The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-10 00:00:00

THE THUNDER STORM IN WORCES

TER SHINE.

The deluge which spread over so large a tract of
the fertile vale of the Teme, as reported in The Sun
of Tuesday last, having now subsided, the disastrous
effects of the fearful storm are apparent. Of the
crops, the hop yards, in which the vale abounds, have
suffered most, the corn crops, with the exception of
the beans, having been got in before the storm. Some
of the drowned cattle have been carried down the
Teme into the Severn, and thence as far as the Bristol
Channel, where the rotting carcases have been picked
up. The great force of the storm appears to have
been felt at Martley, Clifton-on-Teme, Supey, and
the district thereabouts, north-west of Worcester,
which is very hilly, and where the Teme runs in a
lovely valley surrounded by hills cultivated to their
tops. Netley Court, once the residence of her late
Majesty the Queen Dowager, is situate amidst these
picturesque hills. At the Devil's Leap, about
a mile
and a half from Martley, a cottage belonging to a Mr.
Sprague was swept away. The torrents, verging upon
gardens and roads, completely washed the latter and
the produce of the former away in many places. At
Brockhill, near Shelsley, a hop yard—poles, hops,
and all—belonging to Mr. Dance, was almost en-
tirely washed into the Teme. At liennick-mill,
nejir Worcester, a rick of hay of about twelve tons
weight, was moved 'a yard from its original position.
At Doddenham, on the Teme, the rush of water broke
into a cottage of a man named Beavan, and the family
only escaped by a miracle. At Broadway, in the
same neighbourhood, thirty-two sheep, depastured
near the river, were washed away and drowned.
They were the property of Mrs. Davies, a lady who
had been ill for two years, and who in the midst of the
fury of the storm herself expired. Mrs. Harrison, a
widow of Broadway, also lost 24 sheep, and had much
of her furniture injured and destroyed. Twenty-four
sheep belongibg to Mr. Williams, of Doddenham, a
magistrate, were with much difficulty saved. A fu-
neral procession which was returning from Whit-
bourne Church was overtaken by the storm, and had
to wade waist deep in water. Leigh brook rose more
than twenty feet above the ordinary level. At Alpeck
several tons of earth fell into the turnpike road from
an eminence, and blocked it up. A similar slip of 100
tons occurred at Cruskill, and a third not far off. The
body of the woman drowned at Bridges Stone, as re-
ported on Tuesday, has not yet been found. The
cottage was scattered in fragments all over the sur-
rounding neighbourhood.

THE WATCHERS' REPORT ON THE
CASE AT SHOTTISHAM.
The committee appointed to investigate into the
case of Elizabeth Squirrell, who for the past five
months is reported to have lived without food or
nourishment of any kind, have just completed the
report of their labours. This voluminous document,
after treating of the facts which have already ap-
peared in The Sun, gives the following additional
particulars :
" From the statement of the various members of
the committee, it appears the girl and her parents
frequently expressed a desire that the watch should
be shortened, on the ground that she might have
the ensuing Sabbath to herself for meditation and
prayer. The watch was commenced by Mr. G.
Tovell and Mr. W. H. B. Webster, a surgeon,
who experienced some little hostile feeling when they
presented themselves at the house, and announced
the errand upon which they had came, their pre-
sence producing agitation and excitement. Even-
tually, they were allowed to remain, but the father
steadily refused to leave them in complete charge, or
to allow the bed upon which the girl lay to be re-
moved from the corner of the room. The room has
two doors, and persons were allowed to have access,
so that the attention of the watchers was liable to
repeated interruptions. Desirous of giving as little
annoyance as possible, the committee suffered the
parents to communicate with their daughter in almost
any way, and with as much frequency as they re-
quested. They even permitted them to raise her up
in bed—an office which was often performed. They
also allowed the girl to have a parasol in use, day and
night, because it was pleaded, notwithstanding her
alleged blindness, that from her exquisite susceptibi-
lity, the light was distressing to her, particularly at
night. The committee state that they failed to
detect the way in which nourishment was ad-
ministered, but they are of opinion that the
indulgences they permitted offered abundant op-
portunities for food being conveyed into bed
unseen by them. At night the girl would lie for
hours with her face to the wall, screened from obser-
vation by her parasol, and at these times she could
easily take anything which might have been supplied,
besides sucking water from a sponge with which she
was allowed to bathe her face. During the watch a
circumstance occurred which did not excite sus-
picion at the time, but to which attention has
been since directed in connexion with the other
facts just mentioned. On the last morning of
the watch, when the Rev. J. Whitby was present,
the girl awoke from an apparent sleep in extreme agi-
tation, with heaving of the chest accompanied by a
peculiar noise in her throat. She pressed her lower
jaw, when her father, who was sitting at the foot of
the bed, hastily rose up, exclaiming, ' Oh, my dear
child, the lock-jaw has come again.' He then, appa-
rently by a violent effort, forced her mouth open, and
placed therein the end of a towel, lest, as he said, the
lock-jaw should return. The towel was very soon
removed, but 'no symptoms of lock-jaw were visible,
nor was any further allusion made to them.
" In addition to the statements which have already
appeared in reference to the discovery made by the
nurses, they also found a white handkerchief under
the person of the girl wet. A handkerchief just
like it had been put into her hand in the course
of that day, and was subsequently missed.
One of the nurses was so shocked at the dis-
covery that she fell into hysterics which delayed
further examination for nearly an hour. The search
was renewed in the presence of Mr. C. B. Francis,
senior surgeon, Bengal establishment, who was on a
visit to his brother, the rector of the parish, when,
upon the removal of a small box from the bed, which
the girl stoutly resisted, a folded sheet was found
scontaining the napkins and handkerchiefs which had
been used for both the natural excretions.
of this circumstance, "It is believed that the girl can see and hear; and
in proof of the former it is stated that every move-
ment of h
sotna
newatche
some
ma pep eoafr e
the
teo
gentlemenb e anxiously
often r e -
garded by her. Struck with the frequent occurrence
looked inteorl
affected by cztaarta
severalet was as observed to quiver beneath
her, and occasionally the eye not
eonccdasions when a book was pre-
sentedtheir gaze. On
to her, shelu
just as a personwoutld who was
e it, held it exactly in the
position, and eyed it
reading it. She has been accustomed
ages of strangers from feeling their hands,° guesswhieh theh
lengthened experience of a person really
ever have attained. Soon after it was
will do with a precision to which it is doubted whe-
ther
the lengthened
stated that she had become totally blind a letter was
d by the girl, which has been shown to some of
penned
was well written, the lines the committee. It
bthlienrd
lel, and in one instance a word was inserted exactly in
the right place, and also the caret which marked its
That ispossessedof
the sense of
insertion. she
hearing appears very probable, from the circumstance
a hymn,
through
of her having been known to sing
note by note and syllable by syllable, with another
~_, s hea are completl
person ; but all doubts on tui
heldd with the nurses
at the close of the investigation.
The committee conclude their report with the fol.
lowing declArgion:—