the operations for rescuing the inhabitants, who
had been isolated by the sudden rising of the waters.
A great number of the bodies were found of those who
had been surprised by the flood, and were unable to
make their escape, and in the work of saving the sur-
vivors, an officer of Artillery and several of the police
lost their lives. On Thursday the Pont Neuf, which
connects St. Cyprien with the centre of that part of
Toulouse which is built on the right bank of the
Goronne, was carried away, but on the same day the
floods began slightly to subside, and gradually retiring
revealed the extent of the calamity. At Verdun, on
the Garonne, in the department of Ariege fifty houses
were carried away, and arable fields were swept bare.
In the valleys of the tributaries of the Garonne, dis-
asters of the same kind occurred, the damage done
being very considerable in those of the Tarn and Gers.
At Auch the lower part of the town was laid entirely
under water. Nor were the floods confined to the
basin of the Garonne. At Tarbes the Adour, which,
like the Garonne, has its origin in the Pyrenees, rose
and carried away the seven-arched bridge of that
town. The waters are now subsiding, owing to the
cessation of the rain, but it is feared that the melting
of the snow on the mountain may cause the river to
rise hi. her than before. The floods appear, however,
to ha done nowhere so much destruction as at
Toulouse, where for two days the inhabitants watched
the currrent as it bore down trees the timber of
houses, sheds and hovels which had been swept away,
together with implements of agriculture, hay, and
the cattle of the farm. In the St. Cyprien quarter
alone two hundred and fifty dead bodies have been
found, and, twenty thousand persons are said to have
been left destitute.

The Garonne has a reputation for floods. Having a
shorter course and a smaller basin than the Loire, it
nevertheless carries a greater volume of water than
that great river down to the sea. But the course of
the river is obstructed by sand banks, which shift with
the floods. The most disastrous inundation on record
is that of 1770, when the river rose 23 feet above its
ordinary level. The floods of the Garonne, if numer-
ous, are not, as a rule, as dangerous as those of some
French rivers, and thus, in the absence of exact state-
ments as to the height to which the waters rose on
Wednesday, the number of deaths by drowning and
the great loss of property alike point to the conclu-
sion that this last inundation was one of unusual cha-
racter. The south of France has always beenpeculiarly
subject to disasters of this kind, from which the
central departments are not entirely exempt. In 1846
the Loire rose twenty feet in one night, and the damage
done amounted to £4,000,000 sterling, the Orleans and
Vierzon Viaduct, which was swept away, having cost
a quarter of a million sterling. In 1852, the inunda-
tions in the south were so general and disastrous that
subscriptions were opened for the sufferers in foreign
countries, £43,000 having been contributed in London.
In June, 1856, in consequence of excessive rains, large
tract; of country from Paris to Lyons and onward to
the sea were laid under water; the rivers carried down
human bodies, the works of man, and the produce of
the earth, and the streets of many towns were only
passable in boats. When . the late Emperor
visited Lyons he had to give up his horse,
and was rowed from place to place. At the
Orleans Railway Station the water reached the fourth
storey. In some places whole villages were swept
away. In 1866 the valley of the Loire was again the
scene of similar devastations. Terrible, however, as
these inundations were, they were nit so awful as
those which had occurred in October, 1833, when the
Same poured its waters into the Rhone, broke through
its banks, and covered 60,000 acres. Lyons was inun-
dated, 100 houses were swept away in Avignon, 218
at La Guillotiere, and 300 at Marseilles and Niamey.

When a civilized country is exposed to devastation
upon a scale so large as these facts exhibit, we may be
sure that the causes of recurring disasters have been
closely examined, and that a remedy has been
anxiously sought for. In fact some of the ablest men
of science whom France can boast have most carefully
studied the phenomena of these inundations. The
inhabitants of Toulouse wondered last Thursday that
the waters should subside while the rain was still fast
descending. They had not considered that it is the
water that falls on the mountains and not that
which falls on the plains which causes destruction. It
would appear that the very progress of civilization has
hitherto increased the liability of cultivated districts
to inundations. The overflow of river backs was
much less frequent formerly, or at least rivers rose
and fell less suddenly in former historical times than
they do now, before man had removed the natural
checks to the too rapid drainage of the basins in which
the tributary rivers originate. Where these affluents
drain well-wooded countries the vegetable mould,
which is capable of absorbing almost twice its own
weight of water, and the mosses and fungi, with
the stems and roots of fallen timber, delay the
drainage of the water to the streams, after heavy
rains, and spread the operation over a longer period.
In countries where forests are not made an object
of care by the State the cultivator is continually
facilitating the rapid flow of drainage water into the
rivers. It is only, however, in a few instances that
the planting of a district would prove an effectual
means of preventing the recurrence of disastrous floods,
and in all cases the remedy must prove slow in its opera-
tion. After the floods in, the velicl- of the Loire in
ieeci. .euseu a aestruction of property ae di4astrous
as the invasion of a hostile army, the French Govern-
ment called upon its ablest theoretical and practical
engineers to consider what could possibly be done to
prevent the recurrence of such evils. Some among
them have reported in favour of the construction
of what are called "basins of reception," barriers
or dams erected across the channels of mountain
streams, at points convenient for forming reser-
voirs large enough to retain the waters of great
rains and thaws. But apart from the great expense
attending the construction of such works, there is the
probability that in time they would be filled up with
sediment, and the fact that when full, whether of
earth or water, they would be ueeless, not to mention
the danger in which the inhabitants of the country
below would necessarily be placed from the bursting of
the dam. The embankment of rivers is an obvious
means of guarding against danger, the raising of their
banks being necessary to compensate for the raising
of their beds. The removal of obstructions by dredg-
ing, and the formation of longitudinal dykes,
are occasionally practicable. Hitherto the French
Government has not seen its way to adopt any
general plan of preventing torrents except that of
planting forests, securing the soil in exposed localities
by grading, and by promoting the growth of grass and
greensward over the surface. Every year a certain
sum is expended in thus marking out zones along the
banks of ravines and securing them, sometimes with
tenacious grasses, and where necessary by masonry.
The rural population are said to acquiesce in the adop-
tion of these means, which frequently involve a sacri-
fice on their part, and many districts are believed to
have been rendered decidedly safer by the expenditure.
We may hope that the reviving prosperity of France
wid enable the Minister of Public Works to extend the
scale of his operations, and that in time such disasters
as have occurred this week will belong to an outgrown
stage of national progress.

A party of wits once stopped at a tavern. When
the feast was over, one of the members called in the hostess.
"Madam," he said, "L am going to give you a lesson in as-
tronomy. Have you not heard of the great Platonic year,
when everything must return to its former condition?
Know, then, that in sixteen thousand years we shall be here
again on the same day and at the same hour. Will you give
us credit till then?" The hostess, however, had her reply.
"I am perfectly willing," she retorted; " but it is just six-
teen thousand years since you were here before, and you
left without paying settle the old score, and I will trust
you on the nvw.'

THE SULTAN OF ZANZIBAR AT THE
ROYAL ARSENAL, WOOLWICH.
The Sultan of Zanzibar says he has seen "the most
pleasing and most wonderful exhibition since he came
to England." These words referred to his visit on
Tuesday to the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich (remarks the
Standard, from which the following particulars of the
visit are taken.) At twelve o'clock, accompanied by a
numerous suite, he left the Alexandra Hotel, proceed-
ing by road to his place of destination, at which he ar-
rived about half-past one. In fulfilment of an engage-
ment with the staff of the Royal Artillery, he lunched
at their barrack mesa. His health was here proposed,
and he in response, gave "The Queen," a toast which,
he said, also comprised her Majesty's soldiers. During
the repast the regimental band played in the yard.
After an hour spent in the barracks, the visitors I
were escorted to the Royal Arsenal by Lord Cecil,
surveyor general of the ordnance; General Sir J. M.
Adye, director of artillery; Colonel Campbell, super-
intende'nt of the Royal Gun Factories; Major King,
assaistant- quartermaster-general; -and other ofticem.-
A guard of honour of the 93rd Highlanders was drawn,
up inside the Arsenal, and a great number of privi-!
leged persons -hat-be-en 'admitted within the gates',
while in the square outside a crowd of several thou--
sands had assembled, and -gave the visitors a hearty
cheer.
Proceeding at once to the Gun Factories, where
Major Maitland, R.A., assistant superintendent, and
other officers were waiting to receive them the Sultan
and suite were conducted to the coiling mills, where
the process of coiling up a bar of iron into one of the
cylinders which make a 38-ton gun, a process often
described, was witnessed. It was evidently a novel
spectacle to his Highness, who watched the operation
with great interest. The pattern-room, containing
samples of all the various guns and other productions
of the department then occupied a considerable time.
The Sultan was especially taken with one of the
7-pounder mountain guns used in Abyssinia, and
seemed to be well aware of its prowess. At an 8-inch
howitzer of modern construction he halted for some
time and being informed of the range and capabilities
of the various guns around him he exclaimed, "God
preserve us from them," a remark which seemed to
afford his attendants much amusement. Presently he
added, holding up his hands, "From your hearts you
English do not want to use these things, but you will
use them for the defence of the weak and the op-
pressed." Passing through the rolling mills and see-
ing how the bars are made from which the coils are
formed, his Highness of Zanzibar entered the house
of the great hammer, where one of the 38-ton coils,
weighing itself nearly 30 tons in the rough, was
brought out of the furnace and welded by repeated
blows of the mighty hammer, each blow represent-
ing a force of 1,000 tons, until the glowing spiral had
been beaten into a compact cylinder. This proved a
very interesting sight to the visitors, who lingered
over it a long time. From thence they repaired to the
turnery, where the 81-ton gun, in its yet unfinished
state, was shown revolving in a gigantic lathe. The
Sultan was amazed at its great size, and when he
learnt what results it was with confidence expected
to produce he exclaimed that it was most wonder-
ful. The operation of shrinking together two
parts of a large gun was then illustrated, and
this terminated the inspection of the Gun Fac-
tories. One of the attendants expressing a hope
that his Highness was not fatigued, he replied with
energy, "How can I ever tire of such things?"
Having taken leave of Colonel Campbell, the Sultan
was next introduced to Colonel Gordon, chief con-
troller, by whom he was conducted through the
apparently inexhaustible stores of harness and other
military necessaries heaped up in faultless order on all
sides, and hanging in close order from the ceilings.
While passing through this store the Sultan's atten-
tion was attracted to some children in one of the fre-
quent groups assembled by the way, and he stopped
and shook hands with them in a pleasant manner.
He was pleased to learn directly afterwards that the
children belonged to the family of his conductor,
Colonel Gordon. On leaving this department the Royal
party were escorted through the shell foundry by
Major Lyon. R.A., assistant superintendent, Royal
laboratory, and saw some large shells cast and finished,
the deadly character of which he seemed fully to realise.
Colonel Field, RA., superintendent of the Royal car-
riage department, then took charge, and led the way
through the mounting ground, where divers modern-
improvements in the construction of iron gun-carriages
were exhibited in the main factory of the department.
Here the Gatling gun was shown and explained by
Mr. Butter, the manager of the carriage department,
who had to open the breech and explain its mechanism
several times before the Orientals could be satisfied
with respect to a machine of which they had probably
heard before, but which they now saw for the first
time. The many new and remarkable machines which
have been invented in the department during the last
few years for special kinds of work were examined,
but when the Sultan came to a De Bergne shearing
and punching machine, which was slicing and knock-
ing holes through plates of iron about two inches thick,
be said be had a small one of the same sort at home,
but he took up one of the circular studs which had
been punched out and said he should carry it back as a
curiosity. The wonderful powers of the circular and
ribbon saws iu cutting boat wood iron were exhi-
bited, and the method of making gun wheels by ma-
chinery of an extraordinary character was also shown.
His Highness departed from the Arsenal amid the
cheering of an assembly of workmen which, for
numbers, he can never before have seen equalled.
Both on his leaving, and when he arrived, salutes were
fired from the artillery battery. The guard of honour
conducted the carriages as far as Blackheath, where
they left, and the party drove by way of Peckham and
Camberwell to their hotel.