The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-05-19 00:00:00

THE WIND ! THE WIND !

. .
The wind! the wind! annitz vincj€ antor. So does
the wind vanquish most things. It gets down your
back ; it insinuates itself between the flesh and the

`wristband of the tightest-buttoned glove ; It draws tears

from the eyes and rheum from tho' corners of the mouths
it makes the hair a torment and the cavities of the ear
miseries ; it causeth the teeth to chatter, and the lower
garments to Rap in an unseemly, manner against the
benumbed calves ; it makes the nose to ache, and the
bristles of the'newly-shaven heard to tingle, and evoketh
. .

crimson blotches, Unsightly to the eye; on the cheek-
bones ; it tieth knots in ladies' cap ribbons, and bloweth
their bonnets nine bauble square, and sendeth hats away
skimming, far away from human heads, baffling pursuit,
injuring valuable property (the intrinsic value of a hat
is immense, for it is the most difficult article in the

whole wardrobe to obtain on credit), to the despair of
the owners and the boisterous merriment of vulgar
boys; it sendeth pungent dust up inflated nostrils. I

hate the wind. it isia stupid leveller and irrational
democrat; a ruffianly swaggerer, wrecking ships, smash-
ing the roof of the Crystal Palace, tearing the limbs off
good old oaks, tumbling over established chimney-pots,
and weathercocks hallowed by time, making doors and
windows. to creak, howling in:an unearthly and doggish
mariner, and exposing female ancles that should not he
seen. I hate the wind ; it is a fool—grinding torn for
it- knows. not whom, and inflating the lungs of other
fools- to blow their own trumpets withal. I hate the
wind for its levity; it is the lightest thing in the world,
except a woman.

Tliis bad witid had howled, and crooned, and whistled,
and screeched, and gone on anyhow all day, playing the
deuce aniong the poles for drying linen in lock gardens,
making nurserymen at Battersea and Fulham clinch

their fists, and,mutter direful oaths as. they surveyed
their •menaced hothouses and cucumber frames, and
generally trying peoples tempers, and disturbing domes-
tic felicity. Pinched children, with harsh stepmothers,
had reason to rue that windy day. Apprentices were
sore harassed by the working jewellers, their masters,
and meditated fleeing from their indentures to islands
where watches grew' on trees, and garnet brooches ran
wild. Streets that had hitherto been hopelessly dirty
were'blown quite'clean by the searching blast. Fallen
leaves from the trees in St. James's Park were found
high up in St. Martin's Lane,.Holborn-wards. Beg-
gars struggled up the streets under • a press, of tatters,
and were compelled ever and anon to take in a reef in
their rags. The patient cabhorses at the ranks bent their
meek heads, and took refuge in well-sown nose-bags,
where wind could not penetrate. The Jehus, their
masters, crouched in rickety coffee-shops, into nhich the
wind eddied fearfully, and blew tbeir.decoctions of burnt

.
beans into brown ripples. The policeman had donned
his oilskin cape, though it rained not, arid the garment
flapped and crackled like a dry leaf. Pipes would not
keep alight, candles would not light at all, and if the
sacred fire of Zoroaster had been kindled in Trafalgar
Square, it would have gone out there and then.

' We cannot agree with Mr. Sala's friends, who state
they consider "The Baddington Peerage" the worst of

his productions. Whatever it may have been, as it

appeared in the.eplurnns of the Illustrated Time. 5, we

consider it, in the force published by Mr. Skeet,' to

be one of 3ir. Sala's best works, and will, we have no

doubt, become one of the most popular and fashionable
novels of the day.'