Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1874-01-02
A London Fog.

Nor only over London, but through all
It's streets and squares, its alleys and
"closes," and in its obscurest corners,
there was last week brooding a fog com
pared with which the famed London fogs
of the past have been but gossamer mists.
1t came in thick, dirty.yellow cloud,
penetrating every crevicc and opening,
creeping, along the thoroughfares like
solid though intangible mass. The
American idea of such a visitation is that
the atmosphere has become infectiously
dull and stagnant; the gloom Of an Ameri-
can fog is no more serious than the alb
sence of sunshine and dispiriting heavi-
ness in the air. But the fog which, ever
and anon, bescts London, besieging it
like an atmospheric host, absorbing it
like an atmospheric sponge, as little to
be resisted by doors, and windows, and
blinds as a goblin or fairy sprite, as
Opaque as stone wall, as persistent as n
miserly creditor, rs preventive of busi-
ness as a financial crisis, and as hostile to
the pleasures of the fashionable world as a
plague OF Florence, strikes practical blind
ness to the whole population, and deies
the sun and moon, gas, kerosene and tar
with an equal triumph. At such a time
the London blind have for once the ad-
vantage of their eye blessed fellow-crea.
lures; used to cropping, they may grope
amid the fog as skillfully as under the
MONDAY sun, and find their way when
the seeing are bewildered. For two days
London was envelOped in one of these
monster fogs, the tbiskcst and mostlong.en-
during within the memory ofliving Cock
neys. 1t is almost rs if the great teeming
hive of human bees had been sulphur
sutfOcated out of existence. The busy
Thames flows, for once in an age, unOb-
struCted and free between its murky and
Uttered banks. Vessels, cOastwise and
sea,wOrn, lie helpless at the quays, and
crowd closely together as if for mutual
protection. The penny steamboats, creep
iearully from pier to pier, their lavish
galaxy of warning lights paint but dull
red flush on the yellow canvas of the fog.
On London Bridge, at midday, there is
an irregular torch light procession of
people with links and lanterns cropping to
and fro, seeming from a little distance,
like phantom saturnala.
Everywhere there is cropping and col
liding, a deafness and silence in most
places like that of midnight. Cheapside,
for once, ceases it daylOng babble of
cart wheels and shoutings, its barricades
of vehicles and crowded pavements.
Link boys walk before carriages and
carts; draymep curse at the fog blindness
of the cOachmen and omnibus drivers;
moneyed men, tiding painfully towards
Change, lose precious appointments; Lon
doners of forty years standing, attempt
ing to reach the green grocer's TO order
the family supply, find themselves lost in
the next street, and wander for hours
around a radius of few yards of their
residences; children are hopelessly lost,
and the police and the pickpockets are
equally baflied. Boston Post.
SPEAKING of saints, Beecher said in a
recent sermon: "My ideal of saint is u
brown woman, with red arms, who gets
up early in the morning and goes to work
for Others-who stands the brunt of house
hold work, and who bears with children
that she did not bear. That is my saint.
Rather a busy, bustling saint, but she is
a saint. People say of her, What home
ly, good creature she is.' To my mind
that is more complimentary than TO have
the Pope put her In the calendar"