HUNDREDS KILLED BY A TORNADO

A disastrous whirlwind swept over the State of Georgia, and parts of Alabama and South Caralina, in the latter part of February. In Georgia alone 5000 houses were destroyed, &-0 lives lost and thousands more bruised and maimed. The suddenness of this visitation and its devastating effects ! were unparalleled in that region. We shall doubtless hear of many similar atmospheric storms on the great plains, and throughout the north-western belt of States east of the Missouri River, as the season advances. As population increases in those sections the casualties from tornadoes will sensible increase also. This is ono. contingency which should always be borne in mind when making a selection for settlement in a new country.. Although, therefore, the Southern States hold out many inducements for industrial, settlement and the investment of captial, it is always well to bear in mind the drawbacks of climate. This is true also of the prairie States. A distinguished New Zealand lawyer, not unkuown in Otago, settled in Kansas a few years ago, built a tine house, and owned a really valuable estate there. His wife "looked out from her lattice high" one fine morning, and saw a pecu liar funnel-shaped cloud approaching with the speed of a locomotive, picking up and breaking things in the most reckless fashion. Fortunately its course deflected from her home, or it migh t have gone hard with her and her belongings, but she concluded that Neosho County, Kansas, was a good place to get away from, and she lost no time in packing up and making a bee line for the Atlantic Steamship Depot in New York. Perhaps she was right, because to be caught in the vortex of a Kansas cyclone is about the roughest experience in life one could have. A hug from a grizzly bear in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California would be a gentle caress compared with the rude embrace of this '• demon of the storm." 1