THE HEAT IN NEW YORK.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XII, Issue 4181, 5 January 1885, Page 2

THE HEAT IN NEW YORK.

a TERRIBLE MORTALITY. r,

We often hear the fine climate of New Zealand spoken of in general terms of admiration, but few colonists fully realise bhe greatness of the advantage they enjoy in a temperate and equable climate. It san be shown by comparison. At New sfork at the beginning of September last bhere set in a torrid season which fairly prostrated the place. For weeks together ;he temperature never fell below 75deg md sometimes rose to 95deg. On Septemjer 10th the thermometor showed 77deg it 3a.m., 75deg at 6 a.m., 80deg at 9 a.m. $7deg at noon, 95deg at 3 p.m., 87 deg at I p.m., 82deg at 9 p.m., and 79deg at nidnight. On that fearful day 16 people vere killed outright by sunstroke and 31 >aralyzed or otherwise dangerously inured. It is a painful and suggestive ncident to see long lists published in the tapers daily, of men, women, and children tiany of them unknown even by name, cho have been found in the streets dead, [ying, or insensible from the effects of the teat. The New York World of Septem>er 11th says : — " Throughout the city esterday the serious effect of the heat ras plainly to be seen. The day for peaking lightly of the ' heated term ' was vidently past, and the expression on

people's faces was one showing exhaustion a,nd suffering. In the more thickly settled portions of the city men and women, giving up in despair, had thrown themselves on the floor or steps of their dwellings, and lay in feverish slumber ; while a frequent sight was a horse»lying dead in the street. The sight in the tenementhouse district on the east side was most pitiful. Hundreds of wan, palefaced women, each with a babe in her lap, occupied steps and windows, and the careworn expression on their faces told full well their suffering and. their longing for a breath ot fresh air. Pale, sickly children crowded every one of the shaded steps and sidewalks, and many of them held babies in their arms. On a step in East Houston street an old woman, poorly though neatly clad, had sunk down exhausted. No one was near her, and as there was a partly filled basket at her feet she had evidently been Grtjgji>me errand. With her head bowed dowlS%nd dampening her forehead with a wet cloth, she sat there utterly oblivious to every thing about her, moaning piteously. At a near comer were three little girls standing closely together, one of them was letting the water from a bit of ice in her hand drop upon the heads of the others. In front of a dwelling was a little curly headed girl, lying flat upon the flagstone, her cheek pressed against it, as if to extract some coolness from its shaded surface. The Italian quarter on Mulberry street was one mass of sweltering humanity fairly blocking up the thoroughfare. The close, hot rooms were deserted for the street, and it was crowded with men, women, and children. Many of the women were barefooted and wore wet cloths over their foreheads, while a number of the children were wholly naked. " The schools and theatres were closed, and even the courts of justice were adjourned from day to day for a week. Animals suffered as much as mankind. Thirty horses died on one day on the Third Avenue line of tramcars, and the other lines lost according to their exposure to the sun. This is shown by the records to be the hottest season that has occurred for ten years, and it had the disastrous peculiarity of getting hotter as it advanced, so that each day the exhausted people, instead of meeting relief, had more to bear than the day before. Anyone who has ever felt a temperature of 103deg or 105deg in the shade, can, perhaps, form some idea of what the sensation is like of being in the sun at such a period, in a crowded and filthy city, with the fiery heat radiating from the stone houses and pavements, and the blinding glare striking the swollen eyeballs as with a rod of flames. The. natural and unfailing accompaniements of the " heated term " in New York are fevers and dysentry and opthalmia and many other dreadful maladies. When we read these accounts, and reflect upon what they really mean, we cannot but be more than ever sensible of the enormous advantages that are included in that single, familiar, well-worn phrase, "our splendid climate."