The Sun. — 1869-01-06 (London, England)

THE GALE.  - The severe south-westerly gales which have swept over the coast of Kent during the last few days have been fruitful of disaster. On Saturday night signal guns were heard from the North Sand Head Lightship. The lifeboat Bradford promptly put to sea, attended by the steamtug Aid, and on reaching the Goodwins they found a large ship, which had grounded but had got off, and was out of danger before the arrival of assistance. On Sunday, about eight o'clock, the gale had increased to great violence, sudden gusts of wind frequently sweeping upon the coast with terrific force. Signals of distress were heard proceeding from the Gull Lightship, and a vessel was descried on the Goodwins. The alarm was quickly given, and the lifeboat again put off to render aid to the unfortunate vessel. The tide was ebbing fast, and the sea was very rough. On reaching the sands, the crew of the lifeboat found that the distressed vessel was a French schooner, named the Gaspard, Rousel master, of and from St. Malo for London, with a cargo of oats. The vessel was too deeply imbedded in the sand to be rcecued from her perilous position. The lifeboat was run ashore on the Goodwins in order to reach the vessel. When boarded only one man, the master, was found. He stated that while he had left the deck to go down into the cabin, the boat containing the crew, four in number, had put off from the vessel, leaving him behind either by accident or design, and they had not since been seen or heard of. After taking the master from the wreck, the crew of the lifeboat had a long and arduous task to extricate their boat from the sands. After persistent efforts for between two and three hours, however, they succeeded, and once more put to sea on their return to the harbour, which they reached about half-past twelve noon, and were warmly cheered on landing by the crowds who thronged the beach and the pier-head.  In Yorkshire, early on Sunday morning a S.W. gale, at times blowing with the violence of a hurricane, with very heavy rains, set in, and continued until about nine a.m., when the weather moderated, and ultimately became quite summer-like. The effect was magical. On Saturday the whole country was deeply covered with snow, but at noon on Sunday not a trace of snow was to be found. So rapid a thaw was, of course, expected to cause floods, and on Monday all the Yorkshire rivers were, for the fourth time in as many weeks, over their banks, and a very large tract of country is flooded, roads and houses in some places being inundated. A narrow escape occurred at Newsham Bridge on Monday, when a man on horseback, in fording the flood water, got off the road into deep water, and had great difficulty in regaining it. Various works and mills near rivers are flooded and stopped..  A contemporary cataloguing a series of disasters which attended the keeping of New Year's Day in various parts of the country, says that in Glasgow, a tailor, excited by drink, threw himself out of a window three stories in height, and was killed ; and a woman cracked another's skull in a by-road known as " the Havannah." The same night an Irish Yankee, drunk and riotous, murdered a police inspector in Greenock while the officer was taking* him into custody.