The Express.
London, England, 1852-02-10 00:00:00

ADDITIONAL PARTICOLANA.

The once thriving and busy little town of Holm-
firth, whose inhabitants bays been regarded even in the
manufacturing districts as a people of extraordinary spirit
and enterprise, was on Sunday a scene of gloom and
mourning, from the numerous funi rale taking place. The
necessity of burying the dead had become a pressing neces-
sity, from the rapid decomposition which usually goes
forward in cases where death has resulted from Grown-
log. Morning, noon, and evening, hearses, biers, and
mourners were seen flitting about in all directions.
The scene had a more strange effect from the un-
favourable circumstances under which the funerals took
place. The inclemency of the weather, which had been
the first cause of such ruin, misery, and death, now inter-
posed to prevent that decent and decorous attention to ex-
ternal forma in which the bereaved, more especially in
rural districts, are anxious to manifest their respect fur the
memory of the dead. All Saturday night end during the
whole of Sunday the rain fell heavily, 'sometimes in tor-
rents, not only adding discomfort to grief among the
mourners, but absolutely again raising the fears of the
people almost to terror lest another of the reservoirs should
burst, and overwhelm the town a second time. Between
eleven and twelve in the morning a report actually
spread that the Holme Styes reservoirs had burst;
and just as the clergyman at the notional school—where
the congregation bad assembled, in consequence of the
Holmfirth Church being unfit to receive them—had taken
his text, the report was communicated by a Sunday scholar
running into the place and telling the people of their Mimi
neat peril. An extraordinary panic was the consequence ;
the congregation hastily quitted the school, and the chil-
dren rushed screaming to the hills, and the greatest con-
sternation prevailed for some time, heirs it was known or
believed that the story was unfounded. The Huhu° Styes
reservoir is situated on a weans called the Ribble, which
empties itself into the river Mame at the entrance to Holm-
firth, and would, were it to burst, undoubtedly cause great
loss of life and destruction of property. In all about
sixty-two bodies were interred, or removed to a tem- I
porary resting-place on Sunday, the coroner's jury
having gone round early in the morning to the
various inns where bodies were lying to receive evi-
dence of identification and grant burial certificates. Only
three of thecorpees remained unrecognised by friends alts.
these had been removed. The Charlesworth and Crossland
families had burial places nigher up the valley, in the
churchyard of the rustic little village of Holme Briggs, and
graves had been dug for seven bodies; but during the night
the incessant fall of rain, added to the waters of the flood
which hid poured over the yard into the church, had tilled
them to overflowing, and the eollined dead were deposited
for a temporary resting place in the church.
In some cases, where whole families perished, there was
no one for some time to own or identify the dead. Their
relatives in distant towns and villages, even if they had
heard a vague and uncertain rumour of the inundation, had
not apprehended that the consequences were so fatal; but
fortunately most of the heads of families, or sonic of the
branches of most of the families, were members of benefit
and friendly societies. These societies were liable hy their
rules to demands for burial fees in such cases, and it is
creditable to the oMeen of them that they did not wait for
the claim to be discovered and made by friends and repre- '
irritative', but actually made themselves instrumental in
searching out the friends of such parties, visiting Iludden-
field, Halifax, Bradford, and other places to bring forward
the next relatives—where such were discovered—that
they might identify the bodies, receive the money, and
see that the fitting funeral rites were attended
to. The orders of Druids and Odd Fellows were
particular) distinguished in this respect; and groups of
members also were busily engaged on Saturday dispersed
along the sides of the river searching fur the bodies of the
dead. On Sunday the fall of rain was too heavy to admit
of persons continuing the search, and the river Moline was
swollen so that it had become a rushing torrent. There
was perhaps only one thing the rain could not damp and re-
strain, and that was the recited curiosity of the people in
surrounding towns. The Lancashire and Yorkshire, and
Sheffield ltailwaye were running trains, frequently at in-
tervals of less than half ea hour; and people flocked in
from Manchester (upwards of thirty miles distant),
Leeds, She Meld, Bradford, Halifax, Wakefield, Sowerby
bridge, Rochdale, Tochnordan, and a score of other towns,
till the streets and roads were crowded like a fair. The
turnpike-roads were also filled with a constant stream of
vehicles full of people. It was extraordinary to see the
strangers, despite the falling torrents, wending their way
up the valley, after inspecting the scene of devastati in at
llolmfirth, to Bilberry Mill, three miles higher, where the
reservoir had stood. Well dressed people as well as opera-
tives—men, women and children of all ages--were amongst
them, wet to the skin, shivering with cold, yet unable to
find room in the few public-houses to shelter or warm
themselves. The wind blew in sharp said fitful gusts, and
now and then as the crowds moved along the hill sides, one
of these gusts would catch up an umbrella like a kite, and
hurl it down again deep into the valley or into the river.
GREAT FLOODS IN THE MANCHESTER RESSHVOIRS.

The heavy rain on Saturday night and Sunday caused great
apprehension lest the immense reservoirs constructed by the
Manchester elthotation in the valley of the Etherow, by
impounding the waters of the river Etherow at Woodhead
and Tonide, seventeen or eighteen miles from the borough,
should burst away their embankments. The Tonide works
are not complete, and so rapidly did the water rise against
the embaukment on Sunday, that Mr. Bateman, the en-
gineer employed by the corporation, had great difficulty
in preventing an overflow, which must have proved
fatal. Such was that gentleman's anxiety at 10 o'clock
in the morning, that messengers were mist down the
valley to the villages, warning them of the danger.
The Woodhead reservoir is of vast extent, being
two mile@ in length, and from half to three quarters
of • mile wide, and upwards of 100 feet deep at
the lower end. The Tonide reservoir, close below it,
is nearly as extensive, and had it bunt great destruction
and loss of life would probably have resulted over a space
of many miles down the river. Mr. Bateman, by keeping
hack water in the top reservoir, and employing • great
number of navvies to cut • deep channel for the bye-wash
at the sides, happily averted the catastrophe. So
great was the pressure that he had to discharge 3,200
cubic feet of water pee second from the reservoirs for
the sake of security. The people of Vale House and other
villages down the valley were seized with a complete panic,
and were employed all the day with horses and carte re-
moving their furniture and property higher up the hills.