THE HAWKE'S BAY FLOODS.

Colonist, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7813, 14 December 1893, Page 4

THE HAWKE'S BAY FLOODS.

Toe Napier 'Evening New«' in recounting some of the Incidents and effeota of the latt disastrous floods sa?s : — There ia monotony in woe ; the same sad story of rain and desolation meets one everywhere. Here is a poor woman, an inmate of the hotel. She crawls about in evident pain, and. htt tews flow freely as she pours oat nor ■ad story. "I am very ill. I have been under the doctor's owe for weeks past," she says, ana her appearance bears oat her statement. "My husband was away when the trouble came. I don't know how mvself and my five little ones got over here. We have lost our all; even the bits of clothing upon us are from puMic charity My husband ia down now, but he has no work to do, and oar home is ruined" And the poor creature looks fitter for the coffin than for this scene of misery and worry. A cottager smoking his pipe invites us sadly to step inside his little place, A neat well tended garden was here a few days ago. The traoes of beauty remain, though beauty has fled. Over all is the same ugly, filthy mixture of scum, slime, and silt. The house is full of mud, and his poor wife tries in vain to be cheerful, as she goes plop, plop, plopping about in the wet and muddy mess, and does what she can to arrange matters and make them look more cheerful. The little ones, well kept children, who obviously know what a good mother's care is, look. wistfully at the visitor, and feel keenly the discomfort and mortification whioh clean people feel when they are compulsorily dirty. Patient mothers. On them the burden falls heavily, but their constancy and devotion shine with heavenly lustre amid tbese sad surroundings, and against the dark back-ground of desolation There were plenty of faces that told an eloquent tale, sad eyes in which one might read a word of thought and care and sorrow. A typical case is that of a market gardener well known in Clive. He had 15 aores of splendidly cultivated land, full of produoe, on which he had lived and toiled for 15 years. He caught the fall force of the current wbioh swept down upon him and bore scores of carcases. With this Game a huge deposit of raupo. The advent of the raupo the ruined gardener views as sometbing of a blessing, for it helps to stopjor delay the awful Btenoh which must soon make itself felt. Here a woman who stood in breast high water for over an hour, holding up her two frightened little ones. A storekeeper and his wife tell the story very graphically. But we must not dwell farther on these details.