THE REGINA. CYCLONE.
[To THE EDITOR OS THE " SPECTATOR."] SIN,—The enclosed letter is from one of our village boys, aged twenty-one, the son of the local plumber, who has been out in Canada a little over a year working in a factory of agricultural machines at Regina. His account of the recent cyclone there might interest some of your readers, should you care to insert it, and does not discredit his education at the National Schools.—I am, Sir, &c., Freneham, Farnham, Surrey. B. I. ATKINSON.
"Dear Mother,—. . . Regina has always seemed a slow place till yesterday, but yesterday afternoon, between five-twenty and five-thirty, about one-third of the city was wiped out, no you can guess things were moving fast for a while. I've never seen anything like a cyclone before, and I hope I never do again. It was awful, and no one dreamed it was coming. We only came back from the lake about five and went to our room to start writing. Before we started& thundercloud started coming up. Frank and I leant out of the window to watch it come, but the rain and wind when it started were so rough we had to shut the window down. Then we stood laughing at a pile of lumber just across the lane at the back. The boards were lifting up in layers, and did look funny, but when a motor-house a little further up went flying past, car and all, we looked serious. Then a gust of wind caught the house, and every window burst in, while the house itself seemed to bend right over. It held though, as we all rushed downstairs, just in time to see the house opposite crumple up and come down in a heap. Frank and I had to go out and search for the people, as they had been there in the morning, but, luckily for them, they had gone out for the afternoon. Others weren't so lucky, and hundreds of people got buried under the houses when they came down. – . We are going to get some pictures of the wreckage, but no picture or description can give you any idea of the awful disaster. Just about a third of the city is a heap of boards, bricks, and household effects smashed up. We were extraordinarily lucky, for, although all the houses opposite are down, the two on each side of ours held and saved us. . ."
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