"FANNY," THE WHITE DEER."FANNY," THE WHITE DEER.
THE WHITE PEACOCK—THE KING OF THE WHITE FARM.THE WHITE PEACOCK—THE KING OF THE WHITE FARM.
They were regularly used in harness till the death of the last-mentioned purchase. Then, as the survivor threatened to die of inactivity and crass laziness, he was given to the local baker, who uses him for the work of distributing bread round the country-side.
WHERE THE SHAGGY GUINEA-PIGS LIVE.WHERE THE SHAGGY GUINEA-PIGS LIVE.
From the Yildiz Kiosk to a country cart! How are the mighty fallen!
In a little paddock on the left-hand side of the entrance, a small but most interesting collection of white animals attracts the attention of the visitor. It consists of four superb Angora sheep and a pigmy bull.
A PRESENT FROM THE SULTAN TO LORD ALINGTON.A PRESENT FROM THE SULTAN TO LORD ALINGTON.
The pigmy bull has no history of any particular interest. But if he lacks history, he has a temper—a temper with which it is useless to argue. The photographer, with courage worthy of a better cause, leapt light-heartedly into the paddock, with the trigger of his hand camera at half cock. With a lightning movement he took aim, but the pigmy was too quick for him. He charged our harmless snapshotter, who, "retiring in confusion," as the war correspondents say, made for the fence and fell over it, camera and all, only half a second before the infuriated animal's head rammed furiously into the iron railings. A moment's hesitation and these photographs had never seen publication. The photograph of the bull we reproduce was taken immediately after the adventure. Tiny as the animal is, it is not a creature to be trifled with. As a matter of fact the brute hada bad fit of tantrums during the rest of the day, and the last sound we heard as we wended our way through the quiet lanes that evening was the angry bellowing of offended majesty.
THE PIGMY BULL—NOT LARGER THAN A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG—AND THE WHITE ANGORA SHEEP.THE PIGMY BULL—NOT LARGER THAN A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG—AND THE WHITE ANGORA SHEEP.
FEEDING TIME OF THE PIGEONS, FOWLS, AND TURKEYSFEEDING TIME OF THE PIGEONS, FOWLS, AND TURKEYS
In endeavouring to get a snapshot of Fanny, the white deer, we had quite a different experience. With the modesty and timidity characteristic of the breed, she was strongly opposed to the idea of being photographed. She literally flew round the paddock for some time after our entrance, and I was very much afraid we should have to give her up as a hopeless job.
However, by the exercise of great patience we were enabled to get a snapshot as she stood nervously surveying us from a dark corner. Fanny is one of the beauties of the farm; she is on the most friendly terms with her keeper, and follows him about like a dog. Needless to say, she has not a dark hair in her coat.
An even greater expenditure of time and ingenuity was necessary in photographing the smaller denizens of Lord Alington's Zoo.
Your ordinary guinea pig is a nervous fellow at best; the white variety suffers from hyper-sensitiveness. Over and over again, by frequent offerings of the most tempting dainties, were the shaggy bright-eyed little creatures lured from their haunts. But no matter how stealthily stalked by the camera fiend, they were off like greased lightning long before he was near enough; which circumstance explains why only two of these interesting little pets appear in the vicinity of the runs. At one time during my visit I saw the small paddock devoted to their use simply alive with them.
The White Farm guinea pigs are much larger than the ordinary cavies kept by most of us in boyhood days, and the coat is long and shaggy. Save for the head they are more like pigmy Angora sheep than anything.
For much the same reason we were unable to photograph more than a small corner of the rabbit run. It literally teems with pure white rabbits, but they are not used to visitors, and their native modesty makes them shun the camera like the plague. Only three or four braved the ordeal, but as they are much like their companions, one has only to multiply them indefinitely to obtain some idea of what the run looks like when in full swing.
The title "King of the White Farm" undoubtedly belongs to the peacock. You have only to glance at him to realise that he is equally certain of his position.
But there is another gentleman—the white turkey cock—on the estate who obviously does not share this view, and, were it not for the fact that his consummate vanity renders him blissfully unconscious of his colleague's pretensions, I imagine there would be war. Certainly the turkey cock is a beautiful and stately creature. He was purchased by Lord Alington for £10.
Needless to say, all the ducks and fowls are of the prevailing colour, and very fine birds they are. Even the pigs must turngrey or get themselves bleached if they wish to take up permanent quarters at Crichel.
The pigeons interested me more than anything else in the place, possibly on account of their number, and intelligence. The whole farm is alive with them, and the sight of the colony whirling in mid-air above their cotes is one not readily forgotten.
SOME HUMBLE MEMBERS OF THE GREAT WHITE FAMILY.SOME HUMBLE MEMBERS OF THE GREAT WHITE FAMILY.
They cross the sun like a white cloud, and when they swoop downwards to the ground the air vibrates with the hum of whirling wings. They have a trick of sitting along the coping tiles of the roof in single file like a company of soldiers drawn up in line, and on one occasion I saw some hundreds resting so closely together in this fashion that there was not room for a sparrow between them the whole length of the roof.
They are perfectly tame, and are the most knowing-looking rascals I have ever seen. Feeding time is a great institution, and, to my mind, is the most fascinating sight on the farm.
They know their dinner hour to the second, and some time before it is due the air is white with returning stragglers.
The ceremony is interesting enough to justify several illustrations, but we can find room for only one. Preparatory to the all-important function, the birds collect in their hundreds on the roofs of the adjoining buildings. A few seconds later the more impatient spirits among them fly to the ground and move restlessly about near the door from which they know the attendant will emerge.
Directly the man appears they swarm round him as he makes his way into the middle of the grass plot where the food is scattered.
There is not a single feather in any one of the birds which is not of the purest white. A dark feather seals the doom of its unfortunate owner. However, this is a rare event. Possibly the birds conspire to preserve uniformity of colour by plucking alien shades from each other's plumage before they are noticed by the keeper.
If space would permit, one might illustrate many other interesting features of the White Farm, but enough has been said to give a general notion of the charm and interest of Lord Alington's fascinating hobby.
THE CHOLERA SHIPTHE CHOLERA SHIP
A COMPLETE SHORT STORY[1]
By Cutcliffe Hyne.Illustrated by Richard Jack.
She was not the regular Portuguese mail. She was an ancient seven-knot tramp, which had come across from Brazil to Loando, and had been lucky enough to pick up half a cargo of coffee there for Lisbon. She called in at Banana, the station on the mangrove-spit at the mouth of the Congo, where the river pilots live (and on occasion die), and where the Dutch factory used to bring trade till the Free State killed it with duties; and at Banana she had further fortune. There were two hundred and thirty negroes there, Accra men and Kroo-boys mostly, a gang that had made their fifteen or twenty pounds apiece on the railway, and were waiting to go home.
The passenger-boys had collected their chattels, and were gathering in a howling chattering mob by the surf-boats ready to go on board, when the first notion came to me of joining her. It was the Danish harbour-master who gave it. He came up, under his old white umbrella with the green lining, to the house where I was staying, and told me that the tramp was going to call in at San Thomé and the Bonny River.
"Now, we don't hanker to get rid of you here, Mr. Calvert," he said, "but if you want to climb that mountain in Fernando Po, you're not likely to get so good a chance for the next three months to come. Your place is on the road between San Thomé and Bonny, though of course you'll have to make it worth the skipper's while to stop. But that's your palaver."
"Can you put a figure on it?" I asked.
"I should take it," said the harbour-master, "that you could hustle the man into Fernando Po for ten sovereigns. He's only a Portugee. Come aboard now in my gig and see him."
The tramp's interior was not inviting. We went into the chart-house and drank the inevitable sweet champagne with the captain; and whilst the bargain was being made, a thousand cockroaches crawled thoughtfully over the yellow-white paint.
"I tell you straight," said the harbour-master in English, "she's a dirty ship, and the chop'll be bad enough to poison a spotted dog. But if you will go to these Portugee and Spanish places to sweat up mountains, that's part of the palaver."
"Oh, if the grub's good enough for them, it won't kill me."
"Then if you will go, I'll send my boy off in the boat for your boxes one-time, because the Old Man's in a hurry to be off. He's got a bishop on board below, very sick with fever, and he wants to be out of this stew and get to sea again as quick as it can be done. Thinks it'll give the ship bad luck, I suppose, if the bishop pegs out."
The harbour-master's boy was speedy, and the harbour-master himself piloted us out into the wide gulf of the river's mouth. The beer-coloured stream gave up its scent of crushed marigolds strongly enough to pierce through the smells of the ship and the smells of the crowded chattering negroes on the fore-deck, and the old steamer began to groan and creak as she lifted to the South Atlantic swell. The sun went down, and night followed like the turningout of a lamp. The lighthouse flickered out on the Portuguese shore away on the port bow, and above it hung the Southern Cross, a pale faint thing, shaped like an ill-made kite.
"CAME DOWN OFF THE UPPER BRIDGE.""CAME DOWN OFF THE UPPER BRIDGE."
The bumping engines stopped, and the Dane came down off the upper bridge. He stood with me for a minute on the brown, greasy deck planks, and then went down the ladder into his boat.
"Oscar-strasse, tretten, Kjobnhavn!" he shouted, as the gig dropped astern. "Mind you come. I shall be home in another nine months."
"Wanderers' Club, London; don't forget; sorry I haven't a card left," I hailed back, and wondered in my mind whether in any of the world's turnings I should ever meet that good fellow again. But the steamer was once more under way, mumbling and complaining, and the store-keeper at that moment was beginning to open the case of dried fish—baccalhao, as they call it on the coast—to which we traced back the hideous plague which in the next few days swept away her people like the fire from a battery of guns.
There were only two other passengers beside the bishop and myself—a pair of yellow-faced, yellow-fingered Portuguese from down the coast, traders both, with livers like Strasbourg geese. The Skipper was a decent, weak little chap from Lisbon, who might have been good-looking if he had sometimes washed; the Chief Engineer was a Swede, who spoke English and quoted Ibsen; and the other officers I never came specially across. There was only one of my own countrymen on board, a fireman from Hull, one of the strongest men I ever met, and certainly the most truculent ruffian. His name was Tordoff on the ship's books, but that was a "purser's name." He spoke pure English when he forgot himself, and certainly had once been a gentleman.
"LIFTED THE BODY AS THOUGH IT HAD BEEN RED-HOT.""LIFTED THE BODY AS THOUGH IT HAD BEEN RED-HOT."
It was baking hot down below, and the place was alive with rats and cockroaches.I rigged a wind-scoop through the port in my room, got into pyjamas, and lay down on the top of the bunk. But I can't say I did much business with sleep; the menagerie held cheerful meetings all round, and the perspiration tickled as it ran off my body in little streams; and these things keep a man awake. My room was to starboard, and when through the porthole I saw day blaze up from behind the low line of African hills, I turned out, rolled a cigarette, and went on deck. I was just in time to see the first funeral.
Four very frightened-looking men and a profane mate were fitting a couple of biscuit sacks over a twisted figure which lay on the grimy greasy deck planks. They pulled one over the head and another over the heels, and then with a palm and needle made them fast about the figure's middle. Afterwards they lashed a fire-bar along the shins, and then, with faces screwed up and turned away, they lifted the body as though it had been red-hot, and toppled it over the rail.
The dead man dived through the swell alongside almost without a splash; but, as though his coming had been a signal, a dozen streaks of foam started up from various points, each with a black triangular fin in the middle of it; and I did not feel any the happier from knowing precisely what that convoy meant.
However, the sharks and the body drifted away into the wake astern, and I rolled another cigarette and got a chair and sat on the break of the bridge deck. From there I saw the mate and his four hands fetch one by one five other bodies out of the forecastle, and prepare them for burial. Three they covered with canvas; and then the supply of biscuit sacks seemed to run out, because the last two they put over the side with the fire-bar attachment only.
The fifth man had to be content with four participators in his funeral. The remaining sailor held strangely aloof; his face turning through a prism of curious colours; his body swaying in uncouth jerks. As the fifth corpse toppled over the rail, this fellow threw himself down on the hatch cover, and lay there writhing and screaming in a torment of cramps.
At that moment a man in a white serge cassock, which reached to his heels, came out of one of the forecastle doors and walked rapidly across to the new victim. He was a long lean man with a hawk's nose, and bright large eyes. The skin of his face was like baggy yellow leather, and it was dry with fever. As he knelt beside the writhing sailor, I saw the metal crucifix nearly fall from his thin hands through sheer weakness. He was the Portuguese bishop from down-coast of course, and when I remembered that he had just been through black-water fever (which is own brother to yellow jack) I judged that from a human point of view he was behaving with exquisite foolishness in meddling with first-crop cholera patients. But I respected him a good deal for all that, and went and got opium and acetate of lead and gave the man on the hatch a swingeing dose. It was a useless thing to do, because the chap had got to die, and one incurred one's own risks by going near him; but if that bishop was a fool, I had got to be a fool too, and there was an end of it.
"HE KNELT BESIDE THE WRITHING SAILOR.""HE KNELT BESIDE THE WRITHING SAILOR."
Mark you, I wasn't feeling a bit frightened then. I'd been through cholera-cramp in India, and knew what my chances were, andwas ready to face them without whimpering; though of course I'd freely have given every farthing I was worth to have been snugly back in the Congo again. But the thing had got to be seen through, and I intended to keep my end up somehow. I couldn't afford to die like a rat in a squalid hole like that.
I had breakfast all to myself that morning, because no one else turned up; and afterwards the captain did me the honour to call me into consultation. My Portuguese is off colour, but I speak enough to get along with.
"You English know so much about these things," he said.
"'WE NO FIT FOR STOKE, SAR. WE GENTLEMEN WID MONEY, SAR.'""'WE NO FIT FOR STOKE, SAR. WE GENTLEMEN WID MONEY, SAR.'"
"We keep clean ships," I answered, "and when anything goes wrong on them we do not lose our heads. Also we try to trace our way back to the root of evils. How did this plague start?"
"You must have brought it on board at Banana. We had not in the ship before you came."
"We did not bring it. There is no cholera in the Congo now. And, moreover, your passenger-boys are none of them sick. We must try back further."
We did that together laboriously; and at last traced the mischief to that fatal case of baccalhao which had been shipped at Bahia, an infected port; and had this essence of pest promptly thrown to the sharks. Next we went into the question of hands.
"I have not enough firemen and trimmers left to man a single watch," said the captain. "The cholera hit the stoke-hold first. The fellows who are working there now have stood three watches on end, and they are hardly making enough steam to give her steerage way."
"If you let your old beast of a tramp stop and drift about here like a potato-chip in a frying-pan it won't improve matters. Those of us who don't peg out with cholera will start murdering one another. The niggers will begin."
"Yes, I know. I wanted some of them to serve as firemen for good pay. But they will not listen to me. I do not think they understood. Will you come and translate?"
We took revolvers, holding them ostentatiously in our pockets. I crossed the dizzy sunshine of the lower main deck. The negroes on the forecastle head were chattering together like a fair of monkeys, but they ceased when we came up, and stared at us with faces working with excitement.
"Which be head-man?" I asked.
A big fellow stood forward, hat in hand. "I fit for head-man, sar."
I told him hands were wanted for the stoke-hold, and that the gorgeous pay of four shillings English per diem was offered.
"We no fit for stoke, sar," said he. "We gentlemen wid money, sar. We passenger-boys, sar."
"Very well, daddy," said I. "But stoke you've got to. And if you won't do it civilly you'll do it the other way. Now my frien', pick me out twelve good strong boys. If you don't do it, I'll shoot you dead one-time; if they won't work, I'll shoot them. You quite savvy?"
We got the men and they went off to the stokehold, frightened and raging. Poor wretches, eight of them toppled over in the next twenty-four hours, and half-a-day later the engines stopped for the last time. I was smoking industriously under the alley-way, and Tordoff came and loafed near me.
"I'm a bally fine chief-engineer, aren't I?" said he.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I'm the best man that's left of all our crowd, that's all. They're every sinner of them dead, black men, white men, and Portuguese. Where are we now?"
"Slap bang under the equator. That mountain-top sticking out of the water is San Thomé."
"Then I'm off there," said Tordoff. "This bloomin' steamer's played out. She can't steam, and she wouldn't sail if there was any wind, which there isn't. I shall take one of the boats and skip. You'd better come too."
"No."
"What for? Why not?"
"Because there are only two boats and they aren't enough for all hands."
"The boats will hold all the white men, or them that call themselves white. But if you are one of the missionary crowd that hold niggers as good——"
"I'm not. I know what niggers are, and therefore I'm not an Exeter Hall fool about them. I'll make free to tell you this boat-game's been thought of before; but that bishop says he won't leave the niggers to peg out alone; and if he's going to be idiot enough to stay, I am going to be another idiot. That's the size of it."
"Well," said Tordoff, "I've got no use for that kind of foolishness myself, and if you're left, you needn't come and haunt me afterwards. You've had the straight, square tip. And you'll do no good by spreading this palaver about. If anyone tries to stop us there'll be a lot of men killed. We aren't the kind of crowd that'll stick at trifles if we're meddled with. So long!"
"'THIS STEAMER IS PLAYED OUT. I SHALL TAKE ONE OF THE BOATS AND SKIP.'""'THIS STEAMER IS PLAYED OUT. I SHALL TAKE ONE OF THE BOATS AND SKIP.'"
He slouched off, and I went to the deck of the bridge and looked down on a curious scene. The main deck was a shambles. There were a score of corpses there, pitching about stiffly to the roll of the ship, with no one offering to touch them. There were a score more of sick, shrieking and knotting themselves in their agony. The survivors were in two sorts of panic—the comatose, and the madly violent. A crowd of yelling dancing negroes, most of them stark naked, had set up a ju-ju on a barrel of the fore-deck winch, and were sacrificing to it a hen which they had stolen from one of the coops. The little wooden god I knew: it was one that I had picked up in the Kasai country, and I was taking it home as a curiosity. It had been lifted from my own state-room by some prowling negro, and was now receiving fresh daubs of red blood amid the clamour of frantic worshippers. It was quite a reasonable thing to expect under the circumstances. But what threw the action of these savages into grotesque relief was the sight of another man crouched in prayer beside the bulwarks. It was the bishop. His tottering hands were pinning the crucifix to his hollow chest; his hipswere swaying under him with weakness; his dry cracked lips moved noiselessly; and the molten sunlight beat upon him as it pleased.
"I WAS FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE AMONGST A CROWD OF FURIES.""I WAS FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE AMONGST A CROWD OF FURIES."
The sight of that man gave me a bad feeling. Before I knew quite how it happened, I was down on the frizzling main-deck, and the ju-ju had been plucked from the winch barrel and flung over the side, together with the tortured hen, and I was fighting for my life amongst a crowd of furies. Tordoff was there too (though I'm sure I don't know how he came), and thanks to him I got back again on to the bridge deck; but the bishop did not come with us. He stayed down there amongst those sullen animal blacks, imploring them, praying with them, soothing them. He was a braver man than I, that Portuguese.
Another night came down, and the steamer wallowed in inky blackness. In the morning we were still more helpless. The mates, the few remaining sailors, the stewards and cooks, and the two yellow traders had gone; the captain lay in the alley-way with a knife between his shoulder-blades; the bishop and I and Tordoff were the only white men remaining on board. Yes, Tordoff. I went into the pantry smoking a cigarette, and found him there, eating biscuits and raisins.
"You here?" I said, "Why, man, I thought you cleared out with the rest."
"No," he said, "I thought it would be so fine to stay behind and be able to scoff the cabin grub just as I pleased. I just stayed for the grub, it's worth it."
"You're rather a decent sort of liar," I said; "do you mind shaking hands?"
"I don't see the need," he said; "and besides, I'm using my hands to eat these raisins; but you may kick me if you like. There isn't a redder fool than me in both Atlantics. By the way, how's the padre?"
"Very sick. I looked into his room and found him lying in his bunk. He couldn't talk."
"I put him there. Found the old fool preaching to those beasts on all fours this morning, and looked on till he dropped; then I lugged him under cover."
"Any more dead?"
"Five pegged out during the night. They were lying pleasantly in and amongst the others, and there were seven more sick. I told the head-man when I went down with the padre to have them put over the side or I'd kill him. And when I came back I found he'd shoved over the whole dozen. The man-and-a-brother's a tolerable brute when he comes to handling his own kind, Mr. Calvert."
We went out then and set the passenger-boys to washing down decks. We could not give them the hose because there was no donkey working; but they drew water in buckets and holystoned and scraped and scrubbed till they cleaned the infection out of the decks, and sweated it out of themselves. The cholera seemed to have exhausted itself. There were three other cases, it is true, but they were mild, and none died. In their fright the boys would have chucked their friends overboard as soon as they were taken sick, but I promised the head-man to shoot him most punctually if any one went over the side who was not a pukka corpse, and if niggers wereaddicted to gratitude (which they are not), there are gentlemen now living on the Kroos coast who might remember me favourably. For we did get in. A B. and A. boat picked us up three weary days later, and towed us at the end of an extremely long hawser into the very place to which I wanted to go.
Of course Fernando Po, being Spanish, kept us very much at arm's length; and we did a thirty days' most rigid quarantine, which made (after the last case had recovered) a matter of forty days in all. But we had no more deaths, and the bishop pulled up into fine form. He was not a man that I could ever bring myself to like, and as Tordoff was for the most part sullen and unwishful for talk, the time that we swung to our anchor off Port Clarence was not exhilarating.
Still it was pleasant to think that one was alive, and to realise that one had got respectably out of a very tight corner—yes, one of the tightest. The tramp's two boats never turned up again. I suppose they carried cholera away with them, and drifted about in the belt of equatorial calms, full of sun-dried corpses, till some tornado came and swamped them. So that we three were the only Europeans left out of thirty-four, and of the two hundred and thirty negroes who left Banana in the Congo, only seventy-four came to Fernando Po. It was a tolerable thinning out, but when it came to climbing the peak, that made up for all which had gone before. Indeed it is a wonderful mountain.
I saw Tordoff again just as I was going away from the island, and tried to put it to him delicately that I was not badly off, and would like to give him a lift if the thing could be managed.
"No, Mr. Calvert," he said, "thanks. I prefer to go to the devil my own gait. I don't suppose you'd ever know who I am; but if anybody describes me and asks, just say you haven't seen me."
"'THERE ISN'T A REDDER FOOL THAN ME IN BOTH ATLANTICS.'""'THERE ISN'T A REDDER FOOL THAN ME IN BOTH ATLANTICS.'"
And that is the last I have seen or heard of him. It is extraordinary how one drifts away from men. But, on the other hand, I should not be in the least surprised at stumbling across Tordoff again, in purple and fine linen for choice on the next occasion.
THE STRANGE STORY OF NORTHWICH.
By Percy L. Parker.
The town of Northwich is subject to fits, and the reason is that people like salt. The existence of the fits is proved by a glance at the photos here given, and a few words will explain their cause.
A stranger who knows nothing of the town may well be alarmed as he walks down its streets, for on all sides he sees walls and houses standing at every possible angle. Houses lean against each other in a way suggestive of intoxication; doorways are all awry, and pavements and roads roll like a sea-serpent.
CASTLE CHAMBERS, WHICH FELL OVER WHOLE IN THE NIGHT.May & Co. photo.][Northwich.CASTLE CHAMBERS, WHICH FELL OVER WHOLE IN THE NIGHT.
It is not certain that you will find your horse or cow in its stall next morning even if you lock the door at night, for a great gulf may have swallowed it alive. Most people like to see their fireplaces standing above the level of the floor, but such prejudices cannot be tolerated at Northwich, and if your fireplace goes beneath the floor, well, such is one of the privileges of living in the place. It may happen that your house falls over in the night, or that its roof may come crashing down on your head. Even churches are not safe. Two at least have suffered demolition, and one is now closed as unsafe. The town bridge leads a vagrant life, and makes constant settlements, which impede the traffic on the river. Northwich cannot boast a town hall, for it also was a victim of the "moving" spirit of the place.
The details of this state of things are little known even in England, but a graphic description recently appeared in a German newspaper. It declared that so serious was the condition of Northwich that the inhabitants had fled to the neighbouring mountains, and all that could be seen on the site of the ancient town was the funnel of a passing steamer.
Some worthy people at Bradford evidently had a similar idea, for after a certain bank of that town had lent the Northwich authorities £5,000 they heard such alarming things about the place that they sent two directors to see if there was any chance of anything being left of Northwich when the repayment of the loan was due.
It is true that boats have been seen in the streets of Northwich, for every now and then they get flooded. The case of Northwich is serious enough, but there is still dry land, the people have not fled to the mountains, and the bank is pretty certain to be paid. What then is the matter?
ONE OF THE MOST COMMON SIGHTS IN NORTHWICH.T. Birtles, photo.][Warrington.ONE OF THE MOST COMMON SIGHTS IN NORTHWICH.
Northwich has the misfortune to be built on the top of a pie-crust. If youcover some fruit in a pie-dish with a crust and then pump out the juice and fruit through a hole in the crust and place a heavy weight on it, you naturally expect the crust to break and the weight to fall into the dish. The pie under Northwich is made of rock salt, and on the top of the salt is a large amount of juice (or brine), and over it is the earth's crust. But a good many Jack Homers have been at this pie and have pumped the brine away. The heavy buildings on the crust have then broken through it, and in this way Northwich is subject to "fits." Locally they are called "subsidences."
The classic event at Northwich was the upsetting of a house called "Castle Chambers," occupied at the time by a solicitor. At 3 o'clock one morning in May, this house fell back into a large hole which suddenly opened at the rear of it. But not a single brick was moved nor a pane of glass broken, though the chimney was not proof against such antics and fell to the floor. This was due to the way in which the house was built.
WHERE A HORSE WAS SWALLOWED UP.May & Co. photo.][Northwich.WHERE A HORSE WAS SWALLOWED UP.
For so universal and expected are these subsidences, that the houses are now all built in wooden frames with massive timber beams screwed tightly together. This has revived a style of building common enough more than a hundred years ago, specimens of which are often seen in country places. If the house subsides it falls as a whole and does not necessarily collapse. All you have to do is to use a screw-jack to raise the house, fill in the hole, remove the jack, and sleep as before till another subsidence, when the same operation is gone through. Castle Chambers, however, were taken down and the ground made "sound." Twelve months after another subsidence took place, and the result is shown in the above photograph.
THE SECOND SUBSIDENCE ON THE SITE OF CASTLE CHAMBERS.May & Co. photo.][Northwich.THE SECOND SUBSIDENCE ON THE SITE OF CASTLE CHAMBERS.
Just opposite Castle Chambers stood the old "Wheat Sheaf Inn." It was built with timber to resist the dreaded subsidence, but to no purpose. Money was frequently spent in making good the damage done. One year it had to be raised no less than nine feet! A year after part of the building disappeared, then the cellars went, and as a climax a horse which was in the stable was swallowed up.
One Sunday morning a neighbouring farmer put his horse—worth £30 with its harness—into the stable, and when he returned after doing his business, he found that the beast had gone down a hole 15 ft. in diameter which had suddenly opened. The house was then pulled down and built further up the street. This shows how owners in Northwich stand to lose both buildings and the sites of them.
Next to the "Wheat Sheaf" was a butcher's shop, which was robbed one day of a sausage machine by the gaping earth. When it is mentioned that a second horse disappeared, and that a minister had a narrow escape from being swallowed, the fun of the following story will be appreciated. The minister one day in a funny mood was making some remarks at a publicmeeting about the strange disappearance of the horses and the sausage machine. He suggested that when the people below received the first horse they naturally wanted a sausage machine, and hence the disappearance of that useful article. Then so much did they enjoy the produce of the machine that they wanted a second horse, and hence the second disappearance. At this point the chairman of the meeting rose and gravely asked whether on one occasion they did not also want a minister (referring to the funny man's escape), and the story-teller meekly ended his tale.
Another extraordinary subsidence was that which took place in a house in Tabley Street. The family were quietly seated in a room when they heard a tremendous crash, which soon brought the neighbours out to see what was the matter. An adjoining room was found to be minus its fireplace; instead there was a big hole reaching to the cellar beneath. The marble mantel-piece was smashed, and the tiled floor or hearth had fallen to the cellar. The cellar wall of the next house had given way, and there was great danger that the chimney would come smashing down. Soon after the walls cracked and the floors were drawn apart, making the house more breezy than comfortable. This was a peculiarly hard case, for the proprietor had recently spent a good deal of money in putting the property in order. In the end, the house and site were worth nothing.
A CHASM IN A ROADWAY.T. Birtles, photo.][Warrington.A CHASM IN A ROADWAY.BRINE PUMPING SHAFT IN A FIT.
The house of a linen draper in the town sank one-fifth of its height between the years 1881 and 1891, and in the seven years since it has sunk nearly another fifth. One kitchen window looks out on the river, and the water is now but a few inches below the window sill. When I saw it the moon was shining on the water, making the scene singularly effective. At one time the kitchens were lofty rooms, now one can hardly stand upright in them, for the floors and the walls have not kept pace.
Another house I saw had eight steps of one foot each down to the front door. Not many years ago the doorstep was on the road level. An ironmonger's shop floor has sunk six feet in a similar way. One side of the floor is describing a semicircle, and the walls have long been cracked.
The "Crown and Anchor," the chief hotel in the place, had to be rebuilt, for to walk its floors was "like being at sea in a heavy gale." The floor of the dining-room had sunk so much that it was several feet below the level of the roadway, and the windows afforded a beautiful view of passing feet.
A jeweller had the novel experience of seeing his fireplace sink below the level of the floor and his mantel-piece half buried. Even the police station was not safe. It was built at a cost of £2,000, repairs to the extent of £300 were soon needed, but it became so bad that it had to be abandoned.
There are several streets in Northwich where the houses are simply tobogganing into each other, and all over the place are houses which have been condemned and now are closed. One street became suddenly several feet wider than it used to be, for one side was sliding away. It was afterwards found that the houses on that side had moved three feet from their foundations, which were discovered under the kerb stones of the pavement! The Marston Road sank 15 feet in forty years, and at last had to be abandoned owing to a huge chasm many feet in width which formed across it.
It is only fair that even the buildings of the salt works in the town are not exempt from these subsidences, which, indeed, aredue to their activity. One photograph is given which shows a pumping shaft in a serious epileptic fit, which ended in its total collapse. Some time ago the curious sight might have been seen of a large wall travelling from three to four feet away from the building of which it was once a part. And in several of the salt works I found the walls parting in all directions, the floors in the shape of an S, and whole blocks of buildings waiting for the house-breaker.
One of the most remarkable features of these subsidences is that no loss of human life has occurred. A girl with a child was passing the "Wheat Sheaf Inn" on the occasion of a subsidence and was nearly swallowed up, but not quite. The only loss of life was that of the two horses already mentioned and a cow. A man was driving a cow through the streets and turned to speak to a friend. On looking round he found that his cow had been swallowed up. He was assured that the animal would be pumped up with the brine at some point, but the beast was never seen again!
The subsidences already mentioned are almost invariably caused by the pumping away of the brine. Other subsidences are caused by the falling in of old and disused salt mines which have not been properly worked, or worked too near the surface. The result of these subsidences is generally seen in the formation of huge lakes of water called "flashes." One of these covers 100 acres, and is 40 to 50 feet deep. They cover what were formerly fields, and the ensuing loss was very great.
One gentleman had to make a new road to his property because 100 acres were under water, and other areas were badly damaged by subsidences; another built a house costing £6,000, and the largest offer he could get for it was £1,500—it had been so much injured by subsidence.
The area over which these subsidences take place is about two square miles. Some years ago the property in Northwich was valued at £311,885, but the depreciation on it was valued at onethird, or £102,945—the annual loss being £5,147. When the matter was brought before the House of Commons it was stated that damage had been done to no less than 892 buildings. But the number to-day, if it could be estimated, would be infinitely larger. These 892 buildings comprised five public buildings, 15 manufacturing works, 21 slaughter-houses and stables, 34 ware-houses and workshops, 41 public-houses, 140 shops, and 636 houses and cottages.
In ten years the pumping up of brine had excavated from beneath beneath Northwich a space large enough to form a ship canal from Northwich to Warrington 150 feet wide and 30 feet deep. And a well-known authority declares that the subsidences during the present century form an excavation very much more extensive than was required for the Manchester and Liverpool Ship Canal. For the subsidences correspond with the amount of salt taken from the earth.