GREAT DROUGHT IN THE MIDLANDS.

Evening Star, Issue 14037, 19 April 1909, Page 5

GREAT DROUGHT IN THE MIDLANDS.

WATER SOLD FOR 2d A BUCKET IN THE STREETS. An exceptional spell of fine weather has marked the present year in England (savs the 'Chronicle' in February last). The dry air and continuous sunshine have, however, resulted in a deficiency in the rainfall, and this deficiency is beginning to have serious effects, particularly in the Midland and Eastern Counties of England, where the amount of rain has been only 40 per cent, of the average for the first seven weeks of the year. This exceptional dryness has followed a year which, in some localities, has been pehnomenally rainless, and it has become evident that the prolonged shortage of rain is having its inevitable effect on the springs and we'ds of Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Cambridgeshire, especially in the marshland district, where the local authorities have provided no water scheme, and water has to be collected by the residents from wells. The majority of these wells are now completely dried up, and the people are in a pitiable plight. In some parishes water is being taken round in carts and sold. In some of the wells a little water is to be found, and j although it is used for drinking, it is really quite unfit for the purpose. " But what are you to do if you have no better?" asked a well-known fanner. "It is hardly fit to give the stock, but we have got no other, and so we must make the best of it."' The ditches are dried up, and the land, instead of being hard and heavy, as it usually is about this season, is brown" parched, and when touched crumbles like sand. A few days ago, when water was being carted round in one of the villages for sale, and while the man in charge was absent for a few minutes, a raid was made on the cart and the water taken by poor people. The incident shows how serious the position has become. In North Cambridgeshire water is being retailed at 2d a bucket. Distress is keenest in Clenchwarton, Walpole St. Andrew, and Walpole St. Peter, where dykes,' cisterns, and wells are absolutely empty. Large quantities of water are being obtained from the Wisbech Water Company's mains, several miles away. To add to the difficulty, the Marshland District Council, under whose jurisdiction the famine area is, are divided upon the subject of coping with the shortage. In the meantime people are tapping the water company's mains illegally, rendering themselves liable to prosecution.