SEVERE ENGLISH DROUGHT

Taranaki Daily News, 19 June 1934, Page 7

SEVERE ENGLISH DROUGHT

HEAT WAVE EXPERIENCED SOUTHERN COUNTIES SUFFER WATER SHORTAGE FEARED FIRE ON THE KING’S ESTATE By Telegraph—Press Assn—Copyright. Rec. 7.10 p.m. London, June 18. A heat wave is being experienced m southern England. The temperature is 87 degrees in the shade, and there is no sign of the long drought breaking. There are numerous heath fires, including one on the King’s estate at Sandringham, although Sandringham House is not in danger. The King has often shot in a wood where the flames are now sometimes 50 feet high. Newspapers are calling for emergency measures to deal with the water shortage and for mobilising the Royal Army Medical Corps in order to deal with possible epidemics. They ask for the purification of ponds and streams contaminated through the drought. The Bishop of London announces that he desires prayers for rain to be offered in every London church on June 17. Monster rats, thirst-maddened because the ponds have dried up, are invading Essex cottages and attacking children. The latest case is reported from Hartfordend, where James Petchey, a farm labourer, was awakened by screams. He beat off the rats and found his two sons badly bitten on the hands and arms, and the bed covered with blood.