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

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 14, 1864.

MR. SHERIDAN LE FANU'S /SEW NOVEL.
At all Libraries,

WYLDER'S HAND.
By the Author of " The House by the Churchyard,"
• -

From the Athenmum.—" Wylder's Hand' is a remarkable
novel, and we recommend our readers to get it for them-
selves."

Richard Bentley, New Burlington-street.

THE AUTO GRAPHIC MIRROR.
Contents of No. 3, will appear TO-MORROW, the 15th
instant, price Is., by post Is. id.:—A letter from George IV.,
when Prince of Wales, about the Princess Caroline ; from the
Duc D'Orleans, the Dnke of Wellington, Marshal Bugeaud,
Baron Brunnow, Guizot, Tillers, Lord Byron, Gibbon (the
Historian, Strauss (the Author of " The Life of Jesus",,
Fenimore Cooper, Miss Foote, Madame Ristori, and Two
ketches, with Autograph, by the late Mr. Thackeray.
Office-110, Strand, W.C.

TEIE WELLINGTON THREE SHILLING
DINNER, consisting of Soup, Fish, Entrée, Joint,
Sweet, Sm., is served daily from 3 to 9, and on Sundays from
5 to 8.30.
Private Rooms for large or small parties.
JOHN CATES, Manager.
The Wellington, St. James's-street.
Entrance, 160, Piccadilly.

TII E OXF 0 It ,
R, OXFORD STREET, W.

THIS EVENING, will be performed the new and success-
ful Opera, by M. Guonod, FAUiT, embracing the entire
company of this establishment, with augmented band and
chorus ; and other Musical Entertainments, supported by the
following talented artistes:—Misses Russell. Fitz-Henry,
Tyrrell,lW almsley ; Messrs. Morley, Tivoli, Green, &a.
Director, Mr. F. Jonghmans.

UNSWORTH and EUGENE will make their re-appear.
ance This Evening.
Comedy, by Mr. T. Maclagran, W.,Randall, G. Hutchenson
G. W. Jester, Miss Nelly Power (the juvenile comedienne),
&c., &a.

Will shortly be produced, TILE MERRY WIVES OF
WINDSOR, by Otto Nicolal; anl THE TWO GENTLE-
MEN OF VERONA, by Sir Henry Bishop.

Admission—Area, 6d. ; stalls and balc3ny, Is. ; private
boxes, 10s. 6d.

CANTERBURY HALL.
The Fairy Entertainment, entitled

PRINCE BLOSSOM IN THE LAND OF SHADOWS!
Is written expressly for this establishment by W. F. Vander-
veil, author of the celebrated " Enchanted Hash," and en-
ables Mr. Morton, with the atd of Professor Pepper's Optical
Illusion (known as the Ghost), to produce effects never before
contemplated, and which have all been duly registered by
him and Mr. J. H. Weston under the title of "The Ghost in
the Magic Fountains." By this new arrangement, that
which is in reality nothing but a shadow, becomes to all ap-
pearance endowed with life, and when " Fame" takes her
flight through the burning Cataracts, and the Naiads seek
their beds in the Crystal Waters, form a coup d'ceil of beauty
unparalleled even in fairy romance.
Prince Blossom (with the Song of all Nations), Miss Townley.
The Marvellous Illusion will take place every Evening at
half-past Nine o'c ock.
All the wonderful entertainment of the establishment, as
usual, in addition to the above.

Admission—Area, 6d.; Stalls and Balcony, is.
Open every Evening.

WHERE CAN WE MEET AFTER THE
PANTOMIMES ? My dear Fellow, Gentlemen sup
at E VANS', Covent-garden.

KINAHAN'S LL WHISKY v. COGNAC,
BRANDY.
This celebrated Old IRISH WHISKY rivals the finest
FRENCH BRANDY,
It i+ Pure, Mild, Mellow, Delicious, and very Wholesome.
Sold in Bottles, 3s. Sd., at the Retail Houses in London ; by
the Agents in the principal towns in England ; or wholesale
at

8, GREAT WINDMILL-STREET, W.
Observe the Red Seal, Pink Label, and Cork branded
"Kinahan's LL Whisky,"

PIGS ! PIGS! PIGS!-INDIAN PIG MEAL,
without husks, supplied to thb Royal farms, Windsor,
and in every county
in England, IGs Gd per cwt. ; one cwt.
equal to 11 cwt. bar'ey or any meal. Delivered tree in Lon-
don. Established 1858.— THOMAS PEARCE, Manager, 66,
Lant-street, Southwark.

pRIZE ME D A L.-INTERNATIONAL
EXHIBITION, 1862.
FRANCIS TUCKER Jr CO., Wax Chandlers, &c., to.,
•To the Queen and the ranee of Wales.
(Established 1710.)
The Jurors' Report on Wax and Church Candles, in 1862,
testifies to ,he excellence of the quality of Messrs. Tuckers'
manufacture.
A distioguished Dignitary, in a letter addressed to Francis
Tucker and Co., on the subject of
WAX CANDLES with PLATTED WICKS,
says :
" I have found them fully equal to the recommendation
which you gave them, and can sincerely, in my turn, II com-
mend them to the clergy for the use of the altar."
Finest quality, with I° tatted Wicks, patented.. Is. 2d. per lb.
Ordinary quality .. • • .. is. Od. per lb.
VEGETABLE CINDLES, with a Mixture of Wax.
Best quality .. Is. sd. per lb.
Second quality . • • • .. is. 3d. per lb.
Third quality .. .. • • .. 18. id. per lb.
Carriage paid in London on Orders of Five Pounds in value.
FRANCIS TUCKER AND CO.,
8, South Holton-street, Grosvenor-square. Manufactory—
Kensington (Established 1730).
The largest Establishment in England for the Manufacture
Wax Candles for the use of the Altar.

DR. SCOTT'S BILIOUS AND LIVER
PILLS.—A NEVER FAILING REMEDY.—Pre-
dared without any mercurial ingredient, from the recipe of Dr.
Scott, of Bromley, Kent, will be found invaluable to all who
suffer from bilious and liver complaints, indigestion, wind.
spasms, giddiness, dizziness of the eyes, Jul For habitual
ostiveness, as a family aperient medicine, and as a purifier
of the blood, they are truly excellent; mild in their opera-
tion and grateful to the stomach, they create appetite, pro-
mote digestion, and strengthen the whole nervous system.
Sold by W. Lambert, 8, King William-street, Charing-cross.
London, and by most drugg►sts, in boxes,ls. lid., and three
times the quantity in one, 2s. 9d. Be sure to ask for Dr.
Scott's Bilious and Liver Pills. The genuine are a square
green package, with " William Lambert," engraved on the
stamp.

os streams ea
wafer,
divides are p
w oie
hh a separated
naorta teed subsided
sby i
de ad reuvsehni nogn
s a. t torrentnr
day. Turning towards Sheffield and commencing
a brief exploration of the ruins showed that the
tidings of disaster failed to represent the fall ex-
tent of the dreadful catastrophe. Whole families
were swept away with their dwellings, and not a
trace remained of the thriving and industrious arti-
sans who sought their beds on Friday night, uncon-
scious of the dreadful fate that has so suddenly be-
fallen them.
A forge upon a headland near the junction of the two
streams was swept away with all its heavy machinery, and
two men who were working at the hammers were among
the first victim. The volume of water there seems to have
entirely swept away one row of cottages, and destroyed the
back wall of another row, leaving only the front wall and
some portions of the flooring in a precarious state. Among
the first of the houses that fell was the Stag public-house
kept by a person named Armitage. The family numbered
11 persons, and they are all drowned. On the headland
above named was a farm house inhabited by a family named
Trickett. The house was swept away with all its occupants,
who are stated to have numbered 10 or 11 persons. The farm
premises with 14 milch cows were carried away by the flood.
Not a vestige of the homestead remains. Near to the house
lived a Mr. Price, a shopkeeper, whose household, including
his son and daughter-in-law, numbered six persons, all of
whom are drowned. It is said that in this row of houses
there was a woman who had been but two days confined.
The infant was washed out of her arms and the mother was
found dead in the road among part of the ruins. In one of
the detached houses near this row lived a family named
Spooner. With them lived an old man, 74 years of age,
named William Wostenholm, the father of Mrs. Spooner.
There were ten in the family, and not one of them sur-
vives. Near the spot on Saturday was a little boy, a grand-

son of Wostenholm, who was weeping bitterly and seeking
in vain to discover even a vestige of the house where his
relatives had lived. The next row of houses, called Bower's

buildings, are very strongly built, and, though they are
greatly injured, they have been saved from utter destruc-
tion. But the condition of the walls of many of the houses

testifies to the force with which the water dashed past. In
some instances the inmates, who were, of course, in bed,
were compelled to remain in the upper rooms for several
hours before they could be released. One of the houses
destroyed was occupied by a man named Cropper and his
wife and two children. They were all drowned, and their
bodies swept away. Near to their house was one occupied
by an old man and his grandson. The old man saved him-
self by escaping to the garret, but his grandson was jammed
by some of the furniture in a corner of the stairs, and was
drowned almost within reach of his relative. William
Watson lived in one of the same row of houses with his
wife and two children. The flood demolished their house
and carried them out, but Watson, as he was being whirled
along on the surface of the torrent, grasped a broken win-
dow-frame in one of the partially submerged houses, and
was saved, but his wife and children are lost. A publiehouse

kept by George Bisby was partially demolished, only one of
the bedrooms and back kitchen remaining. Bisby, his wife,

and four children are gone. Next are a row of houses called
the " brick row." Down both front and back of these houses
the flood had raged in all its fury. The mud upon the
houses showed that the waters had risen from 16 to 18 feet

above the roadway. The first house of the row was tenanted
by a man named Dyson, his wife and children, and one or
two relatives. They were ten in number, but only one of
them is saved. The survivor is Dyson's brother, and he
esoaped in a very remarkable manner. Ho was sleeping in
the top bedroom, and being awakened by the rush of the
water, and finding escape into the road cut off, he smashed
a portion of the lath and plaster partition, made his way to
the joists beneath the roof, and then broke through the
slates and got upon the roof, where he remained till assis-

tance could be given to him. In the back of the last house
of this row two children named Atkinson were swept out of
their bedroom along with the bed on which they were lying
and were drowned. In the next two houses resided two
families named Turner and one named Taplin. The uncer-
tain statements of the surviving neighbours fix the number
in each house at seven and eight, but not a trace of them or
their houses is left. The Hillsborough Inn had a narrow
escape from total demolition. The Shakepere Inn across
the road suffered to a similar extent. The passages were
several feet deep in mud, and at the parlour door, roughly
stretched upon a wooden bier, was the naked corpse of a
man which had been dug out of the mud and rubbish op-
posite the house. In a stable attached to the Yew Tree
Inn were six corpses—three women and three men. They
were laid upon stretchers just as they had been dug out of
the mud or dragged from out of the hedges, cr beneath

trunks of great trees or beams of timber that had been
whirled down the current. In the bed which one branch
of the current had made for itself behind the Hillsborough
Inn we saw the bodies of a man and a woman whom there
had not been time to get out. The body of the man was
partially buried, and the woman was laid beneath the bank.
She had on her drawers and one stocking. She had clung
with convulsive tenacity to a piece of plink, but it had
proved insufficient to save her.
Leaving Hillsborough, and turning down towards Owler •
ton, the destruction appeared to be on a equally awful scale.
A number of oottage houses were completely washed away,

and a thick deposit of mud concealed the well•kept gardens
that had been the pride of the cottagers. Almost every
house that remained in a habitable condition was used as a
dead house. At every turning were to be met parties of
policemen and volunteers, bearing each a ghastly burden
In the publichouse kept by Mr. Holland were five dead
bodies. In the Victoria, further on the 0 wlerton road,
there were four, which during our brief stay there were

increased to seven. In a stable attached to a beerhouse

were two bodies; in another stable, upon heaps of straw,
three mangled forms were laid out. On the road side be-

yond the Victoria were one or two bodies, which would be
" dug out" when the labourers had time to attend to them.
In the stream there we saw the mangled body of a girl about

,0 years old, which had been apparently cut in two by a

heavy piece of timber with machinery attached to it. Close
by the searchers discovered the mangled body of a man in
a muddy pool. It was removed to one of the inns. In the
same street, at ono and the same moment, we met throe
parties of bearers, each carrying a dead body.
On the Sheffield side of the stream seven or eight bodies
were recovered, and were taken to the Queen's Hovel. They
are not yet identified. The force of the current may be

estimated by the fact that the massive wall bounding the
barracks on the lower side was swept away. The flood
invaded the quarters of the sergeants, and two of the infant

children of Paymaster Sergeant Foulds were drowned in
their bed. The sentry at the gate had the narrowest pos-

Bible escape, the flood coming upon him with lightning

suddenness.

At Neepsend, the Sheffield Daily Telegraph says:—
" One part of a large factory has been cut away as clean
as if it had been sawn down close by the partition wall. A
little further on is a row of houses with their fronts removed,
and the honeycombed arrangements of the rooms fully ex-
posed to view. Near these transverse sections or interiors of

houses are numerous gardens, in which there is now no sign

of vegetation, but a tangle of torn shrubs and the ruffled
and tangled appearance of these gardens is as odd as that of
the unswePt floor of a hair seating manufactory. Near the

ditches and corners of these gardens men knee deep in mud
are looking anxiously about for the forms of women, and
men, and children, and lost property. The neighbourhood is
of red brick, and the height of the dark water mark on these
houses argues not only a fearful destruction of property,
but a not less fearful destruction of life. The flood has come
upon this low-lying neighbourhood like a thief in the night,
and the water mark shows that some of the houses have been
submerged nearly to the roof, some have been filled up to
the level of the second storey, and in others which stand a

little higher the water mark is about shoulder height."
In the town of Sheffield itself the destruction of property
as been almost greater than in the valley, but there, for-
tunately, it has been attended with comparatively little loss
of life.
The Sheffield Telegraph states that—
"ln the town the first alarm was given at about a quarter
past 12. The sharp hiss as of escaping steam, the sound as
of a mighty rush of water, made people rush towards the
river, when it was found that the Don was in an extraordi-
nary flood, and that some dreadful calamity had occurred.
At 2 o'clock the height and force of the current had greatly
abated. There was still a great volume of water, and the
roar with which it went along was like that of an express
train in a cutting. On Lady's. bridge a great number of

people were standing looking over the parapets on the fear-
ful heaps of timber mixed with straw and other debris which
the flood had piled up against the masonwork of the bridge,
The immense quantity of rafters, flooring, joists, planks, and
miscellaneous articles heaped to within a few feet of the top

of the bridge told a portentous story of buildings destroyed,
and melancholy were the forebodings of those who looked on
the ruin. There seemed wood enough to build a village. But

bad as were the fears of those who looked on the evidences

of disaster, none knew how dreadful was the reality, and
the majority had not the most distant idoa of tho loss of life
that had occurred. At the police station was a little crowd

of poor ill-dressed people who had been flooded out of their
dwellings, and who were glad to spend the night crouching
round the fire ; and in the streets were several people mov-
ing about hastily with torches which they had improvised.
But as yet, beyond the sight of wet people and wet streets,
and beyond the roar of the river, and those ominous, but as
yet unexplained, heaps of timber about the bridge, there
%vas nothing known among the crowd of the loss of life, and
the spectators fondly hoped that the mass of wood might
prove to be nothing but the contractor's plant, increased by

rubbish swept from the banks of the river."
In the darkness one could only guess, from the fearful
rumours that came from the lower part of the town, what
the scene there would be at daylight. The morning of Sa-