A CARELESS BUILDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1923, Page 19

A CARELESS BUILDER.

I 'JOTROWN FROM WINDOWS. The unusual spectacle of a dozen policemen swimming about the streets rescuing people from their flooded homes, was witnessed in the Unekney Brook district of Birmingham, following a great storm. The tenants of some oC the houses had taken to the roof-tops to be oat of reach of the water, which in Hunter's Vale, Villa Street, and Farm Street rose to a height of about six feet, and the general excite ment was grent when the rescue work was going on. When the floods came on and the people retreated from Doors to roofs, the Ure brigade and a force of forty policemen turned out to tackle the situation. A dozen of the constables swam from house to house repeatedly, and carried to safety aged men and women, cripples and paralysed people. One amazing feature of the scene was the dropping of babies from bedroom windows Into the arms of policemen standing in the water below. • One family, isolated In the. back house by water which flooded the yard, was rescued under exciting circumstances. 'Firemen and policemen entered a neighbouring house, and Police-constable Taylor swam through ten feet of water and reared a ladder agalust. the wall of the Isolated house. The ladder was not long enough, hut lifelines were thrown and Qxed, and the occupants were lowered in turn by ropes, and drawn into the ground floor window of the other bouee. Thence they were carried through deep water to dry land and safety. Floods swept away loads of coal from outhouses, and bore away fowl pens aul similar structures. So great was tlic picasure that iron manhole covers weighing 1} cwt were carried 20ft to 30ft. Temporary quarters were found for the homeless In a local hall or among friends, and cripples were conveyed to the workhouse. The floods subsequently subsided.

If it be true that the object of the famous criminal Ludwig yon Veltheim in returning to the scenes of his sensational adventures in South Africa is to exploit the legend of the hidden Kruger millions. It is probable that, if lie remains in the country, he will have no difficulty Iα finding people to put up the necessary ensh for a treasure hunt, says Mr. Douglas Blackburn in the " Daily Mall." Nobody who was in (he country during the Boer War period now believes In this silly story, but there is among the remnants of the old pioneers a lingering faith in some of the stories that have hidden treasure as their reason and plot. The " mountain of platinum" claimed to have been discovered in 18115 by a Gernian doctor, who emerged from the Kalahari Desert and died almost immediately, is still believed In by people of authority, and the small sample brought In by the doctor was genuine enough. Two expeditions have come to disaster In an attempt to pick up the doctor's tracks, and there is reason to believe that more than one secretly conducted venture has shared a similar fate. An Orange River family of Boers have for forty years been intermittently searching for a packet v( diamonds worth many thousands of pounds, hidden by their father in .in ant bear hole in the veld Iα ISSO. lie was giving a lift in his wagon to an Englishman from Kimberley, who, finding the mounted police chasing the wagon, handed a large parcel to the Boer, with instructions to take It to Christiana, then the Alsatia of the Illicit diamond buyers, and made oft. The parcel escaped the .search of the police, and when the ISnpr found it contained hundreds of large stones he hid It. fearful of the consequences of being foun.t In possession. He was never able to tlnd the hiding-place, and was certain thai the illicit diamond buyers never found it.