The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-07-13
A MOUNTAIN BLESSING.

T HE EAST Is AGAIN WRITING
L under merciless f'eat, with dozens
OF deaths and prostrations reported
daily. People who live in the inter
mountain country have no adequate
conception Of what the awful hot
lpell' means in a large eastern city.
especially one of the inland cities. Here
in Salt Lake, no matter bow warm it
may become during The day, the nights
ire almost invariably comfortably cool.
enabling a tired body TO become re-
lreshed for the next days work. But
n the east, when the nights are but
! shade cooler than She days, the con-
htions are incOmparably worse. There
ire no canyons there to go to for
'ew hours or days, no snow-capped
Mountains 10 cool the torrid breezes,
md suffering acknowledgements
among the poorer classes in the great
,ities-can do nothing but endure it and
'ray for a drop in the temperature.
on the sea coast the majority of the
)eople can occasionally get to the wa
'er side to enjoy the refreshing sea
Neeze for a time, but in inland cities
UGH as ST. Louis, Cincinnati and
'ittsburg. this is an impossibility and
he people there are forced to bear it
Is best they can. Too often the great
sst sufferers, the poor, are unable to
wen afford the luxury Of an occasion
u lump OF ice, and sickness and death
IS result of the intense heat are ma
.ural consequences.
People who have lived all their lives
n the shadows Of these glorious noun
aims cannot understand what a hot
lay in the east means. Here we have
what we call hot days, but they are
matters OF trihing discomfort compared
With the actual suffering and misery
caused by a hot day in lower attitudes.
The moist. sticky" heat. with its at
;endant skin affections. which proves
positive torture to eastern people. is
unknown here. Even on our hottest
lays one can. by seeking shade. be
'airly comfortable without resorting to
artificial means of keeping cool, but
during the hot spelI' in the east COM
fort is absolutely out Of the question
In t1is rich and poor suffer alike, but
gate their troubles, either by leaving
for the mountains or seashore OF by
artificial cooling devices. It is the poor,
the tenement house contingent, that
gets the brunt of it. All who can do so
seek the housetops at night. not al
ways to sleep-for utter exhaustion is
necessary to sleep under the circum-
stances-but in order to get the benefit
Of any cooling breeze that may be stir
ring There is not room on the house
tops for all and the others seek the
streets-men. women and children. re-
duced to common level by suffering
20 draw what comfort they can from
the stones, which too often are not
cooled from the intense heat of one day
before another blazing sun beats down
upon them. But housetop or street is
preferable to a crowded house, which,
during the ''hot spell" proves a YER
liable furnace, and there the long night
is passed with groans, gasps and Oc-
casional snatches OF sleep. The next
day and the next night are merely repe-
titiOns Of the previous ones, and so it
goes until the 'hot spelT' passes.
Here in the mountains we have. for
tunately, but little poverty; scarcely
any tenements and sweltering nights
are unknown. The terrible moist heat
whiesi saps the energies of residents of
the east is never felt here. From this
city rich and poor alike can reach a
snow-capped peak or a cooling salt
breeze within few hours, or by re-
naming at home can be assured that
with the going down of the sun win
come a refreshing GOODNESS that will
last well into the morning. OF the many
blessings we have in the mountain
country probably the one least appreci-
ated by those who have lived here long
est, but yet one Of the greatest of them
all. is that there is no hot spell here.