The Express.
London, England, 1856-03-04 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING. MARCH 4, 1866.

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b .tom lO. Bottaariwtreet. by Two olio& ea the
day al

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of the two is worse still; but colds and east
winds are the normal condition of that genial
time which the Poet of the Seasons ironically
invoked as " ethereal mildness." We take these
dispensations nekly, because we know they are
unavoidable. We submit to shiver, we consent to
sneeze, but why should we choke P As to that ancient
I proverb which asserts the equality in exchangeable
value of a bushel of March dust and a King's ransom,
we shall limit ourselves to remarking that it is meant
for the fields, but not for the streets. It was all very
well for those gay foresters of Ardennes who
"fleeted the time merrily as they did in the golden
world," to bout an insensibility to " the season's
difference." We town dwellers are men of another
mould. We are sophisticated enough to wish for an
snaps from as many as possible of the preventible evils
of climate and the elements. The people in "As You
Like It" very probably had no crossing sweepers in
those wood walks of theirs; all the more reliable com-
mentators are of opinion that they were unacquainted
with the use of water-Darts; but we poor citizens
have long been accustomed to both, and we want "to
know the reason why" we have been so remorselessly
deprived of the latter convenience in the dustiest
season we have almost ever known.

Pulverised granite may, tor aught we know, have
healing virtues of its own. We have all beard of
the medical properties of ammonia. Few are so
unread in animal chemistry as not to be aware that •
considerable proportion of this salubrious pricciple
may, by proper analysis, be detected in the ordinary
sweepings of all highways much frequented by
hones. It is just possible that people may inhale
without serious injury the profuse supply of com-
bined granite and ammonia which in a finely tritu-
rated form has for the last few days termed the
&temptere of our thoroughfares. It may be whole-
some, but it is not pleasant, and at any rate we pro-
test against taking it upon compulsion. Cephalic eye-
snuff may be eminently curative, but who would like
to be forced whenever he went abroad to inhale an
atmosphere of Gaiurroxn P
Again we my, where are the water-carts ? At the
present moment, after having made all the inquiries
which the importance of the one demands, we protest
we have not the remotest notion withinwhosejuriedio-
tion they reside. It they are under local self-manage-
meat, we know of coarse that, as Anglo-Saxons, it is
oar duty to choke and be silent. Bat we can hardly
think this. The want of local diffusion is precisely
that of which we complain. All our discomfort
arises from the fact, that the water which should
make our streets endurable is centralised somewhere
and somehow in some autocratic reservoir—eome un-

constitutional tank. Can it be that the Metropolitan
Board of Works is sitting on the water-outs P The
idea is an uncomfortable one. Whoever the respon-
sible body be, we venture to sagged to that body,
that the time is rips for action, and that, salvos all
London is to be speedily suffocated, the " Order of
Balsams " should as moon as possible be made out for
those imprisoned engines, which we beg to assure the
Board or Boards whom it may concern would really
be as serviceable in the droughts of March as daring
the showers of July.

The wares spoatanoonsly adopted by Bir Ds Lacy
Brans in the House of Commons is most honourable
to him as a man. Deeply grieved though we were
by the reckless bitterness of his language on Friday,
and its mischievous tendency, we could almost re-
joice that he erred, since it has given him an opportu-
nity of evincing such manliness and moral courage
in making amends. As for his advice to Lord Rag- '
lan after the battle of Inkermann, we are glad indeed
that it was not followed, but in the cfroumstarices of
the case it was worthy of attention, and implied
high moral courage, and superiority to the love of
mere ephemeral applause in the man who rammed
to give it.