When we spoke last week of the hope of a
mild winter having vanished, We did not anticipate the horrors of this week. On Tues- dly and Wednesday fell a snow-storm such as has not visited England for ten years, blocking all the railways, keeping some trains waiting outside andon for the whole of Taesday night, putting an end altogether for nearly twenty-four hours to carriage locomotion, and leaving London still with little ramparts of snow running along all its streets, and the intervening space so slippery with the freezing particles adhering to the stones or wood, that only vehicles with two horses can get about safely at all. A watchman was even frozen to death on Tuesday night in the Gray's Inn Road. Every one you meet is half-smiling to himself, and has some absurd adventure to relate of passing the night in railway. stations or in immovable carriages or trains. Two or three public schools have put off their day of opening, and comfort- able society is, in general, rather enjoying its temporary dis- organisation. Only the tide, unfortunately, took to rising un- usually high on the very day of the snow-storm, and so increased the miseries of those who always suffer most from cold,— the very poor. In the South of London, the sufferings from frost, snow, and flood have been very great. The frost, which is severe, seems likely to endure, as the barometer has again risen considerably.
