The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-08-29 00:00:00

EFFECTS OF THE LATE STORM.

A hurricane visited the neighbourhood of Peterhead, on
the eastern coast of Scotland, on Saturday morning week.
It is stated that upwards of 100 lives have been lost.
About 400 herring-boats, each manned by crews of five or
six persons, were known to be off the coast in the course
of Friday evening. On night setting in a furious gale
arose, the wind blowing from the S.S.W. At daybreak a
distressing scene presented itself : the beach was strewn
with the bodies of the fishermen and the wrecks of their
fishing-boats. Many of the boats have been swamped
with all hands, and it is supposed about 70 boats have
been destroyed.
The accounts from Wick and other seaport towns on
the opposite shores of Murray Frith are very disastrous.
It appears that the storm overtook the fishermen when
at sea, about two o'clock in the morning, and there being
upwards of a thousand boats exposed to the fury of the
elements, many of them well laden with herrings, the loss
could not be otherwise than great. At the break of day the
coast was literally strewed with wreck. At the port of
Wick four or five boats' crews perished within sight of
their relatives and friends, and altogether more than fifty
fishermen were drowned within a short distance of the
harbour. At all the other ports along the coast wrecks
have been cast ashore, and at the date of the last accounts
no true estimate could be formed of the actual loss of life
that had been occasioned by the storm. One thing ap-
pears certain, that by the gale of Friday morning 200 fish-
ermen have perished, about 150 boats have been wrecked,
and taking into account the value of the nets and other
fishing gear, as well as the herrings destroyed, £20,000
would not cover the damage done by this awful gale.
At Stonehaven several fishing boats with their
crews were lost, and much damage was done to the
cther boats. At Johnshaven similar calamities occurred;
two boats were upset and eight persons drowned.
The gale on the east coast of Northumberland caused
considerable loss to the herring fishermen, several being
obliged to abandon their nets ; and we have to add the
loss of the lives of three fishermen who belonged to New-
biggin, and who were caught in the storm, and, it is sup-
posed, in their attempt to lower the sail, the boat was
upset and they were drowned. The boat was seen the
following morning bottom up.
A house was destroyed on Monday in Queen's-place,
Great Queen-street, Lincoln's-inn-fields, London. A
tall stack of chimneys was blown down, and falling upon
the roof carried it away, and forced down every floor, de-
molishing the whole of the furniture, and nearly killing a
child, the only person in the house at the time.

The Wyvern yacht, a noble schooner of 205 tons, the
property of his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, was
caught in gale off Bembridge, near Portsmouth, on Mon-
day afternoon, in which she lost her mainmast, but won
the cup she was competing for at the time. His Grace
and the Duchess were on board at the time, and his Grace
had a narrow escape from the falling mast and gear, being
on the after ladder at the time.

On Wednesday, a portion of the town of Over Darwen
was inundated by the bursting of a reservoir, known as
the Bold-venture Lodge, by which the cotton mill of
Messrs. Eccles Shorropk and Co. is supplied.
voir is about 50 yards long and 25 yards wide, the depth
being considerable. The supplying stream, from the late
heavy rains, has been much swollen. The inmate of a
house at the end of Back Water-street was alarmed by
the noise occasioned by the water; on looking out he per-
ceived his house to be surrounded by the torrent, and had
scarcely escaped with his wife and children over the roof
of the adjoining house, when the gable end of his own
house fell, and shortly after the whole house was overset
by the torrent ; twelve persons who inhabited cellars in
the adjoining buildings were drowned. The reservoir is
situated 600 or 700 yards from the scene of the disaster,
at an elevation of 200 feet above the town, so that the
force of the inundation may be imagined. A culvert
through which the waste water of the reservoir runs, and
which passes under the principal street of the town, was
burst, and the cellars filled with water; in these six per-
sons were drowned. In one house four children were
carried out at the door by the torrent, but were fortunately
saved. Many persons were floated about, and much pro-
perty destroyed. The flood lasted about an hour.
The gale was felt severely on the coast of the Isle of
Man. Several hundred fishing-boats assembled at the
Calf of Man were scattered in all directions, and four
boats in seeking shelter in Port St. Mary bay were driven
on the rocks and became total wrecks. Fortunately only
one man was drowned.
At Penwortham and Hutton in this county there has
been much land under water. At the Old Grange Farm,
occupied by Mr. Oliver Ball, in the latter township, up-
wards of fifty acres of grain, potatoes, &c., were covered.
Great numbers of persons at Charnock Moss, Penwor-
tham, have suffered from the flooding of their crops. In
some instances, potatoes and grain have been carried
away ; and in one instance at Chan nock Moss a haystack
was a yard deep in water. At Longton, the whole of the
lands near the Marsh, and the other low lands in the
township have been covered. In Longton and the neigh-
bourhood the water has been across the turnpike-road, in
places where the oldest villager does not remember such
an occurrence previously to have taken place. Hoole was
similarly visited ; and Bretherton Ileys were also under
water, as well as some of the low lands of Ruflord. At
Croston the streets were " swimming," according to our
informant's account ; and many of the houses being
flooded, much furniture was floating about.

THE CHARTISTS AND IRISH CONFEDERATES

Another large meeting of these parties was held on
Wednesday at the South London Chartist Hall. The
chairman observed, that according to the Attorney-
General, it was sedition to repeat at one meeting any sedi-
tious language that had been spoken by other speakers
at any previous meeting. There were, he went on to
state, 70,000 men out of employ in London, but the Char-
ter would cure this, and all their other grievances, whilst
the measures of Messrs. Hume and Cobden would prove
wholly inefficacious. The proceedings at the meeting
were of no general interest.
At the Mansion house police-office on Wednesday,
John Shaw, against whom a warrant had been issued
by the Lord Mayor, for having attended an unlawful
meeting and used seditious language was brought before
his Lordship. A great deal of curiosity was excited by
the examination, the prisoner having been chairman of
the meeting in the Milton-street Theatre; at which the
alleged seditious words were used, and J. J. Bezer having
been a few days ago committed to Newgate upon a similar
charge. The report of the prisoner's speech by a Govern-
ment short-hand writer, was read at length. He was
then committed for a misdemeanour.
On Wednesday, two more chartists—Hoyle and Ro-
gers, the latter apprehended at Nottingham—were ar-
rested: All the Manchester prisoners, except Burton and
Leach, who have been bailed out, have been sent to Kirk-
dale Gaol, not having been able to procure the bail.
The Standard states that amongst the fire-balls, car-
tridges, &c., seized by the police at the lodgings of some
of the Chartists lately arrested, are some missiles ofa dia-
bolical character. They consist of a packet, somewhat
square in form, covered with brown papr, and filled with
nails, pieces of iron, and coarse gunpowder. Attached to
each is a fusee of cotton, which leads to the powder.
When ignited, the packet would in half a minute explode,
and kill or seriously injure any one near. These missiles,
it is supposed, were to have been thrown into the windows
of houses the night the ringleaders were apprehended.
On 'Wednesday, the following persons were apprehended
at Ashton by Inspector Maiden, assisted by Mr. Sykes
and Mr. Higgs, of the county constabulary, will a party
of his men :—James Taylor, treasurer of the Chartist As-
sociation ; John Taylor, son of ditto ; W. Atkinson,
schoolmaster; James Harrop, gas fitter ; Edward Harrop,
factory hand ; William Boulton, ditto ; W. Machin, la-
bourer ; and T. Storer, shoemaker. The whole of the
above, and James Ratcliffe, were apprehended under a
bench warrant. Ratcliffe was arrested by Maiden, of
Ashton, and Inspector Bates, of the detective force of Li-
verpool, on board the ship Ocean Monarch, bound for
Boston. North America, in which he was found stowed
away in the hold among a quantity of old wood end hay.
William Dowling, artist and portrait painter, an Irish
Confederate, was brought before Mr. Henry, at Bow•
street on Monday, charged, on the evidence of Powell,
with being one of the Chartist delegates present at the
Lord Denman beer-shop on Tuesday evening, when Mul-
lins, the chairman, went round the room and asked each
deleeate whether he would come out and fight on the fol-
lowing night. The prisoner had also been a member of
the " Plotting Committee," whose duty it was to devise
plans for carrying out the intended Chartist attack. Ile
also was remanded.