DISASTER BY FIRE AND FLOOD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1251, 18 June 1864, Page 4

DISASTER BY FIRE AND FLOOD.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE LYTTELTON TIMES. Sm,—The perusal of the account in your paper of the meeting in the'Towh Hall last Thursday has set me a-wondering' at the strange inconsistencies of hitman nature. I find in this report proof positive of the noble open-handed generosity with which all classes of ottr citizens (in common with their race wherever located) are filled; I find that no sooner is a case of distress brought glaringly under the view than they all, from the highest in the land downwards, vie With each other in publicly proclaiming their desire to assist in relieving the sufferers and to aid any measures which are likely to prevent a repetition of ; the disaster. And verily they have my sincere admiration, even as the sufferers have my Cordial sympathy. But now comes the cause of my wonderment. - I will not ask you, sir, if you believe it, for yoij must kn»w it to be a fact; but would any stranger believe that the same men who so nobly rush to the rescue of their neighbours who have been put to great inconvenience, and in some cases serious loss, by the action of fire, can stand idly by and see or at any rate hear of scores of their fellowcolonists and neighbours being completely ruined by the destructive power of water ? And yet such is the melancholy fact!

It is now many months since the frightful news reached Christchurch that that terrible river, the Waimakariri, had suddenly changed its course, and overwhelmed with its rushing current large tracts of land, most of which had been purchased and brought into cultivation by hard-working settlers, who had expended the savings of years in realising, as they fondly, imagined, the dream of independence which had induced them to forsake the land of their fathers for an unknown country. Terrible as was the loss and misery caused by the first outbreak of the watery element, (an element far more, destructive in its effects than fire, inasmuch as the latter, at any rate, leaves its victims in possesion of the soil) it was as nothing compared with the danger and loss which are certain to occur when the following spring shall, with its heavy rains and melting snow, added to its glacial streams, bring down volumes of water which must inevitably,if uncontrolled, sweep broader destruction over the face of a far larger extent of country. Here is a calamity by the side of which the Christchurch fire, sad disaster as it is, sinks almost into insignificance; and yet, incredible as it seems, the same people who press forward ,to aid their fellow citizens in the one case, in the other appear perfectly callous and indifferent! Nay, some even are found so heartless as actually to sneer at the sufferers, and say in high places, " Leave them to their fate; if we attempt to help them we may be drowned ourselves." Well might the sufferers be induced to exclaim— Alas! for the rarity Of christian charity, Under the sun. Oh! it is pitiful, Near a whole city-full, Friends we have none 1 I say well might they thus exclaim, but they look for no charity. They do but expect that justice shall be done in their behalf, and that part of the hard-earned cash which they have poured into the Treasury in payment of their land shall be expended in securing them in possession of the same. For the sake of human nature as well as for the sufferers in whose cause I raise my voice, I trust that this grievous want of justice may not much longer exist, and that you may not again have cause to hear from DE PROFUNDIS.