TIE WINTER IN EUROPE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 71, 25 March 1907, Page 3

TIE WINTER IN EUROPE.

The popular belief that the New Zealand seasons follow the Home seasons is often supported by facts. If this is to be the case this.year we may look forward to a severe winter. The last British summer was hot and dry, and New Zealand has just- been experiencing a remarkable spell of fine weather, sufficiently -pronounced to be described asa drought. The northern summer has been followed by a winter of exceptional severity, and some or the snowfalls in Great Britain and on the Continent have been almost unprecedentedly heavy. Trains have been snowed up, roads nave been blocked by snowdrifts, and quite a number of deaths from cold have been reported. In January, Berlin was visited by an extraordinary fall of snow, accompanied by a cold spell that was felt in all parts of Europe. The fall was the heaviest recorded since 1880, and for the greater part of a day traffic was at a standstill. Business men and women were unable to get to their offices; butchers, bakers, and milkmen could not deliver their household supplies; and telegraph and telephone wires were broken in all directions by the weight of the snow that collected upon them. Prices of fresh provisions went up considerably. Strange scenes were witnessed in the principal streets at mid-day, when apprentices and factory hands lined the pavements in hundreds and greeted over}' motdr-'bus with volleys or snowballs. When, as often happened, the motor-buses came to grief, the situation of the roof passengers were pitiable. During the afternoon the snowballing became so general that a force of police was called out and began to make arrests wholesale amid a perfect hail of snowballs. The policemen escorting the prisoners to the stations were attacked and so mercilessly pelted that they were obliged to run with their charges to escape the bombardment. From an early hour the tramway authorities had an army of»men at work, and with the aid of fifty snowploughs and tanks of hot water, they had by noon succeeded in clearing some of the lines in the centre of the city. It is to be hoped that these are not the experiences awaiting us in New Zealand.