to port told of the fearful perils they had encountered and the narrow escapes they had had from foundering, whilst there were others whose absence excited the most painful apprehensions. Stacks of wheat had been blown down and scattered, hundreds of fine old trees had been torn up by the roots, the rain had descended in torrents, and hail had fallen larger in size than had known to have occurred for years. As in Great Britain, so in France, the stormy weather had been general during the week. A terrific hurricane broke over Paris at 2 o'clock on Monday morning and continued until about 8 o'clock, when the fury of the wind appeared to be subdued by torrents of rain. In the South of France, too the weather was deplorable. An enormous water-spout on Friday on the railway from Nimes to Montpellier. A long list of wrecks during the gales was received from several coast towns. At Liverpool, Shields, Leith, Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Holyhead, the wind blew with hurricane force on Monday and Tuesday, and many parts were inundated by the sea.
As to the [cause] of this series of storms, we are almost in the dark, and in a scientific point of view can offer but a feeble explanation. We know, indeed that the moon reached her greatest northern declination on Friday, and that it was therefore on of the days on which "a change for higher wind or lower temperature" might be expected; but it was not one of Saseby's "cyclone" days, nor was it or its predecessor, a day which meteorologist would have described beforehand as more than "windy", "fresh", or "strong". Certainly our own weather clerk was out in his reckoning, and even Fitzroy, with the declining barometer before him, did not hoist his south or north cone until the storm had commenced its ravages. Sunday and Monday, locally, were remarkably fine days, but the curiously formed lunar halo on Sunday evening, and a more extended one on Monday evening, together with the wind boxing the compass twice within twenty-four hours, with a falling barometer, induced to express to many persons (after our estimate of a "fine week" had gone forth in print) the belief that a storm was on the way; but why it should come was a question still unanswered, except in part by Saxby's Solar-lunic theory. The visible signs just mentioned, as it afterwards became known, were the local indications of the simultaneous bursting of the storm in other parts two or three days before Hastings and St. Leonards were involved in it.
A Breach in the Wall
On Saturday the 13th of June, as some workmen in the employ of Mr. Rhodda, builder, of St. Leonards, were excavating some earth contiguous to Mr. Beaney's premises in Western Road, a portion of the loosened cliff fell against the side wall of a building used as a coach-house and stable, and thereby effected a large and dangerous breach. A cry of alarm was immediately raised by persons who were living in some rooms -
