The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-04-02
OUR LONDON LETTER.
"IagO" Eliminates a London Fog.
And Passes Judgment Upon Irving
the Actor.
Correspondence of the HERALD
LONDON, March 10, 1882.

| L dIucI 41l1o u0to DOSA pay ING a
leap-frog in the British dominions
He has leaped from fall, clean ovel
the back of winter and landed on the
heels of an early spring. In othel
words we have had no winter at all
Plenty of fog and rain to be sure
and "like angels visits" an occa
slonal sunbeam by way Of tantaliZa
ton, but nothing bearing the least
form or semblance of that fair,
frail, feeting, feathery element, by
the unanimous voice Of nature anC
local editors surnamed "the beauti
full" In the columns Of the
HERALD, from time to time, oul
envious gaze has gloated over re-
captions, sleigh-rides, smashed win.
doWs, coasting accidents, and other
seasonable luxuries enjoyed by the
deniZens of Deseret, and in Oul
minds eye we have mingled with
you in the feast and the dance
heard the merry thinking of the
bells; felt the wild thrill of the
pungent SNOWFALL, and a dozen
times been knocked into right
angle-triangle for negIecting to
'clear the track" when peremtOrily
requested by the juvenile autocrat
of the wintry sidewalk. All this,
by the mystic vividness of far
reaching imagination, but alas! in
the stern realm of iron-handed
reality, not the WhiZz Of ball, the
peal OF a bell, nor the faintest sound
of gilt-edged invitation has
reached our longing ears. And it's
no fault of our ears either. While
our fascinating governor, smarting
under the glory of his triumphal re-
treat from Washington, has been
RECALLING and regGining the lost con-
fidence Of his thirty friends, while
they, like modern Sauls, have
been Staying the Mormons by
theoretical thousands, and Mark
McKimmins, like David, has
been SLeighi7lg them by tens of
thousands; your correspondent,
with bandaged head and corrugated
brow, has been hugging the interior
Of his hotel, slipping hot compost
ton and ginger wine, and scowling
out Of third story window upon
the bleak, black prospect of a
London fog.
Maybe you think, gentle reader,
a London fog is something to be
sneezed at, and may be you are
quite right. 1t is to be sneezed
at, coughed at, choked at, and if it
were only grammatical-died at.
1t is also to be laughed at, under
certain circumstances. Imagine
four millions of people playing
"bIind mans buff" every one of
them personating the blind man,
and you will have some sort of an
idea of the situation, which it would
be impossible for me to fully des-
cribe. You are standing, if you
please, under the shadow of a
friendly lamp-post, but you need
not strain your eyesight in a fruit
less effort to see the gas jet over
your head; just keep your hand
kerehief tightly to your mouth,
swallow nothing and listen: Hi
there!" "Bless me!' "Where am
w nSsg OGlCCI tA1S Ill
policeman" SStop that cab," go
slow THERE" "Vich is the shortest
way to-.?" "Strite ahead sir-strite
as ever you can gaow;" Eyes,
but" "D-n SIGH Yether!' "Mind
where you're going, [ say, "Beg
parding num-" Keep your bloom
ing umbrella down" and a thousand
and one similar CALCULATIONS of sur
prise, anxiety and dismay, ming
ling with the clatter of hoops, the
rumbling of wheels, the curses and
crashes of colliding cabmen, the
shouts of apprehensiYe pedestrians,
and literal babel of eager inquiries
and unintelligible replies, to and
from an army Of beWildered and
bewildering policemen, standing
near the crossings with clubs in their
hands, and patent respirators over
their mouths, coughing out orders
to a caravan Of unheeding vehicles,
and directing everybody exactly
contrary to their destination. PeO-
pie falling over pavements, horses
stumbling over apple-stands, team
meeting team, pedestrian jostling
pedestrian, in the midst of a grand
hubbub of half coherent sound and
an impenetrable cloud of poisonous,
suffocating gloom. This, at such
times when VehicHlar travel is not
entirely suspended, and when crimes
and casualties happily find no oc-
currence, is the ludicrous phase of
the subject. But there is another
not quite so Imaginable. The walls
of lost children, the screams Of in
suited females, the cries for help of
persons beset by thieves, the shrieks
Of the victim of the tram, the dray,
the omnibus and other blind instrus
ments of accident and death, strik-
ing the sightless foOC-passer ere he
is aware, and, alas! the loud splash
Of the involuntary suicide and his
Fbubbling cry" Of unheeded despair,
as the dark waters of the Thames
close over his life forever. These,
too, are some of the concomitants of
the not unfrequent aspect presented
by London fog.
But not only upon the streets
does this eccentric visitor make his
presence manifest. With all the
aggressive impudence of his Pick
wickian namesake, and the mis-
chievous. intrusive curiosity of his
cousin, Paul Pry, he in~ades the
sanctity Of the domestic circle, at
tends, unlimited, the fashionable
SCireeS ct the West End. rides un-