The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-06 00:00:00

•
2 •
•
‘‘ 4.2 7e_ s it.: Et
726
t y ki4Sl/414 9'
41'
:C-)71
//1-2
•
e ( tl('
411111 H-.% 111ho' rani
fill , 111fL • Au, - 0.0 •
,
••••1 ,
V‘\lll27/Y4111101•1c:'
-
=
„sift-4mA,
Top, ' _ • 111
411110111,..... 41.1 un+
d,t,1114;,".tv' • , „.917'.

ad-lher roots were in many cases waalik&
pletely out of the ground, and swept awakcYtil'Wl--
torrent, or cut into shreds by the hail.
To recount all the disasters that occurred-0
Market Lavington would fill a column of °ILI
space. Mr. Neate's cellars were full of water to the
very gratings, and for hours after the rain bad ceased
the barrels which They, contained might be seen
floating about up to the level of the road. A strong
brick wall, which formed the boundary of the farm
yard, near the church, came down en masse,•and
at " Northbrook" the flooring of the house oe
copied by Axford, the dog-breaker, was thrust
up by the water, and the dogs in the kenvels
were obliged to swim to save their lives. £2 0,
it is said, will not pay the damage done to A.
ford's premises. In another part of the parish, fz-
carpenter named Rimer had nearly everything
washed out of his house-, and narrowly saved the
life of his pig by taking it bodily out of the stye.
The disasters among the feathered tribe were innu-
marahle. Ducks were drowned in their favourite
element; fowls shared the same fate; and sparrow,,
thrushes, and blackbirds wire picked up by hun-
dreds after the storm was (wee! .knocked down by
the hail, and buried beneath it. Not less than 78
sparrows were picked up dead in the church (which
is at present unroofed) ; and as a proof of the de-
struction which was carried on among these birds,
a baker in the place informed us that although_ hun-
dreds of them had been in the habit of con gregat-
ing in his yard daily when his chickens were being
fed, not one was to be seen during the whole' of
Tuesday, and hardly a small bird was seen in mar_
ket Lavington up to Wednesday morning.
Leaving Market Lavington we now come to West
Lavington, and along the whole line of road from
one village to the other nothing vas to be seen but
hail, heaped here and there in enormous masses six
and seven feet deep. At Cernbury mill the water
rose to a great height,
.and an acre of barley be-
longing to the miller (Mr. Burbage) was so corn
pletely riddled as to be absolutely worthless. At
Russell-mill (occupied by Mr. Peerless) the water
rose in less than an hour six feet at the tail of the
mill ; and a meadow close by, of Mr. Fowle's,
was
at least six feet under water; while in the house
attached to the mill were two feet of water in all
the lower rooms.
But the amount of destruction at otter places
was small in comparison to what took place on
Mr. Thomas Neate's farm at West Lavington.
Mr. Neate had on the side of the hill 12r acres
of barley—one of the finest crops that he' has
ever grown upon his farm, containing at least' five
quarters to the acre, as was proved by some which
he had cut and threshed out. The crop was just Lit
to harvest ; in fact, 30 acres of it were already -
lying in swath ; and we speak within bounds when.
we say that the damage which the hail did to this
crop will not be covered for less than 000. Seventy
acres of it are as cleanly threshed and washed away
as it the crop had passed through a threshing
machine, the ears being stripped completely off,
leaving the bare straw denuded of its head. It is
estimated that at least 500 quarters are lost out of
the 127 acres; and the only satisfaction which Mr.
Neate has is, that he is fully insured in the Farnters'-
ofEce—a precaution which he was very nearly fore-
going at the commencement of the season, having
(as he thought) paid a deal of money uselessly in
previous years to secure himself against losses
which did not seem likely to occur.
At Mrs. Lush's house, situated at the fbot of the
hill leaving West Lavington village for Tilshead,
the stream made a clean breach from the back to,
the front door—inundating all the lower rooms,
and setting the tables, chairs, and the furniture of
the drawing and dining rooms two feet deep' in
water ; while the house itself had the appearance'
of standing in the midst of a lake, the whole of the•
open space around presenting one vast sheet of
water, from Mr. W. Sainsbury's to the opposite
rising ground. When we paid a visit to the scene
on Tuesday hatches were being fitted to the front' -
and back doors, so as to prevent the passage through
the house from being converted into a water course
in future, this being the second time within the last
few years that Mrs. Lush has suffered from an
inundation (although the first visitation bore no co-
parison with that which swept through her house
on Tuesday morning).
From this point towards Tilehead the storm pur-
sued its course, but on reaching Gore Cross it seems
to have expended its fury, its effect upon the crops
there being confined to levelling the barley with the
ground, but without threshing it out, and to drench-
ing the crops, without cutting them to shivers.
For hours, however, afterwards the country
around presented a most extraordinary appearance.
Not a sign of vegetation was to be seen in the
fields. Instead of standing barley, which had given
so rich and golden an appearance to the hill-side
the evening before, nought met the eye but hail,
hail, hail! burying everything beneath it ; while
the allotments and gardens, the roads, and even the
houses looked as if they had just emerged from a
deluge. As to the poor cottagers, their oases is
indeed pitiable. Many of them who held allot-
ments have lost their entire crop, and the mischief
which has been occasioned in their dwellings is sad
indeed. Throughout the whole day afterwards
they were engaged in wheeling the mud and filth
from their rooms, and the dampness and the smell
which the inundation left behind it made them in
many cases almost uninhabitable.
we
e by be
haillieve : the
only persons
eFrsoownlse
iannsudr lkedl againstr. Neate
damage and
they will, we have no doubt,
be liberally dealt with
were,
by the office with which their policies are effected.
For the poor, who have ao greatly suffered—in
many instances losing the whole of their crop, ea
which their entire dependence was staked—we
will be set on foot.
have no doubt a subscription

PRICE..... ...4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

direct from Chatham to Portsmouth for embarca-
tion. The company has been augmented to its full
strength of 120 non-commissioned officers and men
from the companies at head-quarters, Brompton.
According to present arrangements, Capt. W. A.
Frankland will take the command of : the 22d
company on its leaving for China.

TREMENDOUS SIMI.

(From the Wiltshire Gazette.)

Never, within the memory of man, hes such a
storm been known in this neighbourhood as visited
Market and West Lavington and Easterton on Tues-
day morning—a storm at once so overwhelming in
its consequences as to find a parallel only in the
disastrous Shrewton flood which took place about 23
years ago. The Shrewton flood, however, was a
flood of water, occasioned by the sudden thaw of an
accumulation of snow on the adjacent hills; whereas
the storm of Tuesday last was not alone a flood of
water or rain, but a fall of hail the like of which,
we will venture to say, has never before been seen
in this country. Indeed, had we not been eye-wit-
nesses of the fact, we could hardly have believed
that in less than half an hour hailstones would have
stood upon the ground seven feet deep ! Yet, so it
was at Lavington on Tuesday morning, and the
scene which the country presented will never be for-
gotten by those who witnessed it. There had been
distant rumblings of thunder and occasional flashes
of lightning soon after the day began to dawn, and
the sky for miles around wore a heavy, leaden hue ;
but men, nevertheless, ventured upon their oat-door
work, little dreaming of what was about to burst
upon them. About half-half 5 a roar, as of a roll
of musketry, was heard, the lightning and thunder
increased, and, as if the bolts of heaven had sud-
denly been withdrawn, there fell such a deluge of
hail and rain as fairly frightened all who beheld it.
In less than half an hour the whole line .of
country, from Easterton on the one side to
West Lavington on the other, was completely
covered. Not a blade of grass, or corn, or crop of
any kind was visible; the whole surface of the
earth was one mass of hailstones, the houses were
from two to three feet deep in water, the cellars
full up to the very gratings, while the streets and
roads throughout the whole length from Easterton
to West Lavington were converted into a deep,
roaring, rushing torrent, which carried every-
thing before ,it. As to the damage done to the
crops by the hail, thousands of pounds will not re-
pay it, acres upon acres of barley being left with-
out a single grain on the stalk. But disastrous as
the visitation was, it was extremely partial in its
course and in its extent. Its violence seems to
have been limited to about half a mile in breadth
and two miles in length, extending diagonally
from Gore-cross, along a portion of the hill and the
valley of the two Lavingtons, as far as Eastcott.
Beyond either of these two points we do not hear
that any serious damage was sustained ; and within
half a mile of it—at Candown, for instance, and on
Fiddington-hill—so trifling had been the fall that
wheat was being carried within a few hours after-
wards. At Eastcott the first scene of disaster pre-
sented itself, and a scene, indeed, it was—every
house with its lower rooms under water, and people
looking out from the upper windows of the cottages
in momentary expectation of being swept away in
the torrent. The water in Mr. Jacob New-
man's farmyard was 6 feet deep, and the barrels
in his cellar floated about as though they had
been in a pond. By Mr. Benjamin Hayward's,
at Easterton, the water rushed along like a
mill stream, carrying with it his wall, Mr. Wil-
liams's garden-wall, the boundary fence at Fidding-
ton-howe, and, in fact, everything that caw! in
its way—bricks,' timber, and even the road itself,
which is gorged up in many places as though it had
been lifted from its foundation by som.. subterra-
nean force. The greatest wonder is that the cot-
tages were not swept away also. Their condition
may be imagined, with water in them 3 feet high,
and with no chance of help from anybody, for not a
soul could venture from the upper stories without
running the risk of being swept away. One man,
who had been milking, in his endeavour to drive

through the village after the storm had in some
degree subsided, had his milk kettle carried
out of his cart and floated rapidly away along the
current, and a piece of timber 10ft. long was carried
40 yards down the middle of the road; and we
heard of one cottage, situated in the lower part of
Easterton, where the water rose to the ceiling in
the lower room and drowned a cat ; and of another,

where a little girl who was left in the room on the
ground floor got upon the table to save herself, and
was floated about the room upon it, saving herself
eventually by clinging to the sill of the window.
In Fiddington Hollow, near Dr. Hitchcock's, the
water made a clean breach over the hedge, and in
its rush down to the adjoining fields resembled a
boiling cataract `which nothing ',Gould :withstand,
But at Market Lavington matters were worse even
than at Easterton. The only wonder is that the
houses in the lower part of the town near the church
were left standing. The escape of some of them
from destruction is to be attributed to the prompt
action of their occupants, who, observing that
the foundations were about to give way
knocked holes though the walls, and so lessened
the weight of water that was rushing against them.
The street from end to end was like a mighty river,
and the roaring of the hail, accompanied with vivid
lightning and loud peals of thunder, made the scene
truly awful and filled all hearts with fear. As to
the hail, never was such a sight seen before in this
or any other part of the country. In one place,
called " Broadwell," near to Mr. Fowle's house, it
covered the entire space seven feet deep, and the
rush of water from the hill at this point was tre-
mendous. Everything that was in the way went
with it, and, as an instance of the veloeity with
which it ran, we may state that eight loads of pint
by the side of the road near Mr. Fowle's house were
entirely carried away. Mr. Fowle was in bisfi t
giving directions to his men when the storm t rhe
s
burst, and ran for shelter under a skilling; be-
tween -
b
had not been there long before the water
rose
horse off
tween three and four feet in the yard
the, cut
and
all communication between him and
thie,iyoung live
but for the greatest promptitude
es ovum have live
stock that were upon the premis ,
lost. The lower part of Mr. Foffr,l° horse was en-
lost. the storm
tirely inundated, and such 0308-e
Water
was unable to get
obtained inside that Miss F
water that ran through
to her mother's room for the
e scene at Broadwell beat
the passage. But
and
%b last the cottages there stood
everything else ;
y feet
a rovf ell
a ouuds . a Idno sandn e
through the storm
•thapaerfcttewol
ft
a floor, and the water was np so
r!uirintnates :urst not venture down-
of them no less
_
hundreds of
covered the
the inmates
of their lives.
stairs
tahta tele
r_
t
in the evening.,
notwithstanding
waggon 1°
ndd, of hail .ay ab ut thisspot during
the
• places. The loss to tha
dal; A heat of tho
the exaetn- welther, it was four feet
deep
1° crops can hardly
at present be estimated. Mr. Fowie has ages and
ores of corn in which hardly
a lea in the
husk, This is the case with h 26
about acres o, bur-
ley and oats on the hill and near his house ; 3n.. so
with the crops of Mr. House (of the Green Drava
and Mr. Farmer. Ten acres of barley holongin, to
Mr. House, estimated to contain at least toar quar-
ters to the acre, are so skinned that there is not one
whole ear left oat of 10,000, and the entire pt)oe
will now hardly yield three quarters. A piece of
oats (of two or three acres) also belonging to Mr.
House is reduced to mere husks; and a crop of
wheat on the same farm has at least a sack and a
half an acre knocked out of it. The effect of the
storm upon the allotments is absolutely ruinous.
We saw one or two pieces of barley on the land
occupied by these small holders, containing half an
acre each, in which it would be difficult to find a
quarter of grain left, while the turnips, potatoes,

7HE FAVIL PONDS ON HAIIIPS7EAD
HEATH.

Yesterday Dr. Lankester, the Central Middlesex
coroner, held en inquest at the Elephant and Castle,
e t,
Kentish
K. ing,s-road, Camden-town, touching the death of
tGeorgeree
Pritchard, aged 52, residing in Harmood-
maker, Town. The deceased was a piano-
fortein the service of Messrs. Collard and
Collard, whose death may be added to the long list
of casualties from the above ponds.
The evidence went to show that deceased was a
sober, well-conducted man in the habit of walk-
ing alone of an evening about Hampstead
Heath and the chain of ponds extending at short
intervals from Hampstead to Highgate. On Tues-
day evening, at 7 o'clock, be left the factory near
thenine
inoßoaocuklin,vde.House, Kentish Town, and was not again
On Wednesday morning,
White-
cross-street, arrived at the ponds to " fish," when
clumps
known of clay a
asy a t
thea
?diddle substance
Ponder w a t
, owf hti he
he
his attention was directed to some boys throwing
he
eonwas startled to find, on close examination, to bed
the back of the head of a man's body, just at the
surface of the water, A boy gave him the drags,
and the body was got out. The depth of water at
that spot was only two feet. The body was firmly
fixed in the clay by the knees and elbows. Hather-
ton was of opinion that if deceased got into the
water voluntarily he must have gone in from the
opposite side from there, where in some parts the
pond was 12 feet deep away from the land, acces-
sible by means of planks. He could easily have
walked in and dragged the body out on the shallow
side, only that the clay was deep and dangerous
there. He was in the habit of fishing at the ponds,
and had very often seen deceased wandering about
there, and had talked with him about fishing.
The testimony of other witnesses showed that
deceased was afflicted with a wife bed-ridden,
speechless, and idiotic, but he seemed to be fond of
her and to bear this severe family affliction with
great fortitude.
Upon his person a county court summons was
totond, but it seemed to have nothing to do with the
~.Ise. and there was no evidence to show where he
wn from 7 o'clock on Tuesday evening, when he
lea his work, until the dead body was discovered.
1 7,e iesident medical officer, Mr. Saul, of St. Pan-
el as NV otrkhouse, deposed that the body was brought
there, 4nd that death was caused from drowning.
He auded also, that circumstances led him to be-
lieve that the drowning must have taken place in
deep water.
furTthheerCloigrohntewr
Coroner,
oinnl dsumming
obtainedu P
ment, and he thought there was no evidence to sup.
port a verdict of suicide or accidental death ; there-
fore he recommended an open verdict.
open verdict of found
The jury returned an did
from not ,
.
drowned. aennthaidn'ikottarnny-