SCORCHED & STIFLED. MELBOURNE'S HEAT WAVE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 24, 29 January 1908, Page 3

SCORCHED & STIFLED. MELBOURNE'S HEAT WAVE.

RESPECTABLE "DOSSERS." 'MANY DEATHS. Wellington popple, with little or no dust afflicting them, and with a blue sea all around to take the sting out of the sun's rays, have been complaining of heat even with tho thermometer going no higher than 78 degrees. Melbourne citizens have had the mercury thirty degrees higher, and a suffocating dust has been the saddening ally of the sun. During tho time of the heat wave, about which the cables gave some details, the temperature ran up to 112.6 degrees in the rbade. IN THE OPEN. One effect of the last two or three days has been to revolutionise conditions of living (says the Age of 20th January). Tho housa is no longer a place to sleep in ; it is a place to get out of as quickly as possible. On Saturday night, hundreds and tons of hundreds of respectable people turned vagrant;- they slept on the open beach, anywhero between Port Melbourne and Brighton, preferably to sweltering tho night through in super-heated rooms. Only a spray running continuously on Melbourne's roofs since Wednesday would hive made the conditions tolerable within; but a Board of Works, awaking to its responsibilities somewhit late, finds that no water is available for the roofs of houses. Those are lucky who can get enough water inside the house. Dwellings that possess balconies have latterly been at a premium. Iv default of a natural couch in the open air, a "shake down.", on the balcony has found great favour. As a result during the daylight hours -the baths at South Melbourne, St. Kilda, and all the way round to Sandringham have become fashionable. A glimpse within the enclosures of ono of tho St. Kilda baths yesterday afternoon was a vivid ren/indcr, in tangible form, of tho Carlylean vision of "the world out of clothes." Certainly it seemed as if Melbourne, in despair of the land ever getting cool enough to live on, had decided to drown itself, its sorjows and its recollections of bygone and more pleasant weather in the not yet superheated sea. PRECIOUS ICE. On Sunday afternoon, the fifth day of the visitation, commodities that have been in tremendous demand since Wednesday showed signs of giving out. Ice was the principal of these ; in certain places it had risen to a premium. At St. Kilda, 3d a glass was beijng charged for a drink of iced water. In many restaurants, and in some hotels, ice was not to be had for lovo or money. The cool "squash" and tho useful milk and soda, not to mention a score of others of the samo family, wero doing what they could to relieve the tremendous thirst of 'Melbourne's citizens ; but ice. and plenty of it, was what wac asked for, and the refrigerating works in v the citj could not go fast enough, and had not machinery enough, to cope with the demand. Unless somthing happens in the very near future the difficulty under this head will be acute. AUSTRALIANS ARE SALAMANDERS Needless to say, the most serious feature cf this prolong-ed spell of heat has b*>en tho effect upon the sick, tho fragile, and the very poor. Fortunately, the equipment of modem hospitals is such that the discomforts and dangers of very high temperatures can be minimised to a great extent. Even as it is, the invalids suffer and have suffered. The milk supply has suffered owing to the excessive dryness of the pastures and tho difficulty of keeping tho milk sweet. Very young children, whose lives depend- on the quantity and quality of the milk supplied to them, have hid — or rather their parents and guardians have had — an anxious time. Hitherto, it must 'be admitted, tho dairymen of tho city, havo answered the calls made upon them well. Taking everything into consideration tho poorer quarters, ond the people who are compelled by forces of circumstances,; to live in them — without cool rooms, without fans, without artificially cooled drinks, or any other safeguard — have had all the worst of the experience. It says something for the average Australian's power of endurance, and something for tho Salamander inherent in him, that he has not complained more bitterly or succumbed in large numbers. 'MIXED BATHING PROPER AT LAST. The overpowering heat has been responsible in Melbourne for a distinct departure from the usiial pi-actics in regard to sleeping arrangements. Hundreds of families have deserted their bedrooms, distributing themselves on the balconies in beds made on the flooring boards ; on verandahs, slung in hammocks ; on tho lawns at tho backs and fronts of houses, in public gardens, and on the shores of the bay. The conventionalities have never been before, perhaps, so extensively ignored by those who ordinarily reverence the conventionalities. Tha hot weather has settled in four or five nights the mixed bathing question. People of opposite sexes do not now query whether companionship in the water is right or wrong. They just dress appropriately, bathe together, and find no ono is particularly scandalised. Mrs. Grundy is too busy fanning herself to take any notice. BURGLARS SURPRISED. • In the- circumstances described intending burglars who have surmounted back fonces or cautiously entered front gates in the dead of night have contemplated quite idyllic spectacles, comparable to sleep in the Garden of Eden. Howcve^. the most wonderful development of the last few sultry nights has been the fashion of resorting to tin beaches and piers for slumber. At 5 a.m. yesterday St. Kilda pier, which is normally at that time and for long afterwards utterly deserted, was occupied by over 100 persons in all kinds of quaint attitudes. Some sat as though they were fishing. Otheis were perched on jetty posts. A few seemed to bo balancing themselves on rails. All were motionless as though they had been struck so, and loomed bluish grey through the haze from the esplanade. A few pale lights glimmered at intervals overhead. These persons had evidently been out all night, and were still, because it was less conducive to perspiration than activity would have been. They awaited, apparently, a breeze which they had hoped— but without fulfilment alas ! — would come with the dawn. SLEEPING ON THE SAND.S. On the Mordialloc pier a like spectaclo was to be seen (adds the Age). When tho local constable went home after 1 a.m. from meeting the last train, visitors and ordinary residents were resorting there by dozens, and they lemained like Patience on the proverbial monument, peering into space from the structure when it again became light. AH down the eastern &hore of the Bay people, trying to catch cool lespiration, sprawled all Saturday night on the sands. These were not campers out by prearrangement, because they brought no tents in the majority of instances. Living opposite the sites they occupied,

they took with them as a rule merely comfortable pillows to rest their heads upon. There wore many others who, coming from distances, made the semblances of camps, alongsido buggies to which horses were tethered. Every one who slept on tho sand no doubt found it an agreeable experience until dawn. Then a want of unanimity was manifested as to shaking oil dull sloth and early ihing. Scores of vital young men were up vi peep of day, bathing boisterously naar the shore and indulging in all kinds of horse play just when tho other people wanted most to be asleep. By 6 o'clock, moreover, differently to most other Sundays, there was a continuous stream of noisy arrivals from distant places, whore all the men and women who could not sleep and owned a horse, a bicycle, a motor bike, or a motor-car, seem to have unanimously made up their minds to make a break for the water as soon as daylight warranted. When they arrived, further plumber on the beach was impossible. CONGESTION AT THE MORGUE. The Coroner's orderly at the Morgue had two trying days on Saturday and Sunday receiving and registering the bodies of victims of the heat wave. Last night (19th January) the corpses 'of eleven people whose death was due to the heat were laid out in the mortuary.