The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-31 00:00:00

The Weather in Northumberland.

On Friday night the wind blew a gale from the east upon
the coast of Northumberland, the night was pitch dark and
the sea was heavier than it has been known for years. In
the midst of the storm, between 9 and 10 o'clock at night,
the fishermen and villagers of Cullercoats were a good deal
alarmed by seeing a vessel drive in upon the rocks to tlice
north of the village, followed by her crew burning tar bar-
rels and torches as signals of distress, and upon running
down to the cliffs they found that a light bark had struck on
a reef about 200 yards from the cliff, and that she was in
great danger of breaking up. From the tremendous sea that
was breaking on the coast it was impossible to get the lifeboat
out of Cullercoats Harbour,and in the emergency fleet-footed
messengers were despatched to the Whiteley and Tyne-
mouth Coastguard statioss for assistance and the rockets.
The coastguardmen speedily arrived with the apparatus for
saving life in shipwreck. By this time the entire village
had turned on to the cliffs and faced the raging storm.
Fishermen and fisherwomen wrought bravely to get the
apparatus into position, and in a short time lines were fired
over the vessel. The crew on board the ship were as expert
as the preventive men and fishermen,end a good stout hawser
was soon fastened to the mizzen rigging, and the connection
between the ship and the shore very speedily effected. The
crew—men and boys—were brought ashore by the apparatus
and hauled on to the cliffs amid great cheering ; and the
crew had not gone ashore a minute too soon. For when
the last man left the vessel she was in three parts, and in
little more than an hour after she struck the sea claimed
her for its own, and broke the wreck into a thousand frag-
ments, the shore being strewn with them on Saturday
morning. The vessel proved to be the Warrior, of Sun-
derland, from Hamburg, During the struggle between
the brave people on the shore and the sea for the possession
of these poor men the scene was very exciting, the fish-
women and fisher lasses exerting themselves equally with
the men in a heroic and, as it fortunately turned out, suc-
cessful efforts to save their lives. The seamen were treated
with great kindness by the fisher people, who clad them in
dry clothing, and saw that they were well provided for in
two of the taverns of the village. At the time this scene
was occurring a most destructive fire had broken out in the
seaport town of North Shields, which at one time threat-
ened to sweep away an ancient quarter of the town occupied
by the seafaring population. But, fortunately, by the em-
ployment of a powerful river engine, the fire was kept
within limits, but it entirely destroyed an extensive whole-
sale drug establishment belonging to Mr It. Forth. The
scene at the fire was something extraordinary, from the
number of families who turned out into the streets and on
to the shores of the Tyno with their furniture. And there
was great danger and much alarm lest the walls of the
burning building should fall, as a fearful destruction of
adjacent property would have followed, and probably a sad
loss of life, as the streets were so narrow and the locality
was so crowded when the property was burning The
weather on the coast of Northumberland improved a little on
Saturday, but still it was very stormy, and rain fell all day.