of running with safety. It had been running some
miles that day. The explosion was attributed to the
boiler being kept short of water.

The village of Ashwell in Herts was ravaged by a
terrible Fire on the 2nd, supposed to have been wilfully
caused. Six farm premises, the produce of 1400 acres,
26 cottages, 3 malt-houses, and a handsome Independent
chapel, were utterly destroyed. Thirty-two families
have been rendered houseless, and 60 or 70 people
thrown out of work. The damage amounts to from
£25,000 to £30,000.

A tremendous Storm of Wind swept over all parts of
the kingdom on the night of the 5th and 6th. Its equal
in violence has not been experienced for years, and a
vast destruction of property has taken place. The
remarkable fall of the barometer in the afternoon,
indicated a change in the weather for the worse, and after
dusk the wind rose rapidly from the W. and N.W., with
occasionally heavy falls of rain. By one o'clock the
gale had reached its climax, at times resembling thunder.
It so continued till six o'clock, when the blast, if
anything, increased, as the wind-gauge at Lloyd's showed.
The pressure throughout the night up to the time
mentioned was 9lbs, 10lbs, and 11lbs on the square foot;
but a few minutes after six o'clock it reached I7lbs.,
the highest pressure known since the apparatus machine
has been erected, now three years.

Large branches were torn from the trees in and round
the metropolis, numerous stacks of chimneys blown down,
and lead stripped from the house-tops. At Bethnal
Green the roof of a chapel was torn up and shattered to
pieces. Much damage was done to the shipping in the
river, accompanied with loss of life. At Manchester
many of the houses were unroofed. Three heavily-
laden coal-waggons on the West Yorkshire Railway
were set in motion down an incline, and dashed through
the Bolton station towards Manchester, at the speed of
an express, overtaking a passenger-train at Clifton;
they ran into it with extraordinary violence, shivering
the three last carriages almost to atoms. Many of the
passengers were severely injured. At Preston the
arches of a new railway viaduct were blown down. At
Bristol and Liverpool, numerous vessels were driven
on shore.

The shipping on the coasts suffered enormously. In
the west, a ship was shattered to pieces on the shore at
Mawgen Porth, and all hands perished; at Ilfracombe,
a Fowey vessel was wrecked, with the loss of the whole
crew. In Wales, both at sea and on land, the damage
was extensive. A ship was wrecked in attempting to
enter Cardigan harbour, and eleven out of a crew of
thirteen perished. The gale caused the destruction of
a well-known windmill at Castledown in the Isle of
Man: the sails were whirled round with such rapidity
that the mill was set on fire, and was speedily burnt
down. On the east coast, a great deal of shipping was
damaged or destroyed. A brig was seen to go down
near the Dudgeon Light; nothing heard of the crew.
A West Indiaman seems to have been lost in Margate
Roads. The Sarah, from Jamaica, was on the way to
London, towed by a steamer, when the hawser broke,
and the ship went adrift during the night. A quantity
of West India produce and pieces of wreck have been
cast ashore; nothing heard of the crew.

Near Ayr, the Jubilee of Sunderland was lost on the
rocks; the mate and four seamen drowned. The
Margaret, from New Orleans, went ashore near Dunure; the
crew got to land; but a young man determined to
return and save his chest: he got back to the ship,
much exhausted, and caught hold of a rope; he hung
by this for twenty minutes, and then, quite worn out,
dropped into the waves and was drowned. A coal-ship
ran ashore near Girvan; the men took to the boat;
this afterwards filled and sank, and five men were lost.
At Ardrossan, a steamer which plied to the Isle of
Arran caught fire while lying in port; and the wind so
fanned the flames that nothing could be done but
scuttle the ship, which then burnt to the water's edge.

The storm raged in Ireland. At Limerick, the master
of a ship was drowned, having been blown off a plank
as he was going to the vessel. The Queen's College at
Belfast was a good deal damaged; and a fatal accident
occurred at the Union Workhouse: a chimney was
blown down, and a large stone fell through the roof of
a dormitory, killing three boys. At White Abbey, a
child was killed by the fall of a chimney, while sleeping
with its parents. In some districts the wretched hovels
of the peasantry have been swept away wholesale.

Early on the morning of the 7th, a Destructive Fire
broke out in the vicinity of the York Road. It originated
in the extensive premises of Mr. Myers, a builder,
timber-merchant, and contractor: in the midst of a
square of houses formed by the Westminster Road, the
York Road, the Belvedere Road, and Guildford Street,
which runs between the two last. From the situation
of the buildings, the fire had gained great head before it
was discovered, and then it spread rapidly. The result
was the entire destruction of Mr. Myers's premises, of
Messrs Nickels and Co.'s India-rubber webb manufactory
in Guildford street, the damaging more or less of
twelve houses in the York Road, of five in the Belvedere
Road, and of other buildings. The body of fire was
enormous, and the Brigade men could do nothing to
save the manufacturing buildings. Mr. Myers was the
contractor for ornamental stone-work for divers of Mr.
Pugin's works, and the builder of the new Roman
Catholic Cathedral, St. George's Fields. Upwards of
fifty workmen have lost all their tools. Seventy young
women are thrown out of employment by the destruction
of Messrs. Nickels and Co.'s factory; this building was
formerly part of Grissell and Peto's establishment. In
one floor alone there were 500 machines, and in another
300, besides about a dozen power-looms and various
hand-looms. The superintendent, who lived on the
premises, escaped with his wife and four children in
their night-clothes, every article of their furniture and
clothing being destroyed. The whole of the property of
Mr. Myers was consumed, including four valuable
horses, which the firemen were unable to rescue. The
total amount of property destroyed is estimated at
£50,000. Three-fourths of the amount is insured.

An Alarming Fire broke out on the 19th in the
extensive flax-mills of the Messrs. Mulholland, at Belfast.
Property to the amount of £10,000 was stored in the
wing of the building where the fire took place, and a
very considerable portion of it is stated to have been
consumed or damaged. The injury, however, was
amply covered by insurance.

John Walker, a compositor, aged 44, Committed
Suicide on the 9th. He had been discharged that day
from the office of Messrs. Schultz and Co. in consequence
of intemperate habits. He went to bed quite sober, and
about nine o'clock on the following morning he was
found in bed bleeding profusely from several wounds
in his throat, which he had inflicted with a razor
discovered lying by his side. The deceased was quite
sensible, and said to Mr. Davis, with whom he lodged,
that "he was ashamed to look him in the face, but he
was compelled to do it, as he had been in great agony all
the week." He was speedily placed in a cab, and on
being removed to St. George's Hospital he was found to
be quite dead. The house surgeon said, the wounds in
the deceased's throat were not suflicient to cause death,
and, from the appearance of the stomach and the
intestines, the deceased had taken some corrosive poison
which had caused death.

An Explosion of Gunpowder, attended with loss of
life, occurred on the 14th, at Norris Castle, Isle of
Wight, occupied by R. Bell, Esq. Mr. Hill, who is a
member of several yacht clubs, kept his spare stores,
including gunpowder, plate, &c., in some stabling
adjoining the castle. The ammunition, from some cause
unexplained, exploded, destroying the building and its
contents, killing a man and boy, and wounding severely
two others.

A collision, involving the Loss of Two valuable
Vessels, occurred on the night of the 14th. Both were
English traders—one the Floridian, a large barque, 300
tons burthen, the other a brigantine, the Helen, from
Lisbon, bound to Leith,—both heavily laden. It was
between 11 and 12 o'clock when the accident happened,
the spot lat. 47.58, Ion. 8, west. The Floridian was
under close-reefed topsails, as was also the case with the
Helen, and both, it is asserted, had a "good look-out,"
yet it appears neither of the vessels was seen until the
very moment they came in contact. The Helen