The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1877-01-21

Not fsr from Drury Lane, London, is a
street called Wild street, IN which there
has long stood Baptist chapel. This in
stitution has for l72 years been remarkable
for sermon annually preached there in
commem0ration of the greatest storm that
has occurred in England in modern times.
Robert Taylor, who survived this fearful
visitation, after having been exposed to
awful peril, placed small sum of money in
the public funds to pay for al annual ser
mon which never fails to excite extraordi-
nary interest. This storm, for several years
afterwards mentioned not as a storm, bat as
the storm, was comparable, says Lord Stan
hope, in his history of Queen Anne's reign,
to the worst in the tropical chimes. Its
chief force WAS spent in the south and
southwest of England. The Qneen was
aroused from her bed in st. James palace
by part of that venerable structure being
blown down, and the Bishop of Bath and
Wells and his wife were killed by the fall
of a chimney stack. The Registrar of Elton
College was blown from his room into the
street near ,LHdgate Hill, London. The
damage done at Bristol was computed at
Gl5O,OOO. - Portsmouth, says writer of
| the time, CLOCKS like a city bonn barded."
The Eddyetone Lighthouse was swept into
| the sea. The whole country was strewn
with giant trees, torn from the roots by a
wind such as had never been known before
Curiosity led Defoe to count them in a ride
around London. He counted II 900, and
| then got tired. But the most terrible dis
asters were at sea. Fifteen sail of the line in =
Guiding Admiral Booater an2 the whole of
his crew, together with several hundred mer-
chantmen and a sixty four gun ship, with
Admiral Beaumont on board, persisted, the
latter in tull view of Deal. Of 2G5 men ont
one was saved-cast by a wave To shore.
1t has been computed that s 600 people were
lost. The House of Commons presented an
address to the Queen deploring the loss to
the navy, and suggesting the bulIding o! new
ships, this being, says Lord Macau!ay, the
only occasion in England when a tempest
evoked a public address, or the national
fast which followed it. During Queen
Anne's reign the day of the storm contin-
ued, in obedience to her proclamation, to
be sOiemnly observed. The worst year
in England since then was 1914. In it's
autumn and winter the sea was covered
with wrecks and the coast with corpses.
On Nov. 30 Fearful tempest swept up from
the tumultuous Atlantic. The wind ragged
for three days with appalling fury. The
year closed with long remembered snow
storm which absolutely paral yzed locomo-
ton throughout the kingdom for a week.
The foreign mails were sent by sea from
London to the Continent because the road
through Kent, despite the efforts of the i'm
mense crowd set to clear it, continued i'm
passable. Perhaps" observes a writer,
referring to it come years later, " no act of
nature gives SO high a conception of a more
than mortal hand-tEe rapidity of it's effect,
the subtle but resistless chemistry by which
the impalpable element was turned into a
material of a totally different form and
qualities sufficient to sheet millions of
miles" What myriad of human hopes
must have been suddenly thwarted or de-
feAted by this visitation. which probably in
some indirect manner affected the course of
as many careers!