CHRISTY: THE MID-ESSEX WIND-RUSH AND WHIRL-WIND. I4I 
quake was in progress. One resident likened the sound of the 
wind to that of ten thousand tom cats screaming in unison ! 
Mr. Williams describes it as an exceedingly loud screeching hiss, 
which increased steadily in intensity and then ceased suddenly. 
The storm came and passed so quickly and unexpectedly that 
many residents in the village seem able to remember little of it 
beside the prodigious noise it made. 
As to the time at which it struck the village, reports differ. 
An occupant of the old Rectory puts it at 1.3 p.m. Mr. Williams 
tells me he believes it was nearly 1.10. Probably the true time 
was between these two extremes. At all events, practically the 
entire population was indoors, either because of the wet weather 
or because it was the hour for the mid-day meal. Owing to 
this, no single person sustained bodily injury. Had many people 
been about, cases of injury must inevitably have been numerous. 
As things were, many, especially women, were much upset ner¬ 
vously and some had to receive medical treatment. A number 
of pigs were, however, hurt or liberated, owing to the demolition 
of their styes. 
As to the duration of the storm,‘too, testimony differs. All 
those who were in it say that it was very brief. Some say it 
lasted several minutes ; which I doubt. Others, including Mr. 
Williams, put the duration at no more than ninety seconds. 
Miss Mabel Usborne and Mr. Herbert Waters both estimate its 
duration as less than a minute. The former tells me she believes 
that, if the wind-pressure had lasted five minutes, her house 
(which suffered badly, as mentioned already) would not have 
remained standing at all. 
One feature of the storm was the amount of dust and dirt it 
carried. After it had passed, all the windows on its path looked 
as though they had not been cleaned for years. In one case, 
where one pane only in a window had been broken, the violence 
of the wind carried a stream of dust through this into the room, 
depositing some of it in the shape of “ a straight black line right 
“ across the white ceiling ” and the rest on the dinner-table. 
Some who happened to look out of their windows during the 
passage of the storm described the scene as unparalleled, by 
reason of the falling trees, roofs, and chimney-stacks ; the 
shower of bricks, slates, tiles, and broken window-glass ; and 
the whirl of dust and mud. In many cases, the corrugated iron 
