The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-14 00:00:00

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great danger of jn 11,
flood had reached its
marked its rise char act
it had subsided abut 28 inches; it increased afterwaras,
although it did not again its former height, Of the destruc-
tive character of the flood there were abundant evidences on
s out l
of
l
every hand. Timber in large quantities, bedposts, feather
beds, tables, clocks, and various kinds of household furniture
upon it than a night-
passedc o'clockrimps
ad the
ilo down, andtd
aocif a middle-aged
no several carcasses
clothing of
woman
other
have been in easy dreumstances. The body was removed
to the New River Tavern. At Mexbrough, about seven
miles up the river from this town, the bodies of a man, a
a woman, a child, apparently about two years of ago, were
e
dress, and, judging by the rings upon the fingers, she mustuescattle
was also.
taken o. About
taken out ; and at Swinton, about a mile still further up,
three other bodies were recovered.
Large numbers of people have lined the river's banks all
the day, but it is now evident that the greatest volume of
water has passed by, and further damage here is not ap-
prehended. The water is very thickly impregnated with
mud—a proof that it must have swept with terrific violence
over the land adjoining the river. Fish, pike in particular,
have been left in large quantities on land from which the
water has subsided.

PRICE ..4d.
STAXPEDI....Sd.

• turday fully realised the worst fears of the night. The
wooden bridge at Hillfoot had disappeared—completely
carried away by the first rush of water, and with a noise
that startled the sleepers around, who sprang from their
beds with alarm. The view from their windows did not
tend to reassure them, for the flood was all around, boiling
; and seething along, filling the houses, rushing up the stairs,
floating the beds and furniture. The screams and cries for
help are described as heartrending. Just below the bridge,
by the weir, stood a small house, occupied by James Shar-
man and his wife, who attended to the shuttle of the goit
that supplies Messrs. Butcher's works at Philadelphia. The
inmates were Sharman, his wife, and a daughter-in-law,
with several children. The watchmen aroused them when
the water began to rise, and they hastily left their dwelling.
Scarcely had they been out of the house a minute when the
current carried it away, and now not a vestige of the place
remains except the foundation. The bridge over the
goit went along with the house. At Philadelphia
corn-mills, which stands close to the water's edge, a
number of horses were drowned in their stables, pigs
in their sties, and fowls on their roost. We have not
heard that any life was lost at this point. Crossing
to Bacon Island, a low-lying piece of ground between the
goit and the river, the only access to whieh is now the nar-
row plank of the shuttle frame, we came at once into what
had evidently been the very heart of the Hood in this part
of the valley. Gardens were covered deep in slime. Trees,
hedges, and walls wero levelled with the ground. A man
and his wife, named Wright, lived in a block of houses here,
with their child, and another child that was staying with
them. On Friday Wright went to a funeral, and the
neighbours did not know whether he had returned, but
both he and his wife and one child are missing. One little
thing was found in its bed after the water had sufficiently
subdued to enable men to get about, but the other members
of the household, perhaps aroused and attempting to escape,
have been carried away. In the block of houses, forming
an irregular square, of which Wright's formed a part,
every one is damaged to a greater or less extent." The
flood rose to the chambers and boated the inmates in their
beds. The lower apartments are filled with broken furni- 1

SHEFFIELD, Sunday Evening.
Every additional inquiry made into the circum-
stances of this appaling calamity shows that it has
been much more disastrous than was at first antici-
pated. It is now estimated that the loss of life will
exceed 250, and that the value of the property de-
stroyed exceeds half a million. From Bradfield,
where the reservoir burst, down the course of the
rivers for 12 or 14 miles, the country is laid waste.
The reservoir covered an area of 76 acres, and
would hold 114,000,000 cubic feet of water. The
embankment, which crossed the end of the valley,
was an enormous erection, with an average height
of 85 feet, and 40 feet in thickness. It was 300
yards long. Between Matlock and Hillsborough, a
distance of four miles, the greatest loss of life has
been caused. Within this tract whole rows of
houses have been swept entirely away, in three of
which alone there were 25 lives lost. In the oppo-
site row the whole of the inhabitants were drowned,
and scarcely any of their bodies have been dis.
covered. The flood seems to have swept off every-
thing before it, from the confluence of the Loxley
and the Revilin to the Don. Between Wardsend
and Sheffield on the Don the bodies were seen lying
in the mills and the mud and ruins. There were 14
in one place, 10 in another, and 13 in a third. At
Neepsend 900 acres of gardens were devastated, and
whole families were swept away. An official report
just received states that 166 dead bodies have been
already recovered; 70 have been identified. Large
numbers are not yet found. Bodies have been dis-
covered as far down the river as Doncaster. Along
the banks of the river, between that town and Shef-
field, the scene of the inundation was visited by vast
crowds on Sunday. The police and a strong mili-
tary guard acted for the maintenance of order and
the security of property. A movement for a general
subscription was immediately commenced, and a
meeting will be held to-morrow. The inhabitants
of the submerged districts have lost everything,
and an appeal for instant help will be made, hun-
dreds having nothing left of their property but their
night-dresses. The inquests were opened on Satur-
day night, and then adjourned for ten days. There
were then 90 bodies in the workhouse, and the coro-
ner said he had been informed there had been nearly
200 found. He referred to a statement, which is
generally made and believed, that, in consequence
of the dangerous state of the reservoir, warning was
sent to the inhabitants of the valley as far as Darn-
flask, and that only a few lives were lost there, but
that the warning was not sent to thickly peopled
districts below. Strict inquiry will be necessary to
ascertain if the accident could have been prevented.

ture and mud. The doors and windows are broken in by
the flood, and by the trees and wood that it carried along
with it. Of course all the houses and works along the river
side have been flooded, and damage to a fearful extent has
been done. In Messrs. Butcher's works at Philadelphia the
body of a woman, perfectly naked, was found, and it was
believed that a whole family living near Neepsend-bridge
had been washed away. In Ebenezer-street the body of a
man, rather under the middle height, with a moustache, was
found and conveyed to a house in Bowling-green-street. At
Kelham rolling mill the men were compelled to escape by
the roof, and in so doing managed by some means to set it
on fire. When the flood had reached its height the water
rapidly subsided, leaving the marks of its presence in the
streets, which were in many places knee-deep in mud. Almost
before they were passable persons sallied from their houses,
and the evil news spread quickly. The streets of the town
were thronged with persons hurrying to different parts,

anxious to inquire into the fate of friends dwelling near

the level of the river. While the darkness lasted little
could be learnt from observation, but voices were heard

shouting greetings over the wastes of mud and water, and
eagerly inquiring how others had fared in the calamity.
One had heard the first rush, and sprang out of bed to see
the street filled with water. Another had been sleeping on
the ground floor and heard a rush:of water, He awoke his
companion, who thought it rained hard. No, it could not
be rain, the rush was too great for that. The bed moved—

it was wet—he put out his foot, and found himself up
to the knees in cold water. Such incidents might be mul-
tiplied indefinitely. It needs only to be known that at the
dead of the night a great dark flood sowed through a
densely populated part of the town, rousing the sleepers
from their beds, and 'only too frequently drowning them
like rats in a hole. The horrors of Friday night are
known in the hearts of thousands, but can never be told.

The destruction of property all over the low-lying neigh-
bourhood round the ,Midland station has been enormous.
This portion of the town was for a time completely in-
undated. All the large manufacturers aro believed to
have suffered great loss, and the small householders are
mostly ruined. The loss of property is bad enough, but
the loss of life is the chief cause of regret here. Aroused
from their sleep in the dead of night, the poor people,
perhaps only half awake, seem to have made their way at
once into the streets, and were swept away instantly.
Several bodies recovered were partially dressed, while
others were entirely naked, their clothing having been
literally torn from their bodies by the violence of the stream.
Carried away by the furious current, several bodies have
been found in most extraordinary places—two having bee'
washed among the carriages in the Midland station.
The cast-iron bridge leading from tie Crofts to Nursery-
street has been entirely demolished, not a vestige remaining.
The extreme force of the current at this point may be judged
from the fact that before reaching the iron bridge the cur-
rent would have been considerably weakened by first com-
ing in contact with the Corporation-bridge. But in spite
of everything buttresses, railing, and pavement have all
been swept away like mere timber, and carried to an enor-
mous distance down the river. The water dashed over the
wall on the Nursery-street side, actually tearing along with
it the stout iron railings and the stones in which they were
set. Large masses were driven across the street, a distance
of eight yards, while others were broken into frag-
ments and several gas-lamps thrown down. The
buildings on the opposite side of the street were consi-
derably damaged, and will require rebuilding in some
instances. Tho entire front of the Manchester Rail-
way Hotel was broken in. Several low buildings on the
water's edge, near the nursery corn mill, were swept entirely
away, and a number of horses, pigs, &c., with them. At
the corn mill the damage to the building was not large, but
the stock of grain and flour was much injured, if not ren-
dered entirely worthless. The horses were confined in a
stable in the yard, and the water rose to the height
of more than 6ft., but the stable being lofty the horses were
able to swim and were thus dived. All the houses in
Nursery-street were submerged five or six feet in water,
and the alarm of the inmates rose to a state of
frensy when escape from their pitiable position seemed im-
possible. The buildings on both sides of the river, between
the corn mill and Lady's-bridge, have suffered greatly, and
all employment must be suspended for many days. The
inhabitants of this neighbourhood were, however, more
easily able to extricate themselves than the residents of
some of the narrow streets with which the Nursery abounds.
Stanley-street, Johnson-street, and Andrew-street were
less fortunate, and formed channels for broad streams of
water until daybreak on Saturday.

The walls surrounding Trinity Church were completely
destroyed, as were also those of Bethesda Chapel, Stanley-
street. The school room of the latter, which forms the
basement story, was flooded to a considerable depth, and
the fittings much damaged.

The Attercliffe meadows on Dither side of the river are all
under water, and immense quantities of wreck have been
secured. The works in course of erection by Messrs. Nay-
lor and Vickers, near the Brightsido station, have sustained
serious damage, the chimney bases, &c., already erected,
having been washed down. The now wall skirting the
South Yorkshire line has been partly destroyed. The
bridge over this part of the river has stood, and an im-
mense mass of furniture and wreck has been stopped by it.
It is impossible now oven to approximate the value of the
property destroyed. No one seems for a moment to think
of this in the presence of the fearful loss of life, the full ex-
tent of which is not likely to be known for some days to
come. As is nearly always the case in these great public
calamities, it is the poorest districts of the town only which
have suffered. No accurate return can yet be made of the
injuries which the workshops and forges of the great ma-
nufacturers in this part of the town have sustained, but
from the enormous solidity of all their plant little more
than temporary inconvenience is likely to have been occa-
sioned by the water.
Ia the broad thoroughfare called the Wicker immense
damage has been done to the tradespeople. Rushing with
terrific force through Mr. White's slate-yard, close by
Lady's-bridge, the water carried everything before it, strew-
ing the carcasses of animals, pieces of machinery, and large
trees on every hand. Gradually the flood increased, and
within an hour of its first breaking through the river's brink
the houses and shops were inundated to the depth of several
feet. The shutters of many of the shops were torn down,
and the contents of the windows washed in all directions.
Many shops were at least 3ft deep in water, though standing
at a much greater elevation from the causeway than others-
of less recent construction. Tho loss sustained by the
tradesmen in this neighbourhood will be very great,
as
many of them had large stocks of goods in their cellars.
Several people aro missing in this neighbourhood ; four
bodies had been recovered by 5 o'clock on Saturday morning,
and conveyed to the Bull and Oak, but they have not been
identified.

DONCASTER, Saturday Evening.
Tho inundation throughout the entire valley of the
river Don has been unprecedented ; and not even the great
flood of 1857 was so prolific of damage as this has been.
The Don, owing to late heavy rains, was unusually high,
and the additional water thrown into it by the Sheffield
calamity has thrown hundreds upon hundreds of acres un-
der water, and inflicted incalculable injury on the growing
crops.tlnformation of the disaster was early telegraphed to
this town, and by the direction of Mr, Superintendent Gre-
gory, of the borough police force, intimation was at once
given to the inhabitantsof Marshgate, a district of Doncas-
ter contiguous to the Don, and in flood times under water.
Speedy steps to insure safety was taken, but at no time did
the water rise so high :as to place human life in jeopardy.
About eight o'clock the water had risen so quickly that
Crimpsall, behind the Great Northern Railway sta-
tion, was covered, and with high water at Readby at 1Q
o'clock it was feared that the water would spread, to the