REAL WINTER

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 78, 26 December 1925, Page 5

REAL WINTER

EUROPE SWEPT BY GALE NUMEROUS ACCIDENTS DISTRESS IN VIENNA Br Telegraph.—Press Association’. Copyright London, December 23. Ground sparkling with frost, and a keen, nipping air following on heavy rain early in the week, gave London its first touch of appropriate wintry weather, though a white Christmas is unlikely in the south. Heavy snowfalls are recorded in Devon, the West Midlands, Derbyshire, and Westmoreland. A gale of sixty-three miles an hour caused havoc on the East Coast, and swept across Europe, telegraphs and telephones being interrupted in France and Spain Numerous accidents arc reported, due to the fall of walls, chimneys, and roofs, and the only cheerful Continental reports arc from Switzerland, where the skiier is rejoicing in excellent snow conditions.

Vienna, with its nearly 90,000 unemployed, has empty shops and a moneyless people, and there are increasing business failures, so that Vienna is faced with a cheerless Christmas. The weather is intensely cold, and shopkeepers are despairing, the windows being attractively stocked with only cheaper articles, Necessities only are selling, and there is no sale for poultry, game, wines, liqueurs, or other Christmas fare. The only traders who arc doing well arc those selling on the instalment plan.—Reuter, 80-MILE AN HOUR GALE (Rec. December 25, 5-5 p.m.) Paris, December 23. 'An eighty-mile-aii-liour gale swept France, blowing down trees, hurling slates from roofs and capsizing boats. It caused twentydeaths.—Sydney “Sun” Cable. STORMS IN JAPAN JVRECKS ON LAND AND SEA Tokio, December 23. Storms have swept Northern Japan, where losses are reported to include 20 fishing boats, which were capsized, 150 fishermen being missing. Numbers of houses were destroyed and 40 vessels were wrecked.—Reuter.